Telling stories, video, and your organization

The single most important thing you can do for your organization is to continue telling stories, and video is an important part of that. See What's Out There has a wonderful post, which is a spin-off of a magazine article called Telling Moving Stories. The article highlights the American Jewish World Service, an organization that's been using video to tell its stories in creative new ways. These are not the typical, slick fundraising videos. They're stories about the day-to-day work being done by the organization on the ground in far-off parts of the world.

Susan Rosenberg, American Jewish World Service’s director of communications, says these projects are important to the organization because video, more than any other medium, can tell powerful, emotional stories that move supporters and donors to take action. Instead of simply telling potential donors about the organization’s overseas outreach work, it can show them the people it helps and allow them to hear volunteers and those they help in their own words.

Even if you have to hire someone to "cover" your organization like a reporter, on a freelance basis, you should be doing it. It will help you build emotional connections with the people you most need to reach -- and the investment will pay off many times over. (And it's easy, too.)

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