Recently, we had a call with Brice Thomas of United Theological Seminary to chat about UTS’s recent success on a campaign incorporating video. Let’s get right to the “Wow!”:
By incorporating video in the campaign in question, UTS saw an inspiring 30% increase in giving.
Wow!
More specifically, each year, UTS runs a campaign in order to raise funds, a portion of which go directly to students at the seminary in the form of scholarships. Normally, they run a mail campaign that includes testimonials in which students express gratitude and describe the impact a scholarship had on their lives.
This year, however, was a little different.
In addition to the print campaign, Brice took his camcorder and sat down with a diverse array of students to capture their testimonials in video interview format. He then edited the footage with free desktop software, and uploaded it to YouTube. As a part of the email portion of the campaign, supporters were sent a link to these videos.
The impact was amazing.
“For the first time, donors had faces to put with the requests for funding,” Brice said. “The videos created an emotional, human connection between donors and beneficiaries that inspired significantly greater giving than in past years.”
This leads to a few lessons:
- Emotional, organic, real, live communications are often best when it comes to fundraising. While statistics and well-written appeals may have their place, they can’t replace the oldest type of connection that can be made between people.
- Less is more. UTS’s videos were each 45-60 seconds. This kept the message focused, and impactful, and minimized disruption to the target audience’s day.
- You don’t need video skills to create videos. Brice is not an IT professional, nor is he a videographer (or at least, he wasn’t prior to the campaign in question). As he said, “If I can do this, anyone can. You don’t need to have a lot of technical skill – it’s the content that matters.”
- Video is cheap. Believe it or not, videos can be created and shared very cost-effectively with free editing tools and video upload platforms. While a professional video could easily cost thousands, you can make one yourself for far less. Scrounge up a camcorder to borrow, and you’re in business.
What’s the biggest takeaway?
Dive in to the video pool with both feet. The water’s fine!
To see the videos, please click here to be taken to UTS’s YouTube channel, and view any video with the title “United’s Effective Ministry Fund testimonial.”
Need help with video storytelling? Check out our free ebook!
