NTEN Change Issue Two: June 2011 : Page 13
SHOW ME THE WORLD when The eArThquAke And TsunAMI hIT JAPAn, we sAw The AfTerMATh AlMOsT IMMedIATely. The world was hungry for stories and visuals of the devas-tation, and we were consuming this media as much on YouTube as from CNN, as much on our lap-tops and iPads as on our TVs. And it’s not just the large-scale events we’re tuning in to: “smaller” stories are increasingly garnering huge attention. Last year, when a group of Chilean miners were trapped deep in their mine the world took notice. We were glued to our computers and TVs, watching the drama of the rescue of these anonymous miners. And through this coverage we learned about them and their stories, and we empathized with their plight. Along with their families, the Chilean nation and the world, when they were rescued our hearts also leapt for joy. As a nonprofit leader these events pres-ent three critical lessons for you and your organization: year ago whether a Chilean miner would make an in-teresting subject for a story you would probably say no. But there he was, on David Letterman and running in the New York Marathon! Even though these people weren’t pop stars or athletes or invent a cure or juggle knives. Even though they weren’t cute kittens or puppies. They are nevertheless interesting people put into interesting circumstances. Your organization, from the staff to the community to the donors to the targets of your work, is full of interesting people doing interesting things on important issues. Find them. 2 There are stories everywhere. If you were asked a a remote region in Chile, deep underground, why in the world would we not be able to see your nonprofit, working in Washington, or Peoria or Ghana? Start your discussions about external communications with the assumption that the audiences you need to reach want to see your work, not just read about it. Visually experiencing what you do is a prerequisite to capturing their interest and attention. 1 The public increasingly expects to see what is happening in the world. If we can see the miners, in mine rescue was a large contraption pulling a cable up from the mine. For 15 minutes at a time this was all we could see. But we kept watching. Many of the videos from Japan were grainy and shaky. The lesson here is that content is king— production values will always take a back seat to story. That doesn’t mean things should not look the best they can. It means that lack of budget is not a good excuse to neglect your storytelling. Getting Started with Online Video 3 The story is more important than the production of the story. Much of what we were seeing during the Online video is the most effective way to show your audi-ence what you are doing. Video should be integrated into your online content development efforts. This can some-times be professionally produced video, but building inter-nal capacity to develop video assets has become a core need for nonprofit organizations. NTEN: CHANGE JUNE 2011 PAGE 13
Publication List
Using a screen reader? Click Here