According to YouTube, 100 million people either like, share, or comment on videos every week. But what kind of a direct impact do these “social actions” really have, especially for nonprofits? Are people who like or comment on these videos signing up for organization’s enewsletters, are they donating money, volunteering, taking an advocacy action? These are the types of questions we hope to see answered in the upcoming video benchmark study for nonprofits being conducted by Edelman, See3 Communications, and YouTube.
While many nonprofits have spent some resources on creating videos, the nonprofit community only has a few real success stories such as The Meatrix, a flash animation about factory farming and of course the Kony 2012 video. This video captured nonprofit’s attention after it received over 80M views in just two weeks after Invisible Children launched it. It also illustrated how a well-produced video could quickly educate people on a human rights issue they previously had little knowledge on.
Of course nonprofit’s also witnessed the downside of the Kony 2012 video success. The media questioned the $700K production video budget, the accuracy of some of the content, the idea that Uganda needs the American’s to come in and save them, and of course the ultimate goal of the campaign.
Nonetheless the video helped Invisible Children raise significant money, which will be publicly released later this year in their 990 form. About 2M people visited the organization’s donation page and the organization said the average donation from the campaign was $20. And according to the Nonprofit Times, about 3.5M people signed up or pledged to participate in their “cover the night” activities.
While your nonprofit may not have had your video go “viral” the way the Kony 2012 video did, it still may have benefited your organization. Unfortunately, your organization does not have any real benchmarks to compare it to and that is why it’s important that nonprofits take this video benchmarks survey.
All survey responses will be anonymous and will be only reported in the aggregate. Survey participants will receive pre-released findings in April 2013, and the final report will be published as a free resource to the nonprofit community in May 2013.
Bonus - participants who take the survey also have the chance to win a $400 donation to your organization or one of ten Starbucks gift cards.
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