Thursday, October 21, 2010

Go Digital to Humanize!

Jason and I both loved this article written by Kate Rogers included in the October 19th Nonprofit Times e-newsletter.  The overarching point of the article is summed up perfectly in the title: Micro-Messages, Strengthening your brand via online relationships.  Our social media goals center around three areas - brand strength, our value-add relationship, and storytelling - so this article was a nice electronic pat on the back of our marketing instincts.

What jumped out at me from this article was the concept of using digital media to humanize your nonprofit.  We think a lot about our voice in written communication and whether it is meeting our branding goal to be considered "your friend in philanthropy".  But why not let people get to know the staff and our member agencies in a more human way through actual conversations and smiles?

Community Shares launched a "stop reading, start watching" philosophy for our communications in 2010.  We are getting out and on site with our member nonprofit organizations and shooting digital videos with a flip camera donated to us by our super duper tech consultant, Kathryn Codo.  Off the cuff interviews with staff and clients to put a human face on how our message of "$1 a day" reaches front line providers and those they serve.

Here's a great humanizing moment we captured today at Denver Urban Ministries.  We popped into the computer lab to do a 30 second video of the Executive Director, Tammy Mulligan, talking about the benefits of the computer lab.  Instead, we ended up with Tyrone sharing poetry and showing us the human side of the people DenUM serves.

DenUM Poet - Tyrone


Tammy followed up with this great story - a double barrel shotgun humanizer to the heart.





This video taken at Delores Project has a nice moment on top of Terrell Curtis sharing her experience as a staff member.  Terrell nods to a staff member off camera who has recently placed two women in homes and you can hear a CSC staff member say "congratulations" off screen.  You can see the human relationships of people on staff and Terrell's appreciation of her team.

The Delores Project - Community

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