Jul 24, 2019 4 min read Event management

5 Trendsetting Elements of Fundraising Event Videos

Fundraising event videos are a gateway to appeal to new donors to get financial contributions to support your cause. They are short, a snackable form of content which allows you to combine your story with emotions, facts, and real footages to move your audience. This works great when using peer to peer fundraising as it spreads the word in a large scale way and allows every one of your peers to use this video to promote their fundraising mission. Good fundraising event videos will compel your viewers and donors to fuel your mission with their money.

But the question is: how to make a good fundraising event video?

Here are some trendsetting elements of popular and impactful fundraising event videos which you need to be aware of:

1. Strong and impactful outros:

An outroduction (aka outro) is a graphic motion or text animation element which is added to the last few seconds of your video. It's that critical section in a fundraising video where you can summarize your message, add strong CTAs, or ask your viewers to check out more videos on your nonprofit. You can also ask your viewers to "like, comment, subscribe or share" the video.

Check out this heartwarming video by Typhoon Haiyan Charity event:

Keep your outro design and pace in sync with the rest of the video. Find a creative way to nudge your audience towards your goal by adding a quirky outro to your fundraising video.
If you're publishing your video on YouTube, keep the length of your outro to 8 seconds.
Keep your message small and bold. Add CTAs, link to the website, date, and venue of your fundraising events, etc.

If you want to show the impact of your efforts to your donors, let the ones who you've helped share the story. It's a powerful way to showcase the stories of change that your mission has brought to society, to this planet. You can highlight the need for your cause through interviews with people in need and testimonials of people who received help from you.

Here's how Charity Water nailed it with this video:

Add lower thirds to add the name, age, and other details you want to highlight the person in the video.
Add subtitles to your video, just in case your interviewee, and your audience is varied linguistically. For example, in situations where your interviewee is speaking in their native language in the video, subtitles add way more impact than a voice-over clip with a translated version of the message.

3. Personalize your message:

Do you want to talk directly to your donors in a fundraising event? Well, you can do that brilliantly with one video. Let your fundraising video be a personal message from you to your donors. Add your voice and video sharing information about your mission, your goals, your plans, and the kind of help and support you'll need from them.

Check out how Scott Harrison sets an example with personalized fundraising videos:

Pro tips:

Add a lower third to add your name and designation in the video. You don't have to introduce yourself separately in the video.
Add real footages of your groundwork (images and videos) to support your message, and convince your audience by showing them real footages
Add text to your videos with data points to shed light on the importance of the mission.

4. Add music to strike the right chords:

The background music of your video affects how your viewers will perceive your video. Its may help in evoking the right emotions in your viewer's heart or can add distractions to your video. Hence, choosing the right music track is always important. If you do a poor job in selecting your video's background music, it may make your video look shaggy.

You have to see this video by Animal Shelter to understand the impact of the right background music:

Pro tips:

Use names of emotions to find the right background music for your videos with ease. For example, you can simply use terms like "happy," "empowering, "inspirational," etc. to get started with your search.
Don't let your background music take over the crucial part of your audio.
Carry useful equipment to record interviews and testimonials for your video.

5. Invest in a simple online tool:

You don't have to worry about a production budget, searching for a team to work on your videos, and extra time for post-production. You need to invest in a simple video making and designing tool. You don't have to worry about turn-around time for your fundraising videos when you can design a fabulous video with a few clicks.

There are a plethora of tools which help marketers get work done faster than before, without spending too much money or time on it. All you need to do is find the right one to fit your needs and give you the output you desire.

So, are you super-charged for your fundraising event?