Here we show you shortcuts to creating quality charity videos that don’t have to break the bank.
Whether snippets or full-length features, videos are fast becoming the most consumed content online. But, through presumed lack of resource and time, charities are missing out.
Videos don’t have to be difficult. In fact, producing a quality video can be very easy. Make sure you don’t let the lack of video expertise stop your digital teams from creativity.
Here, we showcase how to successfully create and produce different types of video content for charity audiences.
Everyday video guidelines
Planning daily, weekly, or monthly content is exhausting. Luckily, there are lots of great ideas out there. As a guide, video content should be short, instantly relevant, and aim to draw in and engage audiences.
Include a shocking twist: videos with surprises tend to be memorable
Aside from best practices, there are so many videos that charities can learn from. Most, if not all, contain elements of Reason Digital’s advice.
Use video to create a connection with audiences
Showing snippets of the charity’s work and purpose will engage and motivate supporters. Both large and small charities are producing videos that create an intimate feeling to build a connection with their audience.
Last year’s Christmas campaign was also full of emotion and delight. The animated clip showed children being whisked home while asleep. In a surprise ending, the animated clip turned into real footage, bringing audiences closer to the work that GOSH does.
Evidently, for GOSH, video is an excellent way to tell audiences about the work they do and share a compelling story.
Social media marketing sounds like it should be easy. But it rarely ends up being that way. For charities, it can often feel like it isn’t worth investing your time and money, but with more than half the world’s population using social media daily, it’s almost impossible to ignore.
In our upcoming webinar, we aim to make things easier. Nick Wyatt, Charity Digital Growth Marketing Executive, aims to help your charity start their social media marketing journey, examining how social media can improve fundraising, service delivery, and so much more.
The webinar will cover, among many other things, the different platforms you should be using, the various advantages and disadvantages of each platform, how to pick the platform that best meets your audience’s needs, and how to make the right content or the right platform.
Essex Community Foundation, along with the community foundations network across the UK, will be distributing the ‘Arts Council England Let’s Create Jubilee Fund’.
This is a £5 million programme that will support community and voluntary organisations in England to develop creative and cultural activities as part of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022.
The programme is made possible with funding from the National Lottery, whose players raise £30 million for good causes every week. The Fund’s distribution will be managed by UK Community Foundations on behalf of their community foundation members across England.
Applicants will be able to apply for grants of up to £10,000, and are encouraged to partner with established artists, creatives and cultural organisations to develop their activities, ensuring that The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations give people throughout England the chance to experience the best of the country’s culture while also celebrating an important milestone in our national history. You can find a list of established artists here on the Arts Council website.
Darren Henley, Chief Executive at Arts Council England said “We’re giving people across the country the chance to come together to experience the joy of culture and creativity in celebration of this historic milestone. With the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee taking place alongside the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Festival and the Unboxed festival of UK creativity, next year is set to be a magnificent celebration of our nation’s artistic achievements.”
Rosemary Macdonald, CEO at UK Community Foundations said “UK Community Foundations is proud to partner with Arts Council England to deliver the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund. Our members look forward to working with local groups and artists who will create imaginative and innovative celebrations to mark this historic occasion, and strengthen cultural involvement and opportunities in their communities.”
How to apply
The application guidelines for the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund can be found on the UK Community Foundations website here. Large print and easy read options available on there too.
If you have any questions or would like to speak to a grants officer at ECF in advance of applying, please call us on 01245 356018 or book a time slot here.
Age Well East (formerly Age Concern Colchester & North-East Essex – current rebrand running) has gone through exponential growth. Since 2017 the focus has increased from Colchester to North-East Essex and now across Essex and Suffolk. This growth is driven by unmet needs and this growth requires strengthening with a Head of Operations within the senior leadership team to maintain the current operation and manage future growth. The Head of Support Services, Head of Operations and CEO form the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and complement the established base of Operations Managers, Team Leaders and the frontline staff that underpin excellent operational delivery.
The Head of Operations will grow an established operations unit to develop first-class frontline services that change lives. A key element of this role is maintaining existing operations, embedding recent contract wins for April 2022 and then developing services based on new major contract wins.
The organisation, due to high growth, will have direct reports, team leaders and operations managers reporting in. Over time, and as the department and income settle, this will restructure to a more traditional structure of operations managers reporting lines. Therefore the right individual will be comfortable managing at different levels until the full structure is in place.
Role for Head of Operations
Strategic Leadership as part of a close-knit SLT
Stakeholder Management; commissioners, NHS, Local Government
Developing a high calibre operations unit
Experience operating to and maintaining ISO standards
Adept at budgets and P & L accountability
Operational excellence in line with agreed quality and governance processes
Monitor and lead legal, safeguarding, risk assessment, H & Safety, data protection, and EDI operationally
Drives a positive culture, highly focused on people and living and promoting the values of Age Well East
Developing commissioning and grant income awards from NHS and Local Government (major contracts)
Contract management inclusive of sub-contractors and matrix leadership with partner organisations
Able to develop major contracts from the ground-up
Delivery of the five-year business plan, partnering closely with the CEO and Head of Support Services
Scope for Head of Operations
Two operations managers initially
25 employees rising to 40 by April 2022
350 volunteers rising to over 600 in 2022
P & L £750k year 1, rising
Engagement in relevant Trustee Sub-Committees
Deputise for the CEO as required
The Individual for Head of Operations
Highly people focused
Must have a growth mindset
Able to identify, qualify, convert, monitor and manage major contracts
Well networked in Essex in local government and the NHS (client-side)
Very strong team player in relation to SLT working
Strong communicator
Cultivates internal and external relationships
Excellent leadership qualities
Intelligent, emotionally intelligent and highly adaptable
Skills for Head of Operations
Degree or equivalent or experience commensurate with the role
Higher management or professional qualification (desirable not essential)
If you are a passionate leader looking to take a high growth operation to new heights we welcome your CV and covering letter and to meet in person. We are building something special at Age Well East and we are looking for a high calibre Head of Operations to lead the frontline team.
We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.
Further Information
Mission
Age Well East supports and empowers individuals to become happier and healthier.
Values
Trust
Compassion
Community
Excellence
Courage
Apply today and we look forward to discussing what we can achieve together.
In this episode we speak with Catherine Mahoney about the recent UK Giving Report from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).
1. Giving is up but givers are down
It’s a little disconcerting to hear that there are so many fewer donors here in the UK compared to previous years, we’re not sure if this is also being seen in other countries too.
However, total giving seems to have gone up, showing that those who are giving seem to be giving more. What we don’t know is why. If we look at the growing wealth gap in our society, and the job losses that have come from the pandemic, the vast furlough scheme which has given many people less over much of the last two years, this might give us some idea.
2. Would could charities do to overcome giving fatigue?
So while the pot may not be getting smaller, the loss of so many donors suggests that competition for support may be on the increase. It would be useful to understand more from charities about whether their funds have gone down or whether their supporter numbers have gone down and they are just seeing larger average gifts. We also don’t know how the emergency appeals of the pandemic will continue to perform, some believe that giving fatigue is setting in, or will do in the short-term.
What does this mean for charities. Well one thing is that we need to continue to find ways of establishing long-lasting and thereby cost-effective relationships with supporters. Providing an authentic personal interaction, along with a reciprocal donor-centred approach to fundraising to help bring supporters into our cause and to live the passion that we, and our colleagues hold for it. With less resource, funding, time and energy this serves to be big challenge for many of us. And so, we must seek out within ourselves and from those around us the support we need to remain resilient, innovative and passionate.
This episode of Charity Chat has been brought to you by our platinum sponsor, fundraising platform Work for Good and the festive Small Business Star match funding campaign. This year there is a £50,000 match funding pot available. Head to www.workforgood.co.uk to sign-up for free!
This in-person workshop will explore the history and theories of autism, outline the current diagnostic criteria of autism, and look at strategies to support autistic people.
This workshop is interactive with discussions, activities and plenty of time for questions throughout, however participants are welcome to be involved as much or as little as they feel comfortable. There will also be regular breaks which will provide essential time to network between participants and speak to the trainers on a 1:1 basis. Refreshments will be provided however participants are required to bring their own lunch.
Grants of between £35,000 and £300,000 are available to help UK Armed Forces charities increase capacity in services and initiatives that offer supportive comradeship, engagement and wellbeing efforts for veterans who have served in Afghanistan and other recent conflicts and the wider veterans community. Organisations are invited to apply for one of four strands of funding from the Afghanistan Veterans’ Fund for projects that respond to the increased needs in veterans by improving wellbeing and resilience, and promoting good mental health. Funding is being made available by the Office for Veterans’ Affairs and will be administered by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust.
The deadline for applications is the 17th January 2022.
Funding is available to support innovative and creative arts and culture projects in communities across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man which open up conversations about dying, death and bereavement in new and creative ways. Hospice UK’s Dying Matters Community Grants Programme 2022 will award funding to registered charities, CIOs and CICs for projects that reach new and diverse audiences, with a particular focus on inequalities and inclusion. Two types of funding are available: small workshop grants of up to £999 for activities such as one-off workshops of poetry, singing or art; and project grants of between £1,000 and £5,000 for larger scale community projects such as a theatre production, photography exhibition or community mural.
The deadline for applications is 5pm on the 21st February 2022.
Imkaan, the UK-based, umbrella women’s organisation dedicated to addressing violence against Black and Minoritised women and girls has announced a new fund for specialist Black and minoritised women and girls’ organisations who deliver frontline support addressing violence against women and girls. Framework 4 of Margin to Centre – A Fund for the Black and Minoritised Women and Girls’ sector will open to applications on the 10th January 2022 to re-dress inequality and support the frontline operational and long-term sustainability work of organisations working to end violence against women and girls in England and Scotland.
The fund is made available through contributions from the Tampon Tax Fund and the closing date for applications is the 31st March 2022.