Gathering all of your information, and compiling it into your NFP’s Annual Report, is often very frustrating and time-consuming. Not only are these reports a hassle to produce, but they are usually lengthy physical documents that contain information that is poorly organised and difficult to read quickly.

Now, a trend that first started in the for-profit corporate world is making NFP Annual Reports easier to understand and more useful, and that is the use of video to present your Annual report. Additional online tools, such as interactive infographics, can also help your NFP to present its information in a more actionable form while also cutting down on your Annual Report’s physical size.

Tips to Help Your NFP Produce Better Videos

In order to condense your Annual Report into more useful information, and physically reduce its size, you will want to post your Annual Report online at your site and embed videos and infographics into the text.  Make the report, video and infographics available offline, and on multiple platforms.

Good choices for posting include your NFP site as well as your NFP’s social media accounts such as Instagram. Public video hosting sites such as YouTube are also an excellent place to post your videos so that they can be downloaded and viewed later. This one step will make it easier for board members and others to access the information in your report.

Getting Started

When creating your videos, you want to give your viewers an insider’s view of your NFP’s mission and activities. Doing so not only increases understanding about the real work accomplished by your cause, it can increase your impact because the images in your video have the power to create instant connections with viewers on an emotional level and build support for your cause. So take some time thinking about which activities are crucial to achieving your long-term goals, and how you record and include videos to present the events and participants in the best way.

Don’t Forget About Branding

Be sure to include links back to your NFP website within your videos so that viewers can quickly click to learn more about your NFP and how they can donate or volunteer.

Practice makes perfect!

Be certain to start out with some practice footage to ensure that your equipment, lighting and other factors are just right before you begin filming the bulk of your video.

Take multiple shots and use a variety of film techniques

In addition to focusing your equipment on producing clear head shots of the chairperson or director of your NFP as they report on the financial state of your NFP and its impact in the community, consider shooting your video from alternate angles to make the video more interesting.  If possible, it’s a good idea to shoot extra footage whenever your NFP has fundraisers and other events. These clips can then be included in your overall video to increase understanding about your NFP’s activities.

Using an interview format for board members and others connected with your NFP can help you simplify complex information and present it in an easier to understand format. Don’t forget to do your edits on the same day that you shoot your video just in case there are segments of the video that you need to cut and reshoot.

You get what you pay for

So be certain to budget a reasonable amount of money to cover the cost to produce a professional looking video. Blurry images, low resolution, and poor audio can all leave a negative impression.

Have you produced any videos for your NFP? Have you used embedded videos to simplify the presentation of your Annual Report? Why not let us know in the comments section below how you made the video version of your NFP’s Annual Report a success?