Client Stories – Mile High United Way

Posted on: January 10th, 2012 by Guest Blogger

By Robert Thompson, Director of Media Relations

Let’s talk about smart investment in story-telling.

It’s one thing to produce a video for your company or organization.  It’s another thing to strategically produce a video that you can repurpose for broadcast commercials, web content and social media.  But, that is exactly what we have been able to do at Mile High United Way with the assistance of Fireside Production.

For the past few years, we have partnered with Fireside to produce annual campaign videos for the Mile High United Way fundraising campaigns at hundreds of local companies and corporations.  These videos are shown to employees at our United Way fundraising campaign kickoffs and available on our web site, Facebook page and Youtube channel throughout the fiscal year.  They are the stories- the emotional hooks highlighting the work we do in the community and the people we help.

The question, early on, was how can we maximize video production for a better return on investment (which for a nonprofit equals more donations)?  The answer was simple.  Repurpose the raw video and create an integrated package of video materials that we can use across the ever-growing spectrum of video platforms.

The benefit is amazing, especially for a non-profit organization committed to spending donor dollars wisely.  For the cost of the initial video shoots, we had all of the raw material we needed to create our package of videos.  The only added costs (which were minimal) were for simple editing time.  That’s it!  No new shoots, no new graphics.  We follow a basic theme of graphics, colors and editing style to give the videos a united feel.  So, editing is a snap for the pros at Fireside.

This approach has not only helped us to build our arsenal of quality videos, but it has also saved us money and opened new lines of communications for us to tell the story of Mile High United Way.  We are now confident and prepared to customize a quality video for nearly any platform.  It’s awesome and so easy.

Let’s face it.  The world of visual story-telling is changing day by day.  From television to the internet to blogs and social media, you really have to cover all of the bases in order to make an impression.  The good news is- it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to do it!

Whether you are a for-profit or non-profit organization, I would urge you to consider this approach in your video production planning.  Talk to the experts at Fireside.  They are full of great ideas to maximize your message and your budget no matter how large or small.

Happy story-telling!