The 2011 DoGooder Nonprofit video awards, still time to enter or be inspired by

The use of video to help raise the profile of your nonprofit fundraising organization remains one of the strongest viral methods to communicate a message about your organization’s history, objectives and overall approach. With technology costs continuing to reduce in real terms and an Internet audience who liked to hear and see in preference to reading on many occasions video has become ever more important when using social media tools to raise awareness of your organization and its website. Professional and expensive video recording techniques aren’t always necessary either, many smaller nonprofits have used video to convey a short, personal interactive message to their donor base. Video can be used to highlight annual results, new initiatives or special fundraising events with each scenario offering an opportunity to connect in a more personal way with your potential donors.

Even if you haven’t made a video yet a competition currently running via the ‘Daily DoGooder’ might help provide some great ideas when the winners for the 2011 events are announced next month at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington DC. The fifth annual ‘DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards’ are presented in association with See3, YouTube, The Case Foundation and Flip Video. If your organization already has a video you still have until March 2nd to submit it for consideration of this year’s awards. If you have a video and want to share it via our site please include a link in the comment section for today’s post.

The awards aren’t just targeted toward the largest nonprofits however which is a great thing as it demonstrates that a big budget isn’t always necessary to create good video content to help your nonprofit. Four categories exist this year including:

• Best Thrifty Video: Awarded to the best original videos by any size organization is produced for under $500
• Best Small Org Video: Awarded to the best video made by an organization with an annual budget of $1,000,000 or less
• Best Medium Org Video: Awarded to the best video made by an organization with an annual budget of $1,000,000 to $5,000,000
• Best Large Org Video: Awarded to the best video made by an organization with an annual budget of $5,000,000 or greater

The competition offers a variety of prizes which would be of great benefit to any nonproft; prizes include your video appearing on the YouTube home page, a $10,000 grant split between the winners from The Case Foundation, video cameras and more.

Perhaps best of all the voting is online, so I’m looking forward to seeing this year’s entries early next month. If your organization has yet to make a video looking at this year’s entries might be a great place to start as last year more than 750 videos were submitted by over 200 organizations. Get filming and good luck!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifoShbbqe4Q&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Learn more about the DoGooder video awards via this video

For more nonprofit fundraising CSR news follow us on Twitter!