The 2014 DoGooder Video awards wonderful opportunities for nonprofit fundraisers via video

Once again it is that time of the year for a truly special opportunity for nonprofits to submit entries for the 8th annual 2014 DoGooder Video Awards. The generous support of YouTube along with Cisco, See 3 Communications, NTEN, Zacuto and others provides an outstanding platform to promote, share and be rewarded for your creative shine.

The aim of the project is to promote and honour organizations who are ‘promoting social good’ by way of cash prizes and other special recognition. The prizes this year again recognize the importance of video in the promotion of nonprofit work and are exciting even to list below. Added this year is a special award for younger ‘DoGooders’ with exclusive recognition for the 12-21 age group. Among the awards and prizes this year are:

• Lights.Camera.Help – will screen all four of the finalist films at their 2014 Festival
• AFI DOCS film festival – will provide two festival passes for 2014: one for the winning filmmaker and one for the filmmaker’s mentor from the facilitating nonprofit
• Nickelodeon– will award a $3,000 cash prize to the award-winning film’s nonprofit

Contest winners also will be provided free registration to NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference, whilst Zacuto will also provide a $500 gift card to the winner of the Funny for Good category.

Nonprofit video entries can be submitted now and must be entered no later than February 15th to be eligible for consideration. Entries will be accepted from Canada, USA, UK, Australia and Ireland. Submission of entries to all categories is open only to nonprofits who are or are eligible to be members of the YouTube Nonprofit Program, specific details are available here. All videos must have been created between January 1st and February 15th 2014. Videos can be no longer than ten minutes in length, for full contest rules please visit See 3.com

Entering the competition is of course half the fun but ideally this provides an ideal reminder to nonprofits as to the importance of creating engaging video messages for your audience to raise awareness for your cause and drive toward your fundraising goals even if you don’t win. You don’t need me to tell you that your visiting audience love videos and few things reinforce your message quite as effectively as a well created short film which highlights the work of your nonprofit. I recommend having a look at previous winners for inspiration but also take the time to focus on the key messages that you most want to convey to your audience.

Eight years is a long time in the online world and Michael Hoffman, CEO of SEE 3 explains more about the awards –

“We are really excited to launch another year of the DoGooder Awards. When we started the awards 8 years ago, no one knew why they needed to focus on video. Now, the majority of all bandwidth is video and video messaging has become more important than ever for nonprofit organizations around the world. This year, we are pleased to present the Most Inspiring Youth Media Award, where we can showcase the up-and-coming video makers dedicated to social change. Once again we have the investment of YouTube, NTEN and Cisco to make this all possible and we are grateful for their dedication to the nonprofit sector.”

The 2014 award categories are as follows:

• The ImpactX Award: honoring those videos that have demonstrated impact for their causes.
• The Best Nonprofit Video Award: honoring nonprofit organizations using video to make change.
• The Funny for Good Award: Recognizing effective use of comedy to make people laugh and take action.
• The Most Inspiring Youth Media Award: For youth who best communicated their thoughts on pressing social issues in a way that inspired others.

A full overview of the competition can be found on See 3.com, please be sure to read the tabs to the left explaining rules and extensive Q&A.

We hope you will be able to enter the competition this year and wish you the best of luck, organizations and individuals can enter the contest by going to www.youtube.com/user/nonprofitvideoawards

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.