Non-Profit Video

PADS Lake County // Fundraising Video

Posted at h in Non-Profit Video


Pads Lake County is a nonprofit organization based in the North and Northwest suburbs of Chicago. PADS provides immediate, critical services to those who are homeless. The purpose of this video production was to connect viewers emotionally to the nonprofit‘s mission. The video was going to premiere at their upcoming fundraising event. To do that, we worked with our client to help identify a case study video story. Because they help so many people everyday, it was challenging to find THE BEST story. We even presented the possibility of filming several client stories and combining them into one fundraising video.
waukegan video production

//THE STORY//
It all started when PADS Lake Co. received a call that two people were living in the woods behind a building in Waukegan, Illinois. What transpired is a story of compassion and an opportunity for one man to revisit his love of music.

//How We Filmed It//
Over the course of one day, we filmed Carl + Adrienne’s Story. We interviewed them at their new home, filmed some footage of Carl playing his violin outdoors and also filmed the miracle PADS worker (Melvin) who drives around looking for homeless in Lake County. We also filmed some aerial drone video footage of the area!

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east st louis video production

AARP Illinois // Political Advocacy // Enough is Enough

Posted at h in Non-Profit Video

AARP Illinois is running a political advocacy campaign entitled “Enough Is Enough“. Their microsite states, “Illinois is experiencing a severe fiscal crisis caused by years of fiscal mismanagement and recently, two years without a budget.  Millions of residents of all ages suffered through the lack of depleted programs and services.”

east st louis video production

The nonprofit organization wanted to highlight exactly how Illinois’ fiscal crisis was affecting residents and organizations in East St. Louis, Illinois through this video production.  

In less than a week, we sourced three different stories in the town. All of them highlighted how the Illinois budget crisis was affecting them. For this political advocacy video production, we interviewed local residents, town officials, and nonprofits.

All of the videos were edited and delivered within 24 hours to our client who handled online distribution of the series through social media channels, email, and the nonprofit’s microsite.

After the campaign ran, the Illinois General Assembly passed a balanced budget! It was the first time in two years this happened. 55,000 people watched the videos in their email and 3,400 clicked through to contact legislators. Pretty amazing results for videos we sourced and delivered in record time!

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High Jump | Fundraising Video

Posted at h in Non-Profit Video, School Video

High Jump is a two-year, tuition-free academic enrichment program for rising seventh graders in Chicago. The Chicago nonprofit teaches students who demonstrate strong academic potential, value learning, and have dreams of excelling academically.

Through this video production, we were able to tell the stories of three exceptional High Jump students and how the Chicago nonprofit has helped them excel academically.

chicago nonprofit video production
Filming Anaitzel’s story at Latin Campus

Our initial plan was to capture the three student stories over the course of three separate seasons. That was the plan but this year, Fall was short and quickly turned into Winter. So, two of the students were filmed during what we’ll affectionately call the “colder months” in Chicago.

chicago nonprofit video production
Filming the twins (Derrick and Justin) at University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

We filmed at three of the nonprofit’s Chicago campuses: Francis W. Parker, Latin School of Chicago, and University of Chicago Lab Schools. All filming was done with the RED Epic Dragon Cinema Camera for that extra movie-like look!

Filming at Francis W. Parker School on their stage

We started planning for this project about six months ago and it’s incredibly rewarding to see the final product come together. Even more amazing is that our client was able to raise over $1 million at their annual gala where this video premiered! This was $70K over their fundraising goal and an increase of over $200K from last year’s benefit. This is the highest amount ever raised in the history of this nonprofit!

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