Palatine Video Production Tag

How to Exceed Your Nonprofit Event’s Fundraising Goal

Posted at h in Non-Profit Video

The evening was over and about 75% of the guests had already left. Our team of six was packing up all of our equipment for the night. An ecstatic employee of the nonprofit walked up to me and said, “This was the most amount of money we have ever raised. Thank you!”

Nonprofits around the world spend so much time and money every year trying to figure out the holy grail to fundraising…how do we get people to donate? After producing hundreds of nonprofit videos and attending many events (too many to count), we know what works. We have our formula and we’re here to share it with you today.

This list is by no means exhaustive and doesn’t guarantee results but if you incorporate some of these tips into your next nonprofit event, you just might see some success!

Impact Film
Donors want to know the impact their money will have in furthering your nonprofit’s mission. Pictures, text, and speeches can only go so far. But when you see someone in their own words saying how a nonprofit organization impacted their lives and seeing what that impact looks like, that’s pretty powerful.

Let’s say you frequent a local coffee shop. Week after week, day after day, you go there. Everyday, you say hi to Sara who is always at the cash register. You ask how Sara’s morning is going, what she’s doing for the day…it’s usually a very cordial conversation. Sara responds to your questions, returns your change, and gives you your coffee.

But after doing this routine for three months, you realize that Sara has never thanked you for buying their coffee. In fact, Sara doesn’t even know your name. Think about that for a moment. How sad is that?

Perhaps you have identified a list of the most qualified donors; people you know who will come back year after year and donate to your cause. But have you thanked them? Have you shown them how their impact has helped your nonprofit? Have an impact film produced that shows the work your nonprofit is doing. It will make a world of difference and you may even see a few tears in the room.

Live Entertainment

Speeches and slideshows are great but donors nowadays want to be entertained. Consider providing some sort of live entertainment to wow your crowd. For this particular nonprofit event, it was called “Dancing With The Barrington Stars”, which was held at Avante Banquets in Fox River Grove, IL. Local “celebrities” were chosen to dance with well-trained dancers. The pair would practice for several weeks leading up to the event, choreographing a dance to music with the help of a local dance school.

Prior to the event, people could donate money to their favorite team. The team who raised the most money would receive the “People’s Choice Award”. During each of their dances, we displayed a live total on large projection screens that would update as people donated more money to them. The projection screens we provided also showed a live video feed of the dancers so everyone was sure to see the action up close.

On the night of the event, we provided a top-tier lighting system, which changed colors and moved to the music. Each of the dances had a color theme so we used those colors in the lighting scheme. Attendees were on their feet, clapping and dancing to the music. The night was a blast.


At the end of the night, awards were handed out to the People’s Choice Award winner, Judge’s winner, etc.

Live Donation Amounts

Throughout the night, the nonprofit organization held various appeals to increase the overall donation amount. On the projection screens we had, we displayed live totals, showing real-time donation amounts coming in. People loved to see their donation impact the overall goal and it was a fun, interactive way for everyone in attendance to collectively help the nonprofit reach (and in this case exceed) their fundraising goal.

Livestreaming

If the pandemic has proven anything, it’s that people will watch events online. We still have many clients concerned that offering a live online component to your event will impact in-person ticket sales. We are here to tell you that every event we have livestreamed, the number of people watching the event online was 2-4X the number of people in attendance.

Think of that for a moment. If you have 200-400 people in person, what kind of impact could your nonprofit make if you were able to 2-4X that audience with an online component? By offering a livestream of your nonprofit event, now people who weren’t able to be at your event at the exact date/time/location, can now tune in from all over the world. Offer digital tickets, sponsorships, and interact with your online audience.

Our nonprofit client went into the event with a $300,000 goal. They ended up raising over $354,000. It was their most successful fundraiser to date!

If you are looking to take your nonprofit event fundraising to the next level, reach out to us today to start discussing your next event!

Event Photos: Courtesy Bacoa

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Illinois school referendum video production

CCSD 15 | School Referendum Video Production

Posted at h in School Video


As anyone who owns a home knows, you have to do regular maintenance on it. Otherwise, things start to fall apart over time. Now imagine having to maintain 20 large school buildings. That’s exactly what Community Consolidated School District 15 in Palatine, Illinois does on a daily basis. With that many buildings and limited funding, the school district needed to prioritize major repairs. Over time, minor repair fixes blossomed into large needs. And while identifying those needs across all of their buildings, some of the solutions created unintended challenges over the years. What followed was a discovery process to identify how the school district could provide a quality education for all of its students. And that’s where Move 15 Forward began.

CCSD 15 hired Delack Media Group to produce a series of videos that would educate community stakeholders about the school district’s referendum plans. We helped identify various “buckets” for each of their needs. From there, we worked with the school district to produce a video about each “bucket”: Infrastructure, Kindergarten, Middle School, and Safety & Security. An overview video was also produced.

The videos were then shown to the school board, community members and stakeholders at various community meetings, and were distributed on the school district’s referendum website, newsletter and social media channels. And in the recent election, residents passed the referendum.

We also received great news that the “Moving 15 Forward Overview Video” was selected as a winner in the 2022 Illinois Chapter of the National School Public Relations Association’s Communications Contest. It’s a true honor for us to have been a part of this referendum video production and a testament to the continued commitment we have to helping school districts around the country produce great video content that helps educate and inform their communities.

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Chicago nonprofit video production

Erin’s Law // Branding Film

Posted at h in Non-Profit Video

Erin’s Law is named after childhood sexual assault survivor, author, speaker and activist Erin Merryn. If passed in a particular state, Erin’s Law requires that all public schools implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program for students, school personnel and parents/guardians.

Erin’s Law is a nonprofit organization based in the Chicago area. However, she travels the world testifying to lawmakers. For this video production, Erin wanted a video that helped tell her personal story. We spoke with Erin about the project on Wednesday afternoon and she needed to film the following Monday. In order to have everything come together in time, we needed to do a lot in a short amount of time!

Inverness Video Production

Within a day, we secured a beautiful home in Inverness, IL where we would film Erin’s interview. After a quick creative briefing describing the importance of Erin’s Law, we assembled our crew of six people. Thankfully, Erin has been advocating for childhood sexual abuse for years, so we were able to read articles and watch television appearances to get a better understanding of her personal history, as well as the history of Erin’s Law.

Chicago nonprofit video production

The house we were filming in had a spacious living room that was perfect for interviewing Erin. Our Grip, DP (Director of Photography) and Producer worked together to make sure the lighting in frame was perfect. This involved flags (to block out the sun coming in from windows), multiple lights and putting down heavy blankets on the marble floor to eliminate bouncing reflections. Our hair stylist and makeup artist made sure that Erin looked great but still natural on screen.

Inverness Video Production

Because we had an understanding of Erin’s story from our research, we knew what to show in her nonprofit branding film to achieve a greater impact. Without that research, we would be discovering during the interview instead of being in a deep conversation with meaningful responses. After an hour-long interview, we set up b-roll scenes that we knew we would need; such as the hallway shot and scene of Erin’s actual childhood diary. We then traveled to an elementary school in Palatine, Illinois where we secured permission to film and captured the playground and classroom scenes that appear in the branding film and PSAs. The following week, we met with Erin and her family at their house to have a fun afternoon shooting b-roll together.

Palatine Video Production

During the editing process, we matched Erin’s responses with the plot points we had mapped out before filming. Because we researched and knew the story, we knew exactly where the b-roll scenes would go. After coloring the footage, selecting music, adding sound design and mixing the audio, we delivered the film to Erin. When Erin posted the film on social media and her website, she received a great response. She’s even used it to educate lawmakers! We’re proud that we were able to help Erin tell her story and help her mission to end childhood sexual abuse.

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