I love this video from Save the Children UK. It’s all about the heroism of the donor.
(Or watch it here on YouTube.)
This is the kind of thing we should all be doing: Telling the donor she’s a hero. And finding cool ways of doing so.
I hate to say it, but there’s a fly in this otherwise excellent ointment: The producers of the video fell to the temptation of abstraction. And that almost (but not quite) renders it pointless.
Here’s how it veers off course: In the interviews, kids say the “hero” did things like “bring water,” make the rain come,” “destroyed the mosquitoes,” and “caused the maize to grow.” Those are all real things that donors really make happen. The video does a great job of making it both real and exciting.
But they also say the donor “flew in the clouds,” “flew down and picked up a child,” and had a glowing body. Donors don’t do those things. It’s not real. It’s symbolic, an abstraction.
Why mix real with not-real? Doing that makes the real stuff seem less real. The abstraction adds a confusing and sour note to this otherwise superb video. It’s completely unnecessary.
I hope Save the Children will consider revising this video to remove the abstraction. Then they’ll have a winner.
Steal this idea! Reminding your donors they’re heroes is the foundation of powerful fundraising.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
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