Guatemala, Frogs, and Storytelling

World's most popular blog Boing Boing has recently launched BBtv World, a project that gives digital video cameras to people around the world and lets them tell their stories. Check out today's episode from a village in Guatemala. Most interesting to me, a man who works in a local NGO talks about the positive impact that digital video could have on organizations like his. In the event of a hurricane or other natural disaster, he could bypass the traditional (and ineffective) means of requesting aid and quickly send his message around the world.

It's also wonderful to see how quickly the children in the video make the technology their own. In Xeni Jardin's words, "Some of them seemed to transform into instant YouTube stars — new alter-egos showed up out of nowhere." As someone who grew up watching manipulative ads by questionable child-sponsorship agencies, these images struck me in a way in which nonprofit advertising usually doesn't.

Cara at Hack Artist points to a Colbert Report interview with frog expert Mark Moffett as an example of the wrong way to tell your nonprofit's story. Colbert began the interview by asking why people should care about frogs, and Moffett replied with some dry facts about extinction and natural balance. When Moffett finally got around to showing a photograph of a frog, Colbert shouted, "Oh my God, that is so beautiful!" and suddenly the audience understood why Moffett cared about frogs.

As nonprofits start to use new tools to spread our stories, the stories themselves will inevitably evolve as well. Sometimes the big picture is important, but sometimes it's important to look at pictures of frogs or kids making funny faces at the camera. There's no reason to save those joys for yourself when you can share them with your supporters.

For more ideas and insights about using video to tell your nonprofit's stories, check out A Crash Course in Digital Filmmaking and Share Your Nonprofit's Videos with the World. Many more resources are available at We Are Media's Storytelling module.

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