Tag Archives: NGO

Aid/Development media

SWM seeks NGO for Filming, Photography and Maybe More

Free Video Offer for NGOs & Non-ProfitsYOU ARE:  A small NGO or non-profit organisation. Maybe you’re based in Dublin and work in the community here, or maybe you focus on sustainable development projects in Africa or elsewhere and partner with organisations in the field. You have a track record of getting things done and have proven success on the ground. You’re looking to produce some online audiovisual material that will tell your story but you don’t know where to start.

You need someone who can take your ideas, build them, polish them and produce something stirring that you can easily embed on your website and disperse online. And you want them to do it for free, because you have no money.

HE IS: Someone who’s looking to further build his own multimedia portfolio, a journalist who has a history of storytelling ability, and started his journalism career in photography before pursuing print. He’s someone who’s got a qualification in development studies and will understand your point of view.

He’s only recently turned to multimedia, but he’s been taking photos for more than 13 years, and so he’s got a good eye for framing a shot. And as he’s been turning out podcasts, he’s au fait with audio. He’s just looking for some good, interesting stories on which to put it all to use.

Does it sound like we have a match? Well then, we should meet.

For the next two weeks, I’ll take submissions from NGOs or community groups that want their story told in a new and creative way to help them promote themselves, cheer an achievement or particular success, or to thank someone that’s made a difference. And on June 24, I’ll sit down with the submissions and pick two, one Dublin-based and one that works overseas.

For those two organisations, I’m offering a once-off freebie, a film or audio slideshow of up to five minutes in length that I’ll produce in HD quality and give to your organisation to use as you see fit, for ZERO COST. We’ll collaborate on the storyboard and work together with a mix of whatever materials you might already have and new ones I’ll create. I’ll include your graphics to the best of my ability and to your spec. I’ll put every creative faculty I have at your disposal (within reason) in order to make something that will really stand out for you and your organisation, and in the interests of sustainability, I’ll show you exactly how I did it so that you can replicate it yourselves in the future and we’ll learn together. I’ll blog and tweet the process to give the project extra legs and promote it as widely as I can.

Interested?

Here’s what I want from you:

One creative story idea from your organisation.

That’s it. Just your best idea. Hit me with some background details, some suggestions on filming/photography locations, and how you think it might work. Email me at markham [dot] nolan [at] gmail [dot] com

I’ll pick the two winners based on feasibility, how interesting they sound, and we’ll take it from there.

Africa Aid/Development ireland sponsorship

No Thanks | No Donations

Thank you is so simple, yet so important. This post from a blog about fundraising for nonprofits illustrates the negative power of failing to thank donors. And it jogged my memory, as did some fairly robust pleas for cash from the RNLI at a dinner on Saturday night.

I’ll be honest – and this isn’t a popular stance if you’re a sailor – I’ll find it hard to donate to the RNLI again. In 2003 I ran the Dublin marathon for three charities – the MS Society, the RNLI and Lohada, a small Tanzanian NGO I helped set up as independent back in 2001.

Of the three, the RNLI were positively ignorant about the donation I was trying to give them. The MS Society wrote to thank me, I was sent a hand-made card by one of the kids in the Tanzanian orphanage. The RNLI were obstructive from the start (as I wasn’t running solely for them, they had no way for me to fit into their system), and were completely ungrateful upon receipt of the cash.

I handed them just over €1,000, and was met with a ‘right, whatever’ response.

And at the dinner this weekend, their speaker, who was gifted the MC role at the event, seemed arrogant in her assumption that she had a right to demand money from us, as we were all marine-related folk gathered in one room.

All of which made me very angry indeed.

The old mantra of no shirt, no service, is a manners thing. If you can’t be bothered putting on a shirt to show me some respect, I can’t be bothered serving you food.

Same goes for NGOs. If I go out of my way to raise funds for you, it probably means I’d do it again. I’m a renewable revenue stream.

No thanks, no donations. Simple.