Guest blogger, Annie Escobar is co-founder of ListenIn Pictures which produces compelling video stories for nonprofits.

Creating engaging, sharable videos doesn’t seem to come naturally for most nonprofits and I think I know why.  Instead of highlighting naturally dynamic stories about people, nonprofits tend to create videos about programs.

I call this The Program Trap.

Your organization’s job is to run your programs well. That’s why you care about the details of how they are run. But your audience is hungry for meaning, belonging and purpose.  They want to be a part of something that matters.

The best use of video is not to inform and educate.  It’s to make your audience feel something and through that emotional response, create a connection to your work. As humans, we respond to stories.  Stories about people we can relate to. Stories that show what’s at stake in your work. Stories that inspire us to see ourselves as a part of your story.

It’s about the why, not the what. Showing, not telling.  Feeling, not facts.

Recently, I saw a nonprofit video that claimed to tell ‘the story of [this program].’ But in reality, it was just a list describing what their program does.

So how do you know if you are really telling a story in your video?

Stories have a beginning, middle and end.  They have a protagonist who wants something- that could be a mother wanting a better life for her kids or perhaps your founder who wanted to find a solution to an intractable problem.  They keep people curious by making them ask, “How is this person going to get what they want?” They have tension then resolution.   Not all stories you tell have to be about the people you serve, but I’ve found these to be the most effective and moving.

Whenever I ask employees of non-profits what drives them to keep doing their work, time and time again, they tell me that it’s the stories of people they’ve met through the organization.

That’s where your power to inspire lies.

In my next guest post, I’ll share what I’ve learned about how to translate programs into compelling stories for video.

Does this resonate with your organization’s struggles to represent what you do?  What have you learned about how to encourage your organization to move away from descriptions and towards stories?