Connection Café: Nonprofit Video + Volunteer Opportunities = New YouTube Program!

	Nonprofit Video + Volunteer Opportunities = New YouTube Program!
	Posted by at Jun 22, 2009 10:41 AM CDT Categories: NPtech, Social Media, Volunteerism

YouTube raised the question today: “Are you a nonprofit who needs help creating great video for your causes?” And with the exception of nonprofits lucky enough to have an in-house videographer, of which are few and far between, the answer to this question is more often than now “Yes”.

And with that common response in mind, YouTube officially rolled out its new YouTube Video Volunteers program today.

In short, this new program allows nonprofit organizations to post video volunteer opportunities on one of the three sites including idealist.org, serve.org and Volunteer Match using the words “video volunteer” in postings. In turn, the opportunities for video help will automatically show up in the All for Good feed on YouTube’s Video Volunteers page, in an effort to All for Good’s mission of allowing citizens to take small actions to add up to a big difference a reality.

Why I dig this new program…

youtube volunteers

It allows volunteers to use a skill that has been mostly untapped up until this point: video shooting and editing! This is a great way to introduce new volunteers and supporters to your cause by allowing them to donate their time in a way they want to give back.
Aggregation of multiple site opportunities in one place. With so many information sources across the web, this is and will continue to be a huge trend. Nonprofits can now have a heightened probability of their opportunities being found by listing them on one of many sites that will all be pulled into one main source.
Ease of use of the site features. The easier you make the experience of a volunteer engaging with your organization’s opportunities online (did someone say user experience?), the more likely they are to help. The new program page has a simple and sleek interface that provides useful information and easy ways to interact.
Customizable location. This feature allows any YouTube user or visitor to set their preferred location so they can see what opportunities are available in their local area. Each time someone visits the page, they can browse for opportunities in any area of the country.
And at the end of the day, it’s using social media for social good. YouTube videos are known for being funny, irreverent and viral. And for a company like YouTube to put so much time and effort into a socially impactful feature is a wonderful thing!

I can’t wait to see how nonprofits start using this new tool to their benefit. For any and all nonprofits that start posting opportunities and engaging with volunteers for help with video, please come back and share your experiences and success stories here! I'd love to feature some ways nonprofits find this program useful going forward.

Huge props YouTube and Ramya for the great work to help positively impact the nonprofit community! And here's a short video with more information about the program for those of you interested in learning more: