Comic Videos Help Charities Raise Awareness While Sharing Laughs

The global-health charity Path brought attention to its campaign to curb deaths from diarrhea with a video that asked people on the street what they knew about the disease’s toll. It had to bleep out the profane responses.The global-health charity Path brought attention to its campaign to curb deaths from diarrhea with a video that asked people on the street what they knew about the disease’s toll. It had to bleep out the profane responses.

April 1, 2012 | Read Time: 4 minutes

Officials at Path, an international health group, often struggle to call attention to one of the charity’s main projects in the developing world, DefeatDD.org.

After all, the project fights diarrhea, and “no one really likes to talk about it,” says Deborah Phillips, a Path spokeswoman.

So Path took to the streets and filmed the reactions of people as its videographer tried to broach the subject of diarrheal disease to passersby, informing them that it’s the No. 2 killer of children in the world, behind pneumonia.

Most people responded with expletives. The charity turned the everyday responses into an online video that used bleeps every time somebody responded with words best avoided in polite company. At the end of the production, the charity directs people to the project’s Web site to learn more.

“We find that using humor both disarms people’s squeamishness, and it’s much easier to get them engage in the seriousness of the issue,” Ms. Phillips says.

The alternative take garnered twice as many views as a similar video that had the same message but was more straight-laced. (“We need to talk about diarrheal disease if we’re going to defeat it.”)

The “No Bleep” video for DefeatDD.org is just one of many attempts that nonprofit organizations have made in recent years to use humorous online videos to reach new supporters, tackle difficult topics, and in some cases, raise money. Funny videos also help to humanize an organization that may have trouble attracting attention.

Serious or Funny

To be sure, videos need not be humorous to grab a wide audience, as Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” campaign demonstrated. The slick half-hour documentary that seeks to take down the African fugitive warlord Joseph Kony has garnered close to 100 million views and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the San Diego advocacy group, despite criticism of its message, the charity’s finances, and the strange public outburst of its co-founder Jason Russell, who made the video.

Indeed, some nonprofits are making their videos memorable in different ways, by spoofing other productions, piggybacking on recent popular Internet videos, and using corporate-marketing tactics, such as the tenet that “sex sells.”

Sharing the videos on social networks is key, experts say.

“People used to think that the only way to make an emotional impact is to show kids with extended bellies or crying puppies, but we have been seeing videos from nonprofits that use humor,” says Aaron Bramley, co-founder of Lights. Camera. Help., a group that runs a film festival for nonprofit videos. “Videos are getting shared. People are more likely to share something funny with their friends than something that’s depressing.”

Experts say humor is just the hook to get people to pay attention to a charity’s message. Once people are interested, nonprofits can ask viewers to share what they saw with others or take action, like volunteering or donating. A successful comical video, experts say, also has the potential to fire up dormant donors and cement ties with current supporters.

Nonetheless, many charities fear taking on a humorous video project because it may be more trouble than it’s worth. But the time and money spent can be minimal, say experts. And the production of humorous videos may be one of the rare times when a small group can have advantages over a larger one.

For instance, it may be hard for staff members to persuade their bosses about a video’s potential benefits, since taking a light approach to a charity’s work could risk offending its supporters. But people at small groups have fewer bosses to persuade.

Many charities’ comic videos, though, don’t go far enough, says Michael Hoffman, chief executive of See3 Communications, a consulting firm that works with nonprofit clients.

More often than not, charity leaders fall into the trap of policing humor, which often kills it, he says. Leaders may argue, “If it offends anyone, we’re much worse off. Nobody’s going to yell at us for not doing it.”

That reaction to potentially adverse exposure is typical. “That’s the conservative nature of nonprofit groups,” he says, “that humor is tough, that humor is hard to do.”

But it shouldn’t be, he says. “One way to lighten up is to expose what happens in the background,” he says. Staff members’ hidden talents can show viewers a charity’s emotional makeup and sell to an audience a chance to join in the fun.

Says Mr. Hoffman, “What you want a viewer, or a donor, to say is, ‘I’m proud to be part of this group.’”

Following are some examples of nonprofits that have spread their messages while tickling viewers’ funny bones.