Have you had a chance yet to check out the winners of the 4th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards? This year’s contest, a collaboration between See3 Communications and YouTube, awarded a total of $10,000 in grants (funded by the Case Foundation) to the best videos of 2009 found in the YouTube Nonprofit Program. Winners also received prizes from Flip Video and the Nonprofit Technology Network.

“Darius Goes West—A DVD in Every School” (above) was the winner in the Best Small Org category. Below are the winners in the best medium and large org categories, as well as Best Innovation in Video. Be sure to check them all out.

As much as I enjoyed these excellent examples of how nonprofits are using video to forward the mission, I have to admit that this PSA for seatbelt safety is still the most compelling thing I’ve seen on video this year. It continues to push my buttons every time I watch it.

photo by omar omar

In the April issue of Los Angeles Magazine, Mark Lacter shines a light on a dirty little secret that may shock out-of-towners but isn’t really news to the nonprofit community here: Despite the phenomenal individual and corporate wealth to be found in Southern California, very little of it finds its way through philanthropy into the coffers of nonprofit social service organizations.

Lacter details the “embarrassingly unfair” nature of charitable giving among L.A.’s wealthy, which goes mostly to hospitals, higher education, and arts and culture. Somewhere near the end of the line you’ll find human services. So while hospital donor walls boast a roll call of Southern California’s wealthy elite, homeless shelters and soup kitchens struggle to keep their doors open in a region that has more homeless residents than any other urban area in the country.

One reason you may not hear much about this disparity is that the nonprofit community doesn’t want to bite the hand they wish would feed them better. Pissing off potential donors is in no one’s best interests, but I wish we as a community could have a more open and candid conversation about the philanthropic gaps that I believe hold us back as a region. The state and local fiscal crises we hear about every day are absolutely decimating what little safety net still exists to serve the poor and others struggling to survive in a brutal economy.

I understand the sincere desire among some to put their charitable dollars in service to worthy educational institutions such as UCLA (where I’m an alumnus) and USC, or cultural institutions such as Walt Disney Concert Hall. But UCLA’s highly sophisticated “friend-raising” operation consistently rakes in around $400 million per year in contributions. I’m sure USC’s numbers are equally impressive.

Meanwhile, social service organizations are struggling to keep the lights on. If you have money to spare and a desire to make a profound impact, there are incredible opportunities to do so in Southern California. Many of my friends work for nonprofits striving to shelter L.A.’s homeless, protect its abused children from further harm and ensure a decent standard of living for low-income seniors. If I took a poll, I wager I’d find corporate support for those organizations numbering somewhere between one hand and 10 fingers.

If you want to make a name for yourself as a benefactor, consider the many human service organizations that desperately need your support. If you sincerely want to make a difference in the lives of those who need help most, same answer. Somehow I think UCLA and Disney Hall will survive without you for awhile. Others will not.

Farra Trompeter at Big Duck has put together a pretty nifty, content-rich overview of how nonprofits can use social media to rethink the ways in which they communicate with their stakeholders and prospects. Check it out.

As the first step in a complete overhaul of my nonprofit employer’s website, I’ve engaged the services of Brain Traffic to help us develop a content strategy for the site. BT President Kristina Halvorson literally wrote the book on the subject. (Or one of the books on it. Anyway, I got a lot out of it.)

Here’s a presentation Kristina did on the subject at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. One of the most compelling statements contained herein is this:

Online, we don’t just see or read about your brand. We use it.

That should be one of your big takeaways. If your mission as a nonprofit is to get people to do something, then your website should be a tool for doing. No doubt you give visitors the “opportunity” to make a donation or volunteer their time. Good for you. But what else? Does it also offer less self-serving tools that help them advance the cause? Are you enabling your employees and volunteers to do their work more effectively?

If joining your mailing list and giving you money are the only things your website makes easy, you might want to take another look at the tool delivery opportunities available to you.

photo by ausiegall

As you might expect at the end of the year AND decade, lists were among the most popular tweets in December. No New Year’s resolution lists, though … guess everyone’s saving those for their January posts.

What the Hell Are You Waiting For?

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

The 4 Cornerstones of Social Media Monitoring

Is Your Nonprofit’s Story a Call to Action?

Three Reasons Why Storytelling is the Key to Social Media Marketing Success

BNET’s 10 Worst Ads of 2009

The Best and Worst Identities of 2009

Measure the Impact, Not the Influence

What Matters Now, Seth Godin?

10 Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About

Why Print Isn’t Going Anywhere for a Long, Long Time

Storytelling Through Social Media

Website at a Loss as to Why It Disappeared From Google

The Best Business Books of 2009

When It Comes to Online Content, More Niche Usually Trumps More Masses

100 Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions for 2010

Social Isolation and New Technology

5 Qualities of a Good Social Media Manager

Volunteers Give 10 Times More Than Other Americans

10 Best and Worst Internet Company Names of the Decade

Here’s how charity:water tells its amazing story through video (thanks to Allison Fine for the lead on this one).

While it’s a brilliant example of nonprofit storytelling, there’s another lesson here I’d like you to consider. If you were to tell your organization’s story through video, would it be anywhere nearly as compelling as this? I’m not referring to the scale or impact, just the simple power of what you’re doing as illustrated through video.

If not, you might want to give some serious thought as to what you’re doing. There are countless nonprofits out there who, given their limited impact, don’t really have a reason to exist. Don’t be one of them. If you can’t tell a compelling story about your organization and its mission, then perhaps you should reconsider what you’re doing or how you’re doing it.

photo by robert couse-baker

Going postal over the letters to Santa program. The secret behind a truly great brand. Chicken soup in the cold remedies aisle. A look at why Twitter followers without engagement is worthless.

These are just some of my most popular tweets during the month of November. No surprise in today’s jobs-challenged “recovery” that the top tweet was a post concerning my search for a communications manager (still under way, tell all your friends).

If you missed any of these when first we tweeted, be sure to check them out now. Lots of good stuff here for what ails you.

Now Hiring: a Communications Manager

The Secret to Making Your Brand Truly Great

The Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don’t Care

Confused Stock Boy … or Brilliant Product Placement?

Let’s Play 20 Questions to a Solid Strategic Plan

Is Social Media a Marketing Thing?

Content-ment: Curation Vs. Aggregation

Postal Service Limits Letter to Santa Program

Top 20 Tweets in October

Why Facebook Continues to Suck

25 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women in Social Media 2009

Why Nonprofits Should Be on YouTube

Five Things Brand Marketing Can’t Do

Writing Errors That Make You Look Stupid

Location is the Missing Link Between Social Media and the Real World

Email Campaigns That Work for Nonprofits

Beth Asked a Question

American Red Cross – Nonprofit Social Media Marketing Example

Top 50 Journalism Blogs

Ten Things Social Media Can’t Do

See3 Communications CEO Michael Hoffman produced this great preso on how nonprofits can make effective use of YouTube. If storytelling is one of our most effective communication strategies, then video has to be one of the best tools for executing on that strategy. Watch this or this if you doubt it.

There are so many reasons to be using video, but I’ll just cherry-pick a few from Hoffman’s deck:

• YouTube has become a top destination for searches.
• The YouTube Nonprofit Program enables you to put links anywhere in your video that take viewers to your website.
• Although video quality has improved, you still don’t have to be the consummate pro to shoot perfectly respectable video.
• Production costs have dropped to the point where anyone can produce pretty decent video.

There’s a lot more good info in the preso. Check it out.

photo by fotodawg

I don’t remember who I first borrowed the idea from, but I really love reviewing my top 20 tweets each month. My approach to twitter is as editor/curator: I look for posts I think will appeal to those who follow me in the areas of marketing, communications, social media, journalism and related subjects, especially as they relate to nonprofits and small business. I of course liberally tweet my own posts since those happen to be the subjects I tend to write about.

What is particularly interesting is what my highest-performing tweets tell me about my followers on Twitter: they’re a fairly discerning bunch interested in real substance, not fluff. I can always tell when I’ve missed the mark, and it helps me quite a bit when considering what to blog about.

Here’s what was most popular in October. I encourage you to check out any you may have missed when first we tweeted. It’s all good stuff. Even my stuff (I think).

No More Excuses for Crap Communications

If Marketers Today Created the Stop Sign

Social Media and the Paradox of Choice

Why Every Communicator Should Blog

The Dangers of No Content Strategy

Your Communications Plan: What It’s Really For

Small Business: Get in the Social Media Pool

Why Nonprofits Are So Good at Social Media

All You Need is the Story

Results of the Fourth Annoying PowerPoint Survey

Build a Social Network for Your Business

Why Uncensored Blogging is the Future of Corporate Communications

Blogging is Dead, Long LIve Journalism

A Tagline is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Is Philanthropy Ready for the New Consumer?

Five Reasons Corporations are Failing at Social Media

My Five-Year-Old’s Future in Marketing

Hyatt: Managing the Boston Aftermath

Debating Seth Godin’s “Non” Slam

Small Business, Social Media Not Mixing