This is the last part of a three part series about the use of media for NGOs. For more read part I and part II.

The biggest question before and after is the thought of who you want to reach with your pictures, videos or multimedia. Especially in the first part i was writing about visual language and how that affects the viewer of your stories. In this last part, with this thoughts in mind, i want to talk about how to use this different forms of visual language and media for communication purposes. This will be a lot about the delivery and how to get out the most of the material we have produced.

CONCEPTS*

Every concept for a new campaign involves thoughts about the audience we would like to reach with our media and that influences what type of media we use, but also what visual language. Beside that there is a lot to think about how we would like to involve people with our campaign in the cause. This is always the most important aspect and worth a lot of time spending on it. Do you want people donate money? Do you want to make them aware of an issue? Or do you maybe want both? How can we involve them? Do we mainly need a fast emotional overloaded fast donation we need like in an emergency like the Haiti earthquake or do we want to create a long-term relationship with the donors? Each one of the answers to this questions is in need of approaches obviously. So every concept is different at the end as there are way more specific question for every cause. So i will not draw some concepts here.

INVOLVING PEOPLE*

Important tough is in my opinion the thought of how to involve people. The way of communication, especially for NGOs (always tight in communication budget..) changed quite a bit with the internet and social media specifically. There are a lot of powerful tools out there, for free use. But at the same time also the form of communication with donors and other people changed through that. It is not a classic advertising communication (promoting your ‘product’ in a one-way-communication) anymore, instead it involves people, with writing comments, spreading the word further with this tools, getting feedback, questions. In short, it allows a direct communication and not only a delivery of a product like a brochure what is first of all only giving information. The direct communication allows not only to get the feedback, but also to activate people, make them interested with not only making them consume, but also actively taking part. A powerful way to involve people in a cause, sometimes maybe even more important than actual donations from the start. Check the Condition Critical project by MSF for a great example on that.

APPROACHING PEOPLE*

In a recent interview photojournalist Tim Hetherington stated “You should be interested in this because this is Afghanistan” — is not a constructive way to engage.” What he is talking about is the approach that many choose when it comes to important issues. By giving people the feeling that they have to be interested because it is important. With the change of communication, i believe, this approach is also more and more going away and new forms to engage people should come up. There are thousands of issues were it is tried to give the feeling of remorse as a tool to engage. Think of Climate Change as an example. No one has to be engage, but when we provide something what makes people interested in the cause, we could reach them in a totally different mindset.

VISUAL COMMUNICATION*

One thing that changed quite rapidly with the internet and the overflow of media. We consume way more visually than a couple of years ago, also because reading on a screen is still a pain in the are. Adding to that is the fact that most people are visual learners, what means the impact of visual media on them will be higher than words. What that means for information provided on websites of NGOs is that it should focus on clear visual interesting storytelling to make people interested with visual content. People will barely read in the web long reports from projects, especially not when there is a short video or multimedia. But words in combination with multimedia could do the trick if used in balance.

NOW WHAT?*

The last bits focused a lot on communication in the internet, also because i think it is one of the major platforms to reach people and get fresh information out. But there are of course the classic way to communicate with your audience. Lectures, brochures, advertising, tv-spots to name a few are still powerful. The advantage of a mixture of the different types of media i talked about in the second part is that it allows the use also in this different other outlets. Especially multimedia produced material offers video, photos, audio and all that what could be used for other purposes as well. I believe that it is not about communicating one way to get donors, the chance that comes for NGOs nowadays is bigger. It could engage people not only to donate, but also to involve them, make a cause important to them, connecting with people, leaving comments, spreading the word and helping to make the cause out in the world. Not because they are told it is important, but because they think it is important.