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.

This is the second part of three part series about Media and the use for NGOs in their communication. Read the first part here.

Last week i was writing about the visual language and how we can use it to deliver different messages in our NGO work. Today is the next step. While last week it was more or less about visual media in general, i wanna look in todays post into the different types of media we have to tell the stories we want to tell. I will not exclusively talk about visual media as i think the other forms we have are powerful as well and it would be stupid to forget about them. So let’s jump right into it.

Words*

A lot of the communication an NGO is doing is coming through words, if it is at presentations, the brochures or the website. The written has still a big part in the form of communication. In my mind it has a couple of advantages. First: It could easily be adjusted to the needs of the story. With a photograph you might be missing in the story you can’t really reproduce it easily. Words at the same time ‘only’ need the knowledge and the experience to tell the story (leaving beside a general discussion about quality of storytelling). This means it is a easy to use way to communicate a story. At the same time the reader has to trust the words. A photograph, audio interview or videoclip is testimony that is (tough still subjective) in our perception closer to the truth. But, and this is also important, it is easier to draw a picture of complex situations or stories with words than with a photograph or the single perspective of one interview. With the use of the internet, in my opinion, also the way of how we consume has changed a lot. Long texts on NGO websites might be read only by few as the whole way of consuming content got way more visual in the last years.

Audio*

The closest to written words is for sure audio. It brings us a level of personal story that written words can hardly have. It also influences us emotionally way more than written words normally do. A big plus for 90% of the stories NGOs want to tell as most of the impact on people their stories have is on an emotional base. We get more of a certain person or some atmosphere sounds as well. It brings us more in the scene. It is not said for nothing that audio is in film 50% of the quality. Once watch a film without the sounds, i think it is crazy how fast you loose track of the story. At the same time audio is good adjustable in the editing of the direction of stories for instance.

Photography*

Photography has been widely used by NGOs. The quality might be very different, but the visual testimony of the situations and projects is a powerful tool. The biggest amount of people are visual learners. At same time photography is so powerful because it is static in one way, but that allows also the viewer to take time, wander around in the picture. The  situation is not changing, it gives time to build an emotional relationship. The viewer is able to find his own way into the story and through it. It is a testimony of a certain moment that try to tell the story. At this is also the point, why high quality photography can be so much more powerful in the impact on people. We are used to a huge amount of visual impact each day and a lot of photography is filled up with certain amount of related stories in our heads. That makes photography a very powerful emotional tool. One of the disadvantages of photography is one of it’s powerful abilities. It is only capturing one specific moment. Photoessays are one way to get over that problem.

Video*

Classic videostories about projects have always been a good way to share stories. It combines audio, moving images and the moving image is directing the viewer through the story. This is a huge difference to photography, not only because of the audio, but also because of the clear direction of the viewer. One could argue that photography can also direct the viewer with lines , light/shade and so on, but still video is faster, not giving so much time for the viewer and the moving part of the image has a huge power to draw the attention of the viewer. Used rightly it can have a huge impact on the knowledge side, but powerful photography might have the higher emotional impact.

Multimedia*

The combination of more or less everything what i said above could be found in multimedia. Many photojournalists right now jump on the multimedia train with extending their photoessays with audio to tell stories more deeply. It combines the power of both audio and photography in one. It could be easy to produce, when you combine for instance an interview with a set of pictures, as well. High level multimedia is something different tough, when it combines atmosphere sound, interviews and music, fine tuned to the pictures. But thinking back of what said about photography and video, a combination of those two with powerful audio could be the most powerful way. It combines the advantages of photography (making the viewer explore the scene himself, higher emotional impact, and so on) with the ability to transmit knowledge and direct the viewer to certain parts of the story. What that brings, when used right, is complex, but also quite obvious. It is a combination of the most powerful storytelling tools that could be very fine tuned on delivering the message. There are other advantages in multimedia i will talk about in the last part of the series, so stay tuned.

In the last part, that will be online in two weeks, i will write about the different ways to use media and deliver. We came from the general thoughts on how we want to tell something to the forms of media we can use to tell that. So in the last part it will be about the use of what we produced to deliver our story/ message to possible donors.

This is the first part of three part series about Media and the use for NGOs in their communication.

Last week i was writing about the project ‘Starved for Attention’ that MSF published recently in cooperation with the VII photo agency. They claimed to communicate the case of malnutrition in a new visual language to give it a fully new perspective and i was disappointed with the first published story by Marcus Bleasdale as it again was a series of b/w pictures from hospitals. The question is what is visual language and how can a NGO use it to get their message across. This little three part series will be about that, about the possibilities of visual language, the different types of media and what their advantages and disadvantages are plus as the last part, how to to use this media for different communication purposes. First starting today with some general thoughts on visual language.

WHAT’S THE STORY?*

Before we start thinking here about different ways of visual language, we have to think of the different stories that might be told. As a NGO there are different stories that are to tell with different purposes. When you take the example of ‘Starved for Attention’, this is all about creating awareness for the problem of malnutrition. Now there are different angles to approach that story. From the MSF staff to people affected. One of the big problems with all this crisis stories about starvation, war and IDP camps is that it is full of stereotypes. We have seen stories about that for years and (even when done with best intentions) it is hard to find an audience for this with the same dark B/W pictures on and on again. But more about that later.

Another purpose for and NGO could be to tell about their work to show people what actually happens with the money they donate. Most of the time this focuses on the projects, shows the relief it brings and maybe also that there is still need for more help.

A bit excluded from that is often the media that is used for campaigns like posters, brochures and so on. This is about advertising and the easiest way is to have some staged pictures or a clear concept for this purpose as it allows you to articulate your message really precise. This is a small line between capturing reality and something arranged. Something also worth to think a lot about.

Now after some thoughts on different purposes let’s think a bit of how to capture it for your use.

THE COLOR VS. B/W DISCUSSION*

As photographers, videographers and multimedia producers the visual aspects are how we tell stories. And for all of you that read this blog a bit more regularly, i’m a big fan of b/w photography, but at the same time a big critique for it’s use in some contexts. B/W has a big advantage and that is simplification. With taking away the aspect of color it is often easier to read, to focuses more on the basic aspects, in short, it is puristic. But as i said before it is especially in the context of Africa (sorry for this generalization) a widespread way to tell all those harsh stories that i believe makes many put it in a box. I’ve seen that before, another crisis in Africa. So the question is, can B/W be useful to tell your story or does it maybe takes the attention away as it’s use get’s all those stereotypical stories running. At the end it is about what you show and i’m a big fan of B/W use in many ways. It is just something to think about as it has a big influence on the atmosphere of your story.

WHO DO YOU WANNA REACH WITH YOUR STORY?*

The use of visual language is also as an NGO depended on who you wanna reach with your story and what you want to tell. While it might work well to have a set of B/W pictures or a video with someone telling you through a devasting story published when you want to point to a situation in need, it might in no way be the story you want to have out when you want to tell about your work there. The audience you want to approach with your story and what you want to tell them is from major importance. Quite obvious, right? But that also tells us that there is nothing like the perfect way to cover a situation. And it is important to think about the purpose of your story before you cover it. It’s not about going there and taking some snaps. Don’t forget, your media is maybe your most powerful tool to communicate and reach people directly and emotionally.

THE POWER OF PERSONAL STORIES*

I truly believe that most people want to be educated about a situation. One powerful and emotional way is to tell personal stories, like MSF did in there ‘Condition: Critical’ project. Let people tell their stories. It gives the audience the chance to connect (Way more than if you give overall facts of the situation. Numbers are abstract!) and more understand the situations they live it. It is not done without any facts maybe, but first of most people get attracted by an emotional impact. Beside the fact that giving the people a voice is in my personal opinion one of the major ways to show respect for their situation.

This can only be seen as a short introduction into the subject, some basic considerations and of course there are many more things to consider when thinking of visual language and how it could help you to tell the stories and connect with your audience. The next part (online next monday) will be about different types of media and the advantages and disadvantages they have.

This is great, folks. Just to start with that. It has never been easy to create visual media for NGOs in a way that both sides are happy with the outcome and the way the work is financed. Most of the (especially smaller) NGOs are notoriously under-funded, so one of the biggest struggle for a photographer who works with NGOs is to put a price on his work that could be paid by the NGO. I’m not talking of big NGOs, but for the small ones it is quite often a big struggle to get a photographer/ videographer to cover their projects. So many wish to have good media, because it is the most powerful tool for their marketing. It is what catches the attention of donors, it is what allows you to show directly and personal what you do. At the same time with the internet the even before visual driven society gets more into consuming pictures. So it needs high quality media to actually catch the attention of the audience. What brings the need for great visual storytellers, something what many NGOs can’t pay for.

Bringing in the Focus for Humanity foundation. Their aim is to give opportunities to exactly this two groups, the under-funded NGOs and the photographers who would like to work with this NGOs, but maybe can’t effort to put in their value for a small fee or even for free. The foundation has a broad rack of grants and awards, from workshop possibilities for the photographers to personal training to the NGO-Pro grant that gives up to 15.000 $ for a collaboration between a photographer and one of these under-funded NGOs. It must feel like a relief for some NGOs that see the power and value of high-quality visual media, but just could not effort to pay a photographer for that. Just weeks ago i was talking with the founder of the New York-based NGO MRA Africa about it and she was fighting so much with this task as on the one hand she could see how much it would help them in many ways to have this high-quality media to promote their work, but at the same time it was not affordable for them to pay someone properly for that. For NGOs like them that do really great work with a lot of impact in the areas they work (here it is in Kenya), but have nothing really to show that, it must feel like a relief that opportunities like this are coming up. And for us as photographers it is great as well as we can truly work on projects where we have passion for and where we believe in. It is a win-win situation and my hope is that the foundation is getting a lot of support in the future to allow them to even expand their efforts. But first of all: Thanks for that and Happy Birthday!

Check the website to find more information at www.focusforhumanity.org.

By the way, if you want to see my latest NGO work: I’m now able to publish the full multimedia story about Prostitution in Rwanda for the NGO Medsar. You can check it here.

…… about prostitution …….. the private life of ancille: video I words ……. the private life of clotide: video I words ……. spac

(click on the links to get to the individual films)....

10 tactics for turning information into action, the title of this project directly catched my attention. Not only is it an important question i have to ask myself quite often when i plan projects, as i want to reach people, maybe not directly make them act, but at least make them take care about the issues. But it is also interesting to think about when you work with NGOs as this is what they wanna do, turning information into action, and it’s never wrong to know what works, what are concepts, what works not, what are issues to think about.

The guys behind ’10 tactics for turning information into action’ used the opportunity when they held an info-activism camp in India what brought together more than 100 human rights advocates. The series of ten short films they produced are the outcome of their interviews, featuring different projects and approaches and let them talk about what they think works. So be inspired by this project. By the way, tactical tech, what is behind that project, also offers some interesting brochures and toolkits.

Here is the trailer. For all shortfilms visit their website here or their vimeo account here.

“In moments of crisis, I myself have never greatly trusted words” – Laurens van der Post

As photographers we sometimes like to think about our pictures as art or at least as something with a high value. Or something very important, when it is about telling stories. And thinking in a commercial way, the value of the photograph that is used for an ad campain is high, without a doubt. Reason number one: It reaches a big audience that hopefully will react on the advertising. But what is the value of our pictures when we do documentary work? When we take pictures of lifes and areas in crisis? It is important and i think everyone who is doing this job is first of all believing in that this is important and no one is doing it for the money that in the business, as there is not much of it. This is not getting a ground discussion of the meaning of photojournalism and documentary photography, this are some thoughts of what value we bring to NGOs, as potential clients, with our work.

Let’s switch a bit between the perspective of a photographer and of an NGO. What are their motivations and why is visual media in general a good way to communicate? A NGO has normally one major goal: It wants to help people in one way or another. For that they normally also have a true motivation to create awareness for the issues, as more awareness means more people that might donate or support the efforts in other ways. And this is the part where the media comes in. I always think about my work as a form of communication. I don’t consider myself an artist in the classical way. I try to create something aesthetic to attract and move as many people as possible. I want to tell the stories, but if you want to reach people the aesthetics is one major part beside others. NGOs want to tell the stories, about the people’s situations (to create awareness that there is a need to help), about their projects (to show what is done) and what is achieved (to show that it actually works). How can photography help there? It is quite obvious that there is a big chance that pictures reach people more directly as most people learn visually. Another reason is for visual media as a form of communication are the high-paced times we live in. Most people will barely read a long report from projects or crisis (especially not on the internet), and if, it might be way harder the emotionally reach them. Helping someone is first of all highly emotional. Politicians might support countries for rational reasons, but what is the rational reason for a single person for supporting a godchild somewhere in Africa? Pictures or video have the power to give people the understanding of a situation they could only imagine when they read about it. It is more direct and therefore maybe also more emotional. So we as photographers seem to be on the right side. There should be a high value in commissioning a photographer to document projects or crisis a NGO is working in. But why isn’t it like that? Why are many NGO are barely paying for photography?

One of the reasons is that especially photography was easy to reach for them. Photojournalists were paid by magazines and could offer some of their pictures and/or time for free. That is today barley the fact. So why pay for something a lot of money when you could get it for free? That is especially for the bigger NGOs the case, i think, as they also have more contacts to photographers, could offer them access to areas and things like that. One Question in that is still if this photographs they might get for free always perfectly work, when they are just part of another assignment that is not specific about the NGO or their work.

NGOs have in general a hard position when it comes to spending money for something else than their projects, for something else than what they are set out to do: Help people. No one wants to donate money for a photographer, but to help people. How to give people the feeling that their money is actually helping and is not getting lost in a big machinery of office costs, advertising, events. That is in my perception another reason why NGOs try to keep that costs as low as possible. It is difficult to communicate especially when you are not sure that it will bring back the money you spent. And at the end it is the wrong thought to think that someone, a NGO (or a company) is paying for something where there are not sure if it will bring back the money they spent on it or create the awarness the campain should reach. And as said a NGO might be even more sensible for everything outside their direct projects.

From my experience so far (working together with smaller NGOs) it seems like that one other reason is that many NGOs do not know how to use the photography, what means it has no value. To bring up the beginning thought about the value of commercial photography again, what brings the value is coming with the same. The value is only there when it is reaching people, when you get people involved in the issue and projects, when they donate money. So thinking of a small NGO with few staff, no real marketing or public relations, some volunteer people donateing some time now and then, the major problem is to use the photography or video they should pay you for, when they have no channels to actually bring it to enough people to bring back the costs for it. And when no one is experienced with photography, the value of good pictures compared to some medicore pictures shot in the field, how should you tell them that they should pay you a flight and a dayrate for some pictures they use on their website afterwards? There is not enough value in this. Especially when the website is also done in the same style as the pictures were used to be. Also great pictures will not reach their value when it is presented in a not attracting way.

So do NGOs need photographers or visual media in general? Of course, but they need more than that. Everytime i worked with NGOs they asked me also for help to bring the stories out afterwards, to reach people. And if not, the stuff just got lost somewhere on their website without being recogniced at all. Maybe NGOs (especially smaller ones) need not only someone who is taking great pictures, great video, great multimedia, does great storytelling, maybe what they really need is someone who could offer them concepts. Who not stops after delivering the pictures, video or multimedia piece, who has a vision how to tell the stories that it works for the NGO, who could help to reach people, who knows a bit about marketing, about channels to reach people, about the possibilities of the use of different forms of media. Who brings in not only his abbility to shot great imagery, but also his knowledge how to get the audience. Someone who knows how to squezze the highest value for the NGO out of the assignment.

I want to tell stories that i think are important to tell. This is why i use video, photography, audio and words, because each medium has weaknesses and strengths. And i want that they are told direct and honest. And of course i want to reach as many people as possible with my stories. And i think that is the case for many who work in that field. So shouldn’t we be experts in what  i wrote before anyway? And isn’t it also not part of our job that we educate NGO staff about the value of visual media, not only to send us to the places in need (and pay for it), but also to get with a few steps more out of the staff pictures to rise the quality of visual communication on the average? Not for every issue there is the need for a photographer, sometimes the pictures of staff could be even more direct, when they are presented with personal stories for instance, but they will only reach people when they are good enough to tell the stories and when there are enough possibilities to communicate it to a bigger audience.

It is a quite difficult topic in any way and my thoughts in one or another direction are far from being thought to the end. But maybe there are also other important thoughts that i’m missing?

One of the main goals of my work is to bring also the normal parts of life into my stories. And my experience was that every situation has this normal parts, no matter if you are in Europe or in the DR Congo (where i got one of the best cakes of my life for instance). There is more than the news hitting sad & horrific stories.  My impression is that the human being is like that, highly adaptable and finding the ‘normal’ in everything. There might be differences in the situation, in the culture and there is nothing what makes war and poverty less horrific, but this is one side of it. It might be the part that influences life to a big extend and many other things are like that because of this, but it seems like that everyone is searching for the normality in the state of emergency, if you could call it like that. And the refugee in Congo without a home and the fear to get raped or killed by rebels or die because of some disease might be more in this state as the poor mother of three living somewhere in the Kibera slum in Nairobi.

Why i’m writing all this? Because i think it is important to think about that from time to time. That it is important to also get the other sides. From journalists you often hear that they are searching for the truth. And they might find this, but in many news stories it is about the state of emergency and not about what is existing beside or in that. One part of the truth is that we follow each other, that we are influenced by eachother. I was writing recently about redundancy in the coverage from Haiti. This is part of the story. Maybe it is important to step beside the obvious path from time to time. To get off the beaten track and search for something different than what you are used to. Find the stories beside the stereotypes we are seeing and reactivating on and on again. Why that is important, beside treating the people you photograph with the sensibility and respect they deserve? It is also important for all the people in Europe or the US that might be interested in that and see it. Just because it is important for the understanding of situations. In my mind, part of the job is also to educate people in the way, that you deliver knowledge and impressions. And when we want to step out of the stereotype way, tell stories differently, we have to find the other stories, to bring a deeper and brighter understanding of situations. That there is life, normal life, that a slum for instance is not a unorganized space of lawlessness, but that the people there are organized as well, that they organize their lifes, that there are structures and daily routines, that the informal sector is making it possible, that they sell drinks or fruits in a slum as well, that there are shops. That it is not a lost space, but actually a place where a lot of energy of many big cities in Africa is coming from. They might not have running water or electricity, what makes the situation hard and also brings many problems and dangers for their lifes, criminality might be a problem, but it is only one part of it. The biggest part is still the normal life, the daily routines and all that. And it is important to bring the other sides to attention, because we can’t understand to a situation as long as we can’t relate to it. The horror is the thing what brings up our attention for a short period of time, but in the moment something becomes more diverse, it also has the chance to get more interesting. And i really think that this should be the starting point for most coverage, no matter if it’s in Europe, Afganisthan, Thailand or the DRC, to make people interested beyond the point of sensationalism. Only then we bring something the attention it needs to make a long-term difference. Not in the way to help people, but first to understand them a little bit better and bring them closer.

Sometimes this stories do not have to be far away from the classic story. Sometimes it is enough to change the perspective a little bit. For instance many people have to live in IDP camps in DR Congo. We know that because we see all the pictures of people fleeing or standing in long rows waiting for food. But is that daily life in a refugee camp? Maybe not. Who knows how a refugee camp is organized or what the daily habits in of the people living there are? To be honest, many of this situations are quite different to what we have experienced ourselves and hopefully will never experience. But it is about perspective. And about respect. At least to try to understand it.

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