Sally Hall has discovered a video is better than a 1000 words when it comes to funding applications

This time last year I was – quite literally – buzzing. The community beekeeper project I volunteered with had polled thousands of public votes to win £20,000 of People’s Project funds.

Key to this success was a video (see below) we’d submitted in support of our application. Three minutes of shaky, blurry, amateur phone footage held together with a strong narrative and a clear statement of our aim – to educate people about the importance of bees.

When I first saw the footage, gathered from volunteers’ phones, I wondered whether it was worth the effort to knit it together. The application didn’t require a video submission, so why bother?

Honey, I involved the kids (and the old folks and everyone) from There's Yer Dinner on Vimeo.

But when I looked up the other applicants in our area, at past winners and their about us’ information it became the obvious thing to do. Videos showcasing the work of organisations and outlining their funding needs were thin on the ground.

Surely a shaky, blurry film was better than nothing? I wrote a script, shot all the extra footage needed on the kids’ iPad and covered a fellow beekeeper with a cardboard box for soundproofing as she recorded the voiceover direct onto the computer. A bit of editing and hey ho, we were good to go.

We skipped through the People’s Project’s preliminary stages to make the final six. The video was tweaked to ask the public to vote for us and was a major part of our ‘Bee Friendly campaign’. We recorded the second highest vote in Scotland, won our grant and had Big Lottery Fund congratulate us on the video, asking us to submit more like it [insert link to Avondale Community Beekeepers vimeo page? https://vimeo.com/avondalebeekeepers] as the project moved forward.

I say this, not to gloat, but because it was a lightbulb moment for me. With 84% of communications estimated to be visual by 2018, I was already in the process of adding film-making to my journalism and PR skills.

The question was how to offer something that was needed to the third sector. The bee movie helped show me a way forward.

Video lets an organisation bring their work, their people, and their impact to life and is the perfect tool to bolster grant applications, capital appeals, fundraising events and funding bids.

In the wake of budget cuts, when everyone is looking for a piece of the pie, video can make organisations stand out in a crowded market place. Some funders (Scottish Edge Fund, for example) are already asking for video submissions as part of the application process.

My advice is to embrace the visual.

Can your application be supported by video? If so, attempt to include one.

Take up funders’ offers of video advice or workshops. Talk to them before you start filming and let them hold your hand through any technical difficulties.

If you have the capability for in-house video, use it. The quality doesn’t need to be fantastic – but it does have to tell a good story and come from a genuine place.

Ask a film-maker to quote. Your bid already has to conform to certain criteria – it’s a straightforward short film. It’s a small outlay to help secure a large grant. And, with some straightforward edits, you can reuse the video for other purposes.

Most of my filmed work last year was to support fundraising activities and I had an 80% success rate, helping bring in £210,000 across all the organisations I worked with. Many have reused the films in different settings.

As a traditional hack I’ve struggled to understand the obsession with all things social media. But when I examine my own use of media I do skim read, I do have a short attention span, I do prefer to watch a video than read some long article online (well done, by the way, on getting this far in the blog!).

One last stat: it’s estimated that 79% of internet traffic will be video by next year. The question is not whether you can afford to have video support your funding application, it’s whether you can afford not to.

Sally Hall runs There’s Yer Dinner Creative Media

Filmraising with TYD from There's Yer Dinner on Vimeo.