10 Ideas for Your Next Nonprofit Livestream
Are you taking advantage of live streaming?
According to a recent survey by Livestream and New York Magazine, 82% of audiences prefer live video from a brand over a social media post.
So if you’re not doing live videos, you could be losing out on a potential goldmine of donors and supporters. With live streaming, you will generate more visibility for your organization and get your word out that much faster.
One of the biggest challenges that nonprofits have with live streams is coming up with ideas or topics. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Once you do a few live streaming sessions and start analyzing the engagement rates and feedback, you’ll start to get a sense of what your audience likes and doesn’t like.
In the meantime, here are 10 tried-and-tested ideas that you can use for your next live stream:
Take your audience behind the scenes
People love to know what goes on behind the scenes. Show your viewers the nitty-gritty of everything your team is doing in the buildup towards a launch, event, or fundraiser. Highlight how your team will get things ready, what went wrong, and what went right. The more natural and human it is, the more appealing it is.
Share a success story
Dedicate a live session to a success story. If you were able to build a small school complete with desktops for a tiny village in India, showcase the school, the children, and how it has changed their lives or benefited them. You could even show mini-interviews with the children.
Nothing about this reeks of self-promotion. At the end of the day, it’s about getting your work out in front of people so that people can see the impact of what you do.
Educate for free
People love to learn new things, especially if it's in an area that concerns them personally. If your foundation caters to breast cancer awareness, your live streams can focus on sharing information on how to maintain breast health or how to detect early warning signs of breast cancer, for instance. Providing free education is a great way to connect with your audience.
Interview a subject-matter expert
Building on the educate-for-free idea, consider doing a live interview with a subject-matter expert. For the example above, you could invite a breast cancer specialist or an oncologist (cancer specialist) to discuss specific topics of interest. Ask your audience to come up with the topics.
Once you finalize the topic, your audience can even come up with the questions. They will enjoy being a part of the planning process. In fact, ask your audience to suggest topics for future live streams on any subject related to your work.
Show how people can get involved
Once you have a decent audience of active and engaged members, you can think about putting out a video on how people can get involved further. For instance, if your nonprofit organization is about environmental protection, invite members to a tree-planting event you’ve planned.
You could even ask for one-time participation or part-time volunteers for specific events. Talk about your plans and how their participation is going to benefit and impact the environment.
Interview a team member or volunteer
An exciting way for the audience to get to know you is to have live sessions where you interview team members or volunteers. They can talk about the inspiring reasons they decided to support the organization, the most rewarding parts of their volunteership, and even those special moments when they realized what a difference they made.
This gives the audience insight into the culture of your organization and may even motivate people to want to pitch in.
Stream live from a nonprofit event
Live-stream your nonprofit event, so your audience feels like they’re a part of it. Talk them through what to expect and share commentary as you go through the event. Make the experience as interactive as possible.
Host a giveaway or online contest
Offer a prize or giveaway in exchange for sharing your live videos or adding more friends on Facebook. The person who shares the most or adds the most friends to the group gets the prize. Invite people to share their talents on video and ask the audience to vote. Announce the winner at the end.
Talk about your ‘why’
Often when non-profit organizations are created, there’s a story behind it. Use one live stream to talk about your big why. Use the storytelling guide and template I shared earlier. Talking about your why helps people to get to know you better and understand your motivation. You will be able to get more people involved if they’ve had a chance to get to know you and like you.
Do a live fundraiser
Another idea is to do a live fundraiser. For instance, you could do a live auction where a volunteer displays the items while a commentator manages the live auction and bids. You can also sell tickets, classes, dining experiences, gift baskets, or care packages.
Have you ever done a live stream before? What did you learn from the experience? Share in the comments!