The Madera Group supports United4Iran.org’s global day of solidarity on Saturday, July 25th. Untited4Iran is a non-partisian group of individuals working to end the widespread and systematic violations of the people of Iran’s human and civil rights. In just three weeks United4Iran participation has grown to over 110 cities worldwide.

The Madera Group has been assisting United4Iran.org with website strategy, social networking and video production and coordination.

Nobel Peace Laureates, prominent Iranian poets & artists, and many others support the global day of action including: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Sean Penn, Dariush, Jody Williams, Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Simin Behbahani, and Ismael Khoii.

Please watch this excellent video, produced by a participant in Amsterdam to support the event.

The Clinton Foundation and Madera Group launched a new video about the Clinton Foundation Millennium Network’s work to inspire young philanthropists to become the “How Generation.”

President Clinton joined more than 600 young leaders in Los Angeles at the Millennium Network reception on April 30th. Actors Jessica Alba and Adrian Grenier were hosts, and Will.i.am performed. President Clinton challenged the audience to answer the great questions of our time: How can we leave a positive impact on the next generation? How can we make individual changes in our lives to make a large difference in the world? As Madera’s Executive Producer, I produced the “How Generation” video for the Clinton Foundation, with David Driver as the Director of Photography. We shot the video on location with a high definition camera. As you will see from watching the video, the overflow crowd provided a lively backdrop for our interviews.

As a follow up to the Millennium Network reception, the Clinton Foundation and Madera Group created an email message to share the video with the network’s supporters. (Click Image)

To learn more about the Clinton Foundation Millennium Network, visit their Facebook Cause page.

It’s a strategic and creative decision to start planning as the holiday giving season approaches. For Madera Group clients, Erik Johnson produces online videos. During a recent project, he traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, with a team of videographers to document Sarah Palin’s background.

My colleague Michael Stein recently highlighted 11 tips on using online video to raise money, by Michael Hoffman of see3 communications.

1. Tell a story.

If you want your audience to identify with your mission, you need a compelling story that connects your work to real people. If a story moves you, it will likely move others as well—and become the foundation for deeper involvement.

2. Be relevant.
People respond to what’s going on around them, so try to relate to the news or the calendar as much as possible. You’ll also have a better chance at success if you’re pitching your video to bloggers or other websites—they’re always looking for something current and fresh.

3. Tell them what you want.
You have their attention, now tell your viewers how you want them to engage, whether it’s donating money, visiting a website or volunteering. They won’t know to give unless you ask for it.

4. Be brief.
Few people are watching your 7-minute online video—that only works when you have them locked in a room. Try to get everything out in 2 minutes or less.

5. Videos don’t raise money by themselves.
Your organization should think of online video as one of many tools to fit into your fundraising program. Adopting video into your organization is critical, but it has to be a means instead of an end.

6. Embed video on your donations page.
The distance between the “play” button and the “donate” button should be short. Also, give your viewer the right web tools. Can the viewer forward the video to a friend, subscribe to your RSS feed, get involved, and sign up for your newsletter right there on the spot? If not, they should.

7. Put video at the center of a campaign.
Video is often best used in the context of a campaign. A campaign can be raising money for a particular village, trying to reach a specific goal, or giving limited to a specific timeframe.

8. Empower your viewers.
Ever heard of peer-to-peer fundraising? Encourage your audience to pass your videos along. Make the embed code easily accessible within your page so your video can reach a broader audience.

9. Create a media library.
Start gathering your footage now—you might have all the ingredients already! Building a media library is a valuable long-term asset for your organization. Have a camera ready for every important event. Ask volunteers to document their work and make it available for future events, trainings and online use. Using existing footage you get more bang for the buck.

10. Test.
You don’t know if something works unless you test it. Send out emails with video and some without, and measure the results. Each nonprofit will have different nuances, and you’ll want to know when using video is most effective.

11. Know when not to use video.
Truth is, your strongest donors will likely donate with or without online video. They have been already, right? They don’t need any extra convincing. Use online video for attracting new audiences, for driving specific campaigns, for empowering your membership to spread your story or for deepening or expanding existing relationships.

1. Optimize operations and resource allocation: Kiva President Premal Shah is focusing on “mind blowing efficiency” in his organization. Meanwhile, William Meehan, a senior director at McKinsey & Company, pointed out that nonprofits spend 20-30% of funds to raise money, while in the commercial markets, this figure is less than 1%.

While for-profit and nonprofit organizations have differing operating goals and milestones and measure success by differing values, social profit organizations can continually refine and optimize resources for impact. The most innovative social impact organizations hold this tightly in their operating philosophy.

2. Measure social impact, not moral value: Most panelists throughout the day emphasized producing measurable results, including program officers, social investors and executive directors. Interestingly, William Meehan suggested leaving the philosophical questions for another time and focusing on inputs and outputs for measurement. Ironically, most of us who give to charitable organizations do not ask for these figures or measurements.

3. Develop the appropriate strategy for your own organizational culture:
While highly innovative, the market for online giving marketplace is still in its infancy—well under $500 million in annual giving (from a survey of the largest online giving marketplaces including Network for Good, MissionFish, Kiva, and DonorsChoose). As a comparison figure, all foundation giving in 2007 was approximately $43 billion (Foundation Center).

4. Create picture and profile functionality: When building a giving marketplace, user profiles from a donor and beneficiary standpoint are very helpful and can cause significant bumps in online donor activity—as simple as the ability to upload photos and have donors write a few lines about their participation. People clearly respond to pictures, connectivity and interactivity. The success of profile functionality in donor response is another example of the narrative storytelling approach Madera Group emphasizes in our online communications and fundraising work with our clients.

5. Focus on trust and build transparency in the process:
Similar to more traditional fundraising, in online giving marketplaces building trust and creating transparency in the process is fundamental. Echoed by multiple panelists, one cannot emphasize the importance of supporting donor relationships with radical transparency about how their donations are put to use in supporting an organization’s mission and growth.

Neelu Jain
is an Organizational Strategist with Madera Group. She brings expertise in social capital design, operations, and investment strategies for nonprofit and for-profit clients. She received her MBA from UCLA Anderson School.

My Madera Group colleague Erik Johnson recently completed a trip to Alaska, where he worked on a series of videos to capture a deeper understanding of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Erik joined a team of highly respected Bay Area producers, camera operators, editors and musicians … and the Wasilla Project began.

The goal of the project is to produce a series of short video portraits of Sarah Palin and her hometown that could be a valuable addition to the national debate and the mainstream media news coverage, and to produce videos that can speak to issues that touch undecided voters on “Main Street.”

The team determined before arriving in Alaska that they were going to interview both Republicans and Democrats—what mattered most was getting to people who knew her and had knowledge about her policies and beliefs first hand. The team has just completed its first video that focuses on victims of sexual assault who have to pay for the gathering of forensic evidence for their own cases. The team interviewed people involved in the issue to make their interviews available online.

View the Wasilla Project videos on YouTube.

— Feliciano dos Santos

Here in San Francisco we are fortunate to have the inspiring annual Goldman Environmental Awards. The financial prize increased this year to $150,000, which is a significant cash resource for the local activists from around the world. Many of the award recipients work tirelessly for relatively little compensation. The 2008 winners are from Mexico, Mozambique, Russia, Ecuador, Belgium, and Puerto Rico.

I was particularly moved by Feliciano dos Santos from Mozambique,
working on sustainable development issues through music-based outreach
about sanitation.

When Feliciano came on stage at the Opera House, he gave a moving speech about his work to educate local villagers about personal hygiene and sanitation, as Mozambique is prone to water borne illnesses. Feliciano was struck with polio as a child, so he knows the critical importance of public education. Feliciano sang for us his now famous song, “Wash your Hands.” As a result of incorporating hygiene messages in his music, people throughout Mozambique have begun to focus more on the country’s rural sanitation problems. You can watch a video profile about him here.

I hope you and your family will take sometime on Earth Day to make a commitment to action and environmental education.  To learn more about the other Goldman Prize award winners click here.

It is hard to believe that this week is already the 38th anniversary of Earth Day. Once a marginalized holiday for those of us working within the environmental movement, it has now become a global emergency call to address climate change and numerous other environmental threats.

Madera Group produced a video to help launch the rebranding of International Rivers. The organization works to protect rivers and human rights around the world. It has played a crucial role in building a global river protection movement fostering grassroots organizations in more than 60 countries and promoting leadership though technical and strategic advice.

International Rivers’ rebranding process involved dropping “Network” from its name, upgrading its website and creating a new logo. Paddy McCully (International Rivers’ Executive Director), Andre Carothers (Rockwood Leadership Program’s Executive Director and IR Board member) and I came up with a parody of Bob Dylan’s classic Subterranean Homesick Blues film to describe the throes of NGO rebranding. We thought the project would be more fun than Paddy talking on camera about how the new look and feel of the International Rivers web site is part of a larger strategy to grow their organization’s mission.

The team shot the video several weeks ago on the Russian River in Guerneville, California, on a very windy afternoon which proved to be challenging for Paddy’s orchestration of the cards and his natural comic timing.

Berkeley…
After seven years of bringing leading environmental thinkers, green builders, endless hours of community planning and a lengthy public approval process, the David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza, is ready to break ground in April. http://www.browercenter.org/ and http://www.rcdev.org/.

STOP …
But wait … this is Berkeley so a few well-organized opponents of affordable housing are circulating misinformation and a Referendum Petition designed to stop the project. Tom Bates, the Mayor who has actively supported the project, and the Berkeley City Council voted on numerous occasions to support it.

The Brower Center/Oxford Plaza now has eight days to unleash the fighting spirit of David Brower, the grandfather of the contemporary environmental movement so his legacy will finally be secure in his hometown of Berkeley, California.

So please, Berkeley voters do not sign the petition! Let the organizers of the project and the City of Berkeley co-create a world class green building that can become home to leading environmental change agents and local housing for residents. Background on the David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza

The David Brower Center, scheduled to start building in April 2007 and open in 2008, will be a multi-tenant nonprofit center in downtown Berkeley, and the hub for the Bay Area’s environmental and progressive communities. Inside this LEED Platinum-rated building, activists, students, and visitors from around the world will meet, eat, exchange ideas, and work toward a just and sustainable society. With more than 50,000 square feet of space, the Brower Center will include conference facilities, 3 floors of office space, the 175 seat Richard and Rhoda Goldman theater, meeting rooms, an art gallery, and restaurant/café. The Center is designed with the latest in green building technology, and will both meet its tenants’ needs for affordable and collaborative workspace, and offer an educational resource and gathering place for the general public.

The Brower Center will be located in downtown Berkeley, facing the University of California, one block from the Berkeley BART station. The Center’s top three floors will house environmental nonprofit organizations such as Earth Island Institute, Build it Green, Center for Ecoliteracy, and International Rivers Network. Numerous nonprofits have expressed serious interest in renting offices; interest which exceeds available office space by three times.

The Brower Center shares the site with it’s nonprofit building partner Resources for Community Development, which is building Oxford Plaza—97 units of affordable family homes over new street-level retail stores. While only 6% of Berkeley’s housing stock is affordable, 100% of the Oxford Plaza units will be permanently affordable to low income residents. Oxford Plaza will be a thriving contribution to downtown, a source of empowerment for Berkeley’s low income families and individuals, and a model for sustainable and environmentally sensitive housing.

To learn more about the projects or to volunteer to stop the petition drive please contact:

David Brower Center, (510) 486-0286, www.browercenter.org
Oxford Plaza c/o Resources for Community Development, (510) 841-4410 x15, www.rcdev.org

Dr. Yunus, an economist, attended the forum to present his work combating poverty by providing small loans to rural women in Bangladesh. Gorbachev, then Governor Vicente Fox from Mexico, and the other heads of state at the meeting were deeply moved by Yunus’s humility, graciousness and profound presentation on alternatives to poverty.

Last Monday, Dr. Yunus won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. His work on behalf of poor rural women and his socially driven entrepreneurial work of the Grameen Bank has inspired hundreds of microcredit NGO’s around the world.

I knew then that Yunus had inspired and made a significant impact on the several hundred delegates at the meeting, including several leading women’s rights advocates such as the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Nell Merlino, founder of Take our Daughters to Work. (In the last few years it was renamed to include sons.) http://www.daughtersandsonstowork.org/. Nell is now the CEO of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, the first online micro lender. http://www.count-me-in.org/.

Here in the Bay Area, my colleague Adriana Dakin and I are working as consultants to Julie Abrams, the CEO of Women’s Initiative for Self Employment (http://www.womensinitiative.org). She is another up-and-coming leader in the field of microenterprise. When Julie spoke earlier this month at her organization’s fundraiser, she recognized founder Paulette Meyer, who this week received a Jefferson Award for her work as a local hero. In its 18-year history, Women’s Initiative has served 15,000 women, radically changing the lives of women and families by providing empowering business training and micro-loans.

Some of the most prominent Bay Area businesswomen team up with Women’s Initiative to make a positive impact on the success of high-potential, lower-income women. The program has been so successful at helping women raise their earnings that the organization is expanding to three additional counties around the Bay Area in 2007. We know Julie works long hours to achieve the organization’s mission.

This holiday season, we owe her and other changemakers a gift of gratitude for finding effective ways to improve the lives of thousands of women every year in the most tangible and inspiring ways.

As this year comes to an end please consider making a contribution to Women’s Initiative. To learn more and donate now please go to: http://www.womensinitiative.org.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and joy filled Holiday Season!