NGO Video Blog

During a recent trip to Johannesburg for a corporate client, I was introduced to Johan Bester, Managing Director of Space to Say (www.spacetosay.com), a not-for-profit initiative to accelerate social and economic development in South Africa.  Johan’s day job is running Communication Works, a management and business development consultancy, and he is now setting out to build a constructive network of partnerships and interaction between bigger businesses and people who need a leg up, in particular disadvantaged schools, black women entrepreneurs and their respective stakeholders in South Africa. His vision is to promote five key principles in business: honesty, integrity, fairness, self-belief and putting others first, and to create role models by enabling people to tell their own stories about how these values have helped them to succeed.

Johan impressed me with his passionate commitment to his cause. He has high hopes that Space to Say will have a big impact on business and education in South Africa and perhaps, in due course, exert influence further afield. At NGO Video we’ll look at ways in which we may be able to support his initiative.

Here’s a short film I produced recently for MSF to coincide with World Malaria Day on Sunday April 25. It’s self-explanatory….
Feel free to embed it in your own blog or website.

I’ve been in Davos all week at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, producing nightly highlights footage for broadcasters around the world.

It’s the usual mixture of fun, chaos, early mornings, late nights, endless security checks and very hard work – 2,500 delegates participating in a bewildering range of sessions and discussions across a vast range of political, social and economic topics.. from the global economic crisis – naturally – to social entrepreneurship to female genital mutilation. All human life is here!

Also here as usual is a strong representation from NGOs, CSOs, UN bodies, and other non-profit organisations with a social or political point to make.

Extraordinarily, this year within days of the start of the conference,organisers added extra sessions and invited additional speakers to deal with the topic of the Haiti earthquake and the world’s response to it. Former US President Bill Clinton, WFP executive Director Josette Sheeran and UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman were among those to make impassioned contributions on the subject.

To add to their quotes, we interviewed for our package Tom Arnold, Chief Executive of Concern International, who spoke eloquently of the need for a strategic, coordinated approach to helping Haiti in the long term, once the dust has settled. His invitation to speak had come only five days earlier.

Delegates are now heading home, satellite dishes coming down, flightcases being loaded out, journalists packing up. After hours and hours of talk, and hundreds of articles and broadcast reports, let’s hope somewhere, somehow it makes a difference.

We have our first training course under our belt – and a great success it was too.

In mid-January Médecins Sans Frontières invited me out to Paris to coach a number of their communications staff across Europe in the  production and distribution of news footage.

We examined how to produce an agency-style “news edit”, with newsworthy soundbites, that could be picked up by agencies, news exchanges and broadcasters and retransmitted or repurposed with little extra work. We also looked at writing scripts and shotlists that were clear and relevant to the story.

By chance the course took place at the height of the Haiti earthquake aftermath. A number of news items were received from Haiti via FTP while our sessions were in progress, so the class was able to see these recut, scripted and sent out to Reuters, AP, the EBU and ENEX with a great deal of success.

Comments from some of the participants:

“It really explains why we haven’t always had success in the past when we’ve sent B-roll to the agencies – yes, we had the content but we were by no means presenting them with a ’story’.”

“The training course given by David on ‘What and How to provide a story to news agencies’ was fantastically useful and interesting and we’re already reaping the benefits.”

“It became obvious what we lacked and how we can improve.”

And the Reuters TV Paris bureau chief made these comments about Haiti footage MSF sent out using the methods learnt on the course:

“I was really impressed by the MSF’s swift delivery of topical material. It was tightly shot, well cut and most importantly delivered in a timely manner. The inclusion of dopesheets with your material makes it particularly easy to handle.”

Last word to MSF UK’s Head of Communications Polly Markandya:

“I have been extremely impressed at the coverage that MSF has had since the course was run. Previously we were putting a lot of effort into producing video that was rarely used, and since the course we have had tremendous take up of our results.”

When is an NGO not an NGO?  On a recent trip to Geneva we spoke to a number of eminent international organizations involved in aid, development and advocacy to canvass their views on what NGO Video had to offer.

In the midst of largely positive and supportive comments, it was suggested by more than one person that we should change our name because it might be seen as too prescriptive.  The argument is that many of our potential clients and partners are not strictly NGOs or, at any rate, do not choose to present themselves as such.  There is now a bewildering proliferation of alternative descriptions including, amongst others, civil society organization (CSO), international non-governmental organization (INGO), grassroots support organization (GSO), technical assistance non-governmental organization (TANGO) and donor organized non-governmental organization (DONGO).  Then of course there are the intergovernmental organizations (INGOs), charities and other not-for-profit bodies that might sometimes find our services useful.

We appreciated the advice but, after careful consideration, we’ve decided to stick with our name.  This may seem perverse, but there are good reasons.  From the other side of the fence  -  the news community  -  we’ve received huge interest and enthusiasm for what we are trying to do.  We chose the name NGO Video because it immediately makes sense to the media.  We bridge the gap between news agencies, broadcasters and internet news channels and what they categorise as ‘NGOs’.  Like it or not, the media use the ‘NGO’ label as convenient shorthand. Your status can be clarified once you’re through the door and talking so, what’s in a name? If it helps to get your story or issue on air, then surely that’s what really matters?

After 20 years as a journalist with one of the major TV news agencies, and then working through the noughties producing video for corporate clients, I decided I’d reached a point in  my life where I could usefully contribute my skills and knowledge to the humanitarian sector.

With this in mind, in the summer of 2009 I began doing consultancy work, on a voluntary basis, with Médecins sans Frontières.  MSF were very appreciative of my input in helping them sharpen up their broadcast offering, and make their footage more appealing to TV news editors.  It quickly dawned on me that other NGOs, intergovernmental agencies and  not-for-profit organisations around the world might also want to benefit from the perspective of the “other side”, the broadcasters and agencies they are trying to reach.

For many years as an intake editor and producer  I sometimes – not always, but often – found myself disappointed at the broadcast and interview opportunities that were lost or wasted, with footage that could or should have been used if only it had been better produced or more swiftly delivered.  Through NGO Video I’m hoping to bring my “user’s” perspective to other communicators in the non-profit sector with the aim of remedying that situation.