Michael Davis, Supervisor of Operations, Palo Alto Downtown Streets Team
“The work we produced with Micro-Documentaries has been an amazingly effective marketing tool for our organization, both as individual pieces and a series. We’ve used our microdocs with great success to introduce presentations, showing the audience what we do in under two minutes, instead of our usual 15 minute explanation. That gives us more time to engage with our audiences in other ways. From production through delivery and distribution, Micro-Documentaries have supported our efforts as true partners, alleviating the burden on our staff with their streamlined process.”
Chris Richardson, Program Manager, Downtown Streets Team
Chris Richardson, Program Manager, Downtown Streets Team
Background: The Downtown Streets Team is a nonprofit organization that provides a unique solution to curbing homelessness by providing food, shelter and restored sense of dignity to those willing to work. The members of the team clean the streets, cut trees, line soccer fields and perform janitorial work at one of their government or nonprofit contracts.
Because homelessness affects more than just those without shelter, including numerous community members, the challenge of the Downtown Streets Team was to effectively convey a multitude of perspectives in order to build their case for expanding their successful model. Ideally, they wanted to provide the executive staff with light-weight communications tools to show audiences the impact of the organization while inviting the audience to get involved
Because homelessness affects more than just those without shelter, including numerous community members, the challenge of the Downtown Streets Team was to effectively convey a multitude of perspectives in order to build their case for expanding their successful model. Ideally, they wanted to provide the executive staff with light-weight communications tools to show audiences the impact of the organization while inviting the audience to get involved
Dennis Burns, Police Chief, City of Palo Alto
What We Did Together:
- In order to provide a broad perspective on the issue, we identified key parties involved in the urban homelessness ecosystem. For example, the formerly homeless team member offered his journey of transformation, the Police Chief provided a credible expert opinion on the matter and the downtown shopkeeper gave a testimonial of her experience with people who were homeless.
- For increased narrative and visual impact, we filmed each spokesperson in their authentic work environments. In this way we were able to give the audience the sense of being on tour with the Downtown Streets Team.
- The modularity of this series was such that each microdoc could be used individually to illustrate a particular point or strung together, in the case of an event. The Downtown Streets Team distributed their micro-documentaries by email, on their website, on Facebook and Twitter. They also used them as part of a TV commercial aired on local Bay Area television stations.
Faith Bell, Owner, Bell’s Books
Points to Ponder:
- What are the different points of views that can illustrate your impact? Who might be able to tell those stories on your behalf? Who can discuss your issue with authority and credibility?
- How might you film your micro-documentaries in a way that brings the spokesperson’s stories to life and helps the audience experience the impact of your work?
- How might you leverage a single series of micro-documentaries for a variety of communications and fundraising purposes?
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