CAFF priorities met: Expanding Community Philanthropy; Building Local Leadership
As an initial founder of the Columbus Big Give, the Columbus Area Future Fund has been closely involved with the Big Give event for four years currently. Each year the event has grown and helped to connect area donors with nonprofits. But another great part about the Columbus Big Give is that it also helps to connect nonprofits with each other, and to enhance their fundraising skills.
Such was the case this year as the Fund helped to bring a professional video company to Columbus for a series of trainings for nonprofits to learn how to shoot and edit fundraising videos themselves. The company, called Nonprofit Film School, specializes in storytelling and covered a variety of topics during their two-hour training sessions with nonprofits including: developing stories, on-camera interviewing techniques and the fundamentals of editing.
All 38 participating nonprofits of the Columbus Big Give had the opportunity to attend an in-person training session with Nonprofit Film School. Funds of $4000 from the Community and Capacity Building account were used to pay for the trainer’s time, as well as year-long access for all Big Give participants in the Nonprofit Film School online course/archive. This allowed all participating nonprofits to access first-class video trainings all year long, which would benefit them in future video projects.
As video is a key form of engagement, organizers of the Columbus Big Give are optimistic that this training with Nonprofit Film School will help grow the overall reach of the event this year, as well as engage more donors with nonprofits’ stories and missions.