YouTube has become a major platform for charity work in recent years. It makes sense, as a video can be a powerful tool in relaying information. Uploading a stellar viral video can bring more awareness to your charity than you can imagine. To make things better, YouTube has rolled out many different features to help charities.

Still, the majority of the work lands on your shoulders to get a YouTube channel off the ground. Building a following online for any niche is a challenge, but this can be especially true with a charity. Most people are working to get people to buy things they want. But in the case of a charity, you’re aiming for generosity and altruism to get what your organization needs.

Make a Video that can go Viral

The most common way a charity takes off on YouTube is through a creative viral video. Rarely do charities see real success through a video series or a poor quality video. If you have any graphic design or video editing skills, put them to use. It doesn’t have to be a live action video either. In fact, most viral charity videos aren’t.

Infographic videos are extremely popular right now, and used quite often. Charities use these to help describe the problem they’re trying to help fix. Charity:Water aims to bring water to people everywhere that need it. They do a great job of using a matter-of-fact infographic video to explain to people the urgency of Charity:Water’s cause.

You can create these videos yourself through various tools and tutorials.

Alternatively, you can find plenty of freelance workers online who can create it for you. Since infographic videos aren’t the most difficult to create, you can stick to a low budget. Be wary of offers that seem too low, though, and keep in mind that paying a little more might result in a higher-quality video.

Donation Cards

Donation cards are the most recent YouTube update, and they make donations an easy process for viewers. This new feature allows the video uploader to choose any IRS-validated nonprofit organization. Then, a donation button appears on the video. Viewers click the button and a small overlay window appears asking for a donation amount. Project For Awesome does a great job of making the most of YouTube Donation Cards: 

Donations can be made without ever leaving the actual video page. This ensures viewers will still go back to the video to finish watching or leave a comment. Although in most cases, if they’re making a donation, they’re invested enough already.

Paid Promotion

This is a tricky thing for charities, as spending money doesn’t always help you raise money. Yet, in the right scenario, you can minimize your risk to almost nothing. One thing that we don’t recommend is dumping a bunch of money in services that promise to promote you. A good marketing strategy is one you’ve created based on your exact situation.

You can implement paid promotion in a couple of different ways. There’s the built-in YouTube promotion where you can pay YouTube to add your video to the “Sponsored” list. Also, you can buy views, likes, and comments to fake virality. With bloated metrics on your video, it becomes a whole lot easier to bring in organic traffic.

Rinse and repeat

Once you’ve got that first viral video out there, your charity will start seeing success. Now it becomes a matter of just repeating that process and getting more viral videos out there! It only gets easier once you’ve figured out the secret ingredients for viral content.