25%, Individual or pair. Due Week 12. Screened Week 14, then delivered to your partner.
Digital Storytelling Project
Your partner organization needs video and almost never has the capacity to make it. You make a 3-to-5-minute piece they can actually publish and use.
The assignment
Your video does one job for your partner, chosen from five purposes:
- Program explainer. What the organization does and how someone reaches it, for a person encountering the org for the first time.
- Impact or testimonial story (with consent). What changed for one person, one family, or one community because of the program.
- Volunteer or donor recruitment. Why someone should give time or money, made for people who have not yet decided.
- Service how-to or client navigation. What to expect at a first visit, how to enroll, what to bring.
- Event or campaign recap. What happened and why it mattered, for people who could not be there.
You and your partner agree on one purpose at the intake conversation, completed by Week 8, and everything that follows, the exemplar scan, the video brief, and the storyboard, is built around that choice.
An optional 60-to-90-second cut for the partner’s social channels can accompany the main piece. Candid’s short-form video lessons are a reasonable starting point if you take this on.
Work solo or in a pair from within your partner group. Pairs make one piece and share one reflection, with a line on who did what. If your partner does not want or cannot use a video, talk to me; a non-partner community video is possible with approval, held to the same standard.
Download the working template, with the panel table and the 5-field reflection: SIL503_storyboard.docx
Production runs on two lanes: an easy cloud lane for most footage, and an offline lane required once your footage includes an identifiable vulnerable person. The Tools page lays out both, with the specific free software for each.
The exemplar scan
Before Week 10, find 3 to 5 strong nonprofit videos in your chosen purpose category. Submit the list with one line on each: what works in its structure, its length, how it handles consent, its call to action, and its captions. You bring the scan to the Week 10 lab, where it becomes the raw material for your video brief.
The video brief
The Week 10 pitch is a one-page video brief you agree with your partner: purpose, audience, core message, format, length, consent plan, and distribution channel. You leave Week 10 with your partner’s sign-off on all seven fields, and you build the storyboard across Weeks 10 and 11 from that brief.
A sample video brief
Partner: a fictional food pantry. Purpose: service how-to. Audience: first-time clients. Core message: what to expect at your first visit. Format: video, 3 minutes. Consent plan: staff appear on camera with signed consent; no clients are filmed. Distribution channel: the pantry’s website and a QR code at the front desk.
A brief this specific makes the Week 10 lab conversation fast, because your partner reacts to concrete choices instead of a blank page.
Examples worth studying
Real nonprofit videos, grouped by purpose. Captions are automatic unless noted.
Program explainer
- Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, behind the scenes (3:07).
- Health First Community Health Center, welcome (3:18).
- The Bridge For Youth, Resilience House (1:22).
Impact or testimonial
- LifeMoves, David’s Story (3:06).
- SF-Marin Food Bank, Arielle’s Story (1:44).
- RefugeeOne, Legacy of Welcome (5:00).
- On Being a Nonbinary Survivor of FGM/C (Sahiyo and StoryCenter, 2:33).
Volunteer or donor recruitment
- Catholic Charities of Kansas City, Brenda (1:46).
- All Faiths Food Bank, volunteer recruitment (1:02).
- Loaves & Fishes Naperville, volunteer video (0:59).
Service how-to or client navigation
- CommUnity Crisis Services, what to expect at your first food pantry visit (2:45).
- Food Bank of Iowa, client-choice mobile pantry (2:38).
- CommUnity, pantry tour (1:50, manual captions).
Event or campaign recap
- Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento, gala recap (3:11).
- IRIS, Run for Refugees recap (2:29).
- Duneland YMCA, campaign video (2:37, self-captioned).
Craft guides
- Candid, social media video tips for nonprofits.
- TechSoup, creative content best practices for nonprofits.
- Nonprofit Marketing Guide, 10 types of video content your nonprofit should be creating.
Consent and ethical representation
This criterion is worth 20 points, and three rules are hard:
- Right of reply. The person or community your video features watches the cut before it screens and holds a veto or an edit, and your partner organization reviews the cut before anything carries its name. You document what changed, with a name and a date on that step of your production schedule.
- No synthetic depictions of real people. Generative AI may not be used to depict real, identifiable people or communities as if the footage were real, with no exceptions.
- Label generative imagery. If AI-generated images or audio appear anywhere in the piece, they are labeled inside the piece itself, where the viewer sees them.
Beyond the rules, the reflection asks you to name where your video gives voice and where it could extract, and what you did about that. Honest answers earn the points, and polished evasions do not.
Accessibility checklist
Accessibility is worth 15 points and is documented in the reflection. Before you submit:
- Captions on all spoken audio, edited for accuracy (auto-captions are a draft; Week 10’s lab will show you why)
- Full transcript submitted alongside the piece
- Text and text-over-image pass a contrast check (WebAIM Contrast Checker)
- Plain language throughout; a stranger outside the course can follow it on first pass
- Alt text on the thumbnail image and on any page where your partner will host the video
- Nothing essential is carried by color or sound alone
The cheap way to do all this is at the storyboard, which is why the storyboard template has accessibility as a column. Bolting it on at export is the expensive way, and your partner inherits whichever way you chose.
Milestones
| When | What |
|---|---|
| By Week 8 | Purpose agreed with your partner at the intake conversation, completed outside class time |
| Week 10 (lab) | Exemplar scan shared; the video brief agreed with your partner |
| Weeks 10 to 11 | Storyboard with the consent and accessibility columns filled on the first pass |
| Week 11 (production lab) | Rough cut; listening-back peer test; right-of-reply viewing scheduled |
| Week 12 (due) | Finished piece + the 5-field reflection |
| Week 14 | Screening to the class; consenting pieces delivered to the partner as usable assets |
The 5-field reflection
The reflection is one structured form, the same for every video: purpose and audience (as agreed with your partner), accessibility (what you did, per the checklist), ethical representation (consent, edit control, voice and extraction), AI use (disclosed and verified), and what you took from your exemplars (how the scan shaped what you made).
Rubric (100 points, scaled to 25%)
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Purpose and fit: the video does the job the partner agreed to, for the audience they named, at a length and register they can use | 25 |
| Ethical representation: consent, community voice, right of reply, extraction handled honestly | 20 |
| Accessibility and universal design: captions, transcript, contrast, plain language, done and documented | 15 |
| Craft and medium fit: the format’s conventions handled; production quality appropriate to the medium | 20 |
| Reflection: substantive and honest, all five fields; AI disclosed and verified | 10 |
| Exemplar-informed craft: the exemplar scan was submitted and the final piece shows you learned from it | 10 |
FAQ
Do I have to put someone on camera? No. A program explainer can run on b-roll, screen recordings, and narration; an event recap can run on footage of the room and the work rather than faces. Whenever a real person does appear and is identifiable, the right-of-reply and consent rules above apply to them.
Is this part of the group Strategy Pitch? No. The video and the pitch are separate deliverables that share a partner. The pitch argues a technology decision to the partner’s leadership; the video is a communication asset for the partner’s audience. Don’t fold one into the other.
What if my partner doesn’t want or can’t use a video? The point is usefulness to the partner, so ask them early, at the intake conversation completed by Week 8, and pick the purpose together. If video genuinely doesn’t fit, talk to me; a non-partner community video remains available with instructor approval.
Can I use AI-generated images or music? Yes, for illustration and scoring, labeled inside the piece and disclosed in the reflection. The one closed door is synthetic depiction of real, identifiable people or communities passed off as real.
What if the person in my video pulls consent late? They can, up to the screening, and protecting that option is the point of the rule. The rough cut and the right-of-reply viewing happen in Week 11 for that reason, which leaves three weeks of buffer to re-cut.
How are pairs graded? Pairs get one grade on one piece against one rubric, plus a short note on who did what. Pick a partner whose production skills complement yours; the pair option exists for scope, since two people can carry filming and editing that would swamp one.