While Google is content with not being evil, its subsidiary YouTube is focused on actively doing good. Since 2009 YouTube has hosted a competition called the "DoGooder Awards" — Oscars for well-made public service announcements — and the recently announced 2013 winners show an interesting difference in what makes a "PSA" video successful compared to the run-of-the-mill viral clip.
The DoGooder awards are part of a larger initiative called YouTube for Good that started organically when executives at YouTube saw organizations and individuals spreading the word about their causes on their network. They formalized the program in 2011 and have been expanding it ever since.
Now, organizations don't have to wait to receive airtime from a network or hire a fundraising team to buy their way into the media — any nonprofit with passion and a webcam can control an entire channel.
This year, the Rainforest Alliance won a coveted DoGooder award for their "Follow the Frog" PSA by combining humor and longer format videos that wouldn't be possible on broadcast TV. Other YouTubers have taken advantage of the freedom the format offers to experiment with new styles of content. A nonprofit fighting human trafficking has created an interactive "choose your own adventure" video campaign while Oxfam launched a series called Green Granny to help sell the benefits of a vegan diet.
"It's interesting that what goes viral for nonprofits isn't that different from the rest of the videos," says Jessica Mason, who heads up the YouTube for Good team. "Original, surprising, creative, and engaging content always does well."
It's difficult to quantify how impactful the program has been, but there are some positive signs. Sesame Street became the first nonprofit channel to cross the one billion views mark in March. An event in December 2012 hosted by Vlogbrothers John and Hank Green called *The Project For Awesome — *think the Jerry Lewis telethon for YouTubers — compelled thousands of their fans to make videos for worthy causes and raised nearly half a million dollars in the process.
Beyond providing a distribution platform where upstarts can compete with august institutions, YouTube has also designed a suite of software tools to help these organizations reach donors and volunteers in new ways. Skateboarding dog videos might get lots of views, but only nonprofits have access to a special donate button to raise funds for their causes. They can also add annotations to videos that link to fundraising platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and DonorsChoose. Nonprofit channel creators can brand their channel pages with custom graphics in ways normal accounts cannot, host livestreams, have viewers sign a petition or join a mailing list, and most importantly can opt out of ads.
Many of these features were the result of team members spending their 20% on projects benefiting YouTube for Good. "What's really impressive is that the team is made up of people all across the company," says Mason. "We have really dedicated engineers creating features and people from out partner support teams running support queues."
"There's incredibly creative content coming out of nonprofits and it's getting to the point where they are behaving like media companies," says Mason. "It's really exciting because viewers get entertaining information and the organisations get attention, donations, and new volunteers."
