Community outreach is a powerful way to connect with people, raise awareness, and drive positive change. Whether you’re a nonprofit or business, outreach helps strengthen communities by providing resources, fostering engagement, and tackling important social issues.
So exactly what is community outreach? In this guide, we’ll break down the meaning of community outreach, its impact, and how you can use video to make lasting connections online.
Community outreach: Meaning and definition
Community outreach is about building connections, sharing resources, raising awareness, and collaborating to address important issues. Think of it like a PSA—a way for your brand or nonprofit to share important updates and keep your audience informed.
Through events, workshops, volunteering, and advocacy, outreach fosters relationships and strengthens communities. Plus, it can double as a powerful tool to support your marketing efforts!
Community outreach vs engagement
Outreach and engagement go hand in hand in building strong communities. Whereas outreach might include updates and announcements from your organization, engagement creates a two-way street for communication. Engagement turns one-way outreach into a conversation, allowing your audience to celebrate achievements, offer support, and actively participate. This engagement strengthens your community by keeping members active, connected, and motivated.
Why is community outreach important?
Community outreach programs are really worth it, and you don’t even need a dedicated coordinator to make an impact.
Here are some key reasons why it matters:
- Building stronger relationships: Community outreach helps build trust between you and your community. By engaging with people, addressing their concerns, and providing support, you can foster positive relationships that can improve collaboration and even improve the likelihood of success for your projects.
- Creating positive change: Outreach is a tool for social change. Whether through volunteer efforts, educational initiatives, or fundraising, community outreach allows organizations to make a tangible impact. For instance, environmental clean-up projects or awareness campaigns can lead to long-lasting improvements in local neighborhoods.
- Supporting vulnerable populations: Outreach ensures that marginalized or underrepresented groups have access to essential services, such as food, housing, medical care, or legal assistance.
- Encouraging active participation: When communities are encouraged to participate in events, campaigns, or initiatives, they become more engaged and invested in the well-being of their surroundings. Outreach empowers individuals by giving them a voice and creating opportunities for them to take part in shaping their communities.
- Retaining donors and volunteers: Outreach ensures that the people who support and believe in your cause stick around. This outreach makes them feel appreciated and recognized, reinforcing that their contributions and support truly matter.
Community outreach videos: Your key to engagement
Community outreach can take the form of many different videos depending on the goals and activities of your organization. Here are some examples to get your gears turning.
- Engagement: Q&As, polls, competitions and challenges, testimonials, volunteer spotlights and recognition, thank yous, etc.
- Outreach and education: Informing the audience about a social issue and how they can help
- Announcements: Changes to policies and procedures, role changes, event updates, product improvements and feedback, etc.
- Explainers: Breakdowns of recent changes and the “why” that inspired them.
- Call-to-action videos: Directly encouraging donations, sign-ups, or volunteer participation
Now let's see these videos in action!
Example community outreach videos and templates
Community Outreach
Cause Awareness Campaign
Community Challenge
Charity Event Invitation
Step-by-step: How to Make a Community Outreach Video
Creating community outreach videos doesn’t have to take a lot of time, money, or even manpower! With Animoto’s free templates and beginner-friendly tools, anyone can create a professional and engaging video in minutes. Here’s how.
Step 1: Grab a template
To make creating your community outreach video quick and easy, we recommend getting started with a template. Animoto’s drag-and-drop templates provide you with a framework for your video, as well as the graphics, designs, photos, animations, and even music to make sure your video is seen and remembered.
Grab any of the templates above, or explore our full template library for more inspiration. If you don’t find something that matches your unique vision, you can always create a video from scratch.
Step 2: Upload your media
Now that you have a framework to work with, it’s time to begin customizing.
Start by uploading media to your project, like logos, screen recordings, messages from the board or CEO, and any other relevant photos or video clips. If you’re running low, you can pull from our Getty Images Stock Library.
For extra room or new creative layouts, add additional media frames. Then, just drag and drop your media into a frame to add it to your video.
Step 3: Add your information
Replace the template copy with your text to tell your story. As a general rule, keep your text concise and visually contrasted so it stands out. Include any need-to-know information like dates, key achievements, and figures without getting lost in too many details.
Step 4: Reflect your brand
The key to a professional video is a consistent and strong visual identity. Adding your brand is easy! Just create a custom saved brand to apply your font, colors, and logo instantly. That way everyone in your community knows who the video is from and what to look out for in the next one!
Step 5: Share away
Last but not least, it’s time to share and connect with your audience. Facebook groups are a great place to interact with your community, as are online forums, newsletters, and more.
To share your video anywhere, just download it in 1080HD! Or, post it directly by connecting your social media accounts. And just like that, you created an engaging and impressive community outreach video!
Make videos for your nonprofit with Animoto
When it comes to community outreach, quality matters. Video is a powerful way to connect with your audience authentically while keeping them informed. With Animoto, anyone can create high-quality outreach videos—no marketing expert or video editor required. Sign up for free and start making an impact today!
