Why Most Charity Videos Fail to Connect
I’ve been a storyteller and a filmmaker for most of my life. And I’ve been making films for causes for the last 15 years. This is my story again and again, and it winds me up.
When I help a charity or union with a video, I get handed a dossier of facts and stats. They focus on keylines and lean into self-promotion.
We scroll past it every day. They bomb and go nowhere on social media. Sound familiar?
It’s why union membership is shrinking and why charities can’t raise enough cash for their fight. Why our opponents are winning and everything is going to shit. They simply don’t know how to land a story.
Your videos shouldn’t be about telling people what you do. They should make people’s hair stand on end. They should fire them up to take on this injustice.
There is a different way. It took me about 10 years to even be able to articulate it properly. But it’s a solid emotional storytelling strategy.
I call it Emotioneering: Head, Heart, Hand. Let me tell you about it.
Head, Heart, Hand: How to Build a Video Campaign That Actually Works
So how do you move people with video? For a while, I was figuring this out intuitively. Years of experience behind a camera and passion for finding out about people always led me to the heart of the story. And it worked.
Then, I had the great pleasure of making a film for Marshall Ganz’s Leading Change Network.
A line he said hit me. Engage the heart, convince the head to move the hand.
Beautiful, elegant and simple. And it’s something that I realised I had been doing all along.
So the model I work from is based on his “Heart, Head, Hand” framework – a model for leadership and organising that I’ve adapted for storytelling.
Heart. Head. Hand. Put your audience at the centre of your fight. Engage the heart. Convince the head. Move the hand.
It doesn’t just mean love and stuff.
It’s emotion. Visceral. Vital. It connects with your audience. What’s the emotional hook in this story you want to tell? Why does it matter to them? What’s the hurt it causes? How do you evoke empathy in what you’re talking about?
Hit the heart. It’s that story of that little girl crying in class because she doesn’t see her mum much because she’s working three jobs. It’s the dad that’s furious with Thames Water because his kids are on antibiotics because they went for a swim.
But a word of warning. This is not about playing a violin or conjuring up ways to make a story more sympathetic. Don’t overplay your hand, it needs to be authentic. It’s not fucking with emotions. It’s truthfully telling the heart of the story.
Something I’ve noticed in us all – in me at least – is that we can hook people with emotion, but then the head will self-police it.
My job as a filmmaker is to pre-empt that little seed of doubt – those objections –and head them off. I’m going to make those objections before they do, and I’ll handle them.
The, “what about this, though?”, “What if that happens?”
If you make those points, it builds trust and rapport. You’re in their head, making those choices with them. Bring people back into alignment with the narrative. What do you need people to understand? How can you explain the problem simply and quickly? How do you align them with your ask?
Land one sharp message – not a 60-page report. You just can’t do that in a 60-second video.
Let’s travel down the arm, to the hand.
So you’ve done the work. Now you need to direct them.
Make the ask.
How can they be part of the solution? What can you offer them to do next? How can they be the hero in their story? How are they invested in it? That’s how you build power.
Make sure you know this before you’ve even written your script. Make sure it’s hardwired into your campaign from the start.
I have my own word for this whole process. I call it emotioneering – the art of moving people on purpose. But truthfully, no hyperbole. It’s where your video storytelling strategy should start.
Heart, head, hand. If your video doesn’t hit all three, it might look good but it won’t land.
How we turned facts into a story people care about – working with Unite
Want to see it in action? I was fortunate enough to work with Unite on their Port Talbot steel campaign in 2024.
They do an incredible job of protecting people when big business goes after them.
They asked if I could help with a video. Mick, Claire and Joe were trying to save the steelworkers’ jobs in Port Talbot.
I was handed a thick dossier: facts, figures, job losses, closures. But I knew that under this, there was a story that people like you and me would really care about.
I saw first-hand the pit closures of my home town of Bolsover. I saw my friends’ lives decimated. Communities destroyed. Families go hungry. People turning to addiction to numb the pain. I knew the heart of this story from before I’d even opened the dossier. This wasn’t in the statistics but I knew it was what we had to communicate.
I needed to tell one person’s story and show how it was connected to the bigger picture. So, I built the film around one man from the works. His story was the town’s story. His warnings of his own decline spoke for the other workers, the families, the kids facing an uncertain future.
The result was a grounded, human story. It wasn’t just about jobs, but about place, dignity, and what happens when a government turns its back on people. It was real people, speaking plainly. There are facts in this film. But they were carefully selected to add extra colour to the story, and satisfy the head (and the comms director…). But we didn’t start there. And we definitely didn’t jam-pack it with them. The emotional through line carried these facts. The facts didn’t try to carry a story.
It was their best performing video on social media ever. That’s emotioneering –because it’s a story whose foundations are engineered in emotion.
Final thoughts
You’re not just making content. You’re fighting in the narrative war.
Every video is a tool we have – so aim for the heart, clarify the cause, and hand your audience the tools to act.
We’re seeing the rise of the far right across the planet. Let’s sort our shit out. Let’s sharpen our game in this fight.
If this speaks to you, share it with everyone you know.
And if you want tools with teeth – to fight smarter, not louder – sign up.
We’re building something. Frame by frame.
