By Tucker Walsh
One day last spring, my photojournalism classmate, Lydia Bullock, whispered into my ear, "Tucker, I'm going to Iraq." I sat up straight. "For six months," she added. Lydia, at barely five feet tall with short blonde hair, might seem like the least-likely candidate to move to a war zone for half a year. But her passion to do good was insationable. She had a mission to help the Iraqi people through "visual peacemaking," and so, too, did her comrades in arm, the Preemptive Love Coalition. Living and working in Iraq, PLC trains local heart surgeons and nurses to help the tens of thousands of children in need of surgery. By documenting each child's operation, they do what far too many nonprofits fail to do: let donors see first-hand the lives they are saving, literally. Find out how they do it in my Q&A with PLC co-founder Cody Fisher.
TDN: Talk about how and why PLC made video and digital storytelling a priority. Has it been a major part of PLC's marketing outreach from the start, or is it a new strategy you're developing to reach your audience?
PLC: Storytelling matters because people matter. That means we’re in the endless pursuit of finding the most effective mediums for storytelling, and right now it has so much to do with video and digital storytelling.
Our work takes us to cities and villages all over Iraq, so we’re constantly listening to the stories of people we live and work alongside - stories that bring us to tears, stories that make us throw our heads back and laugh, and stories that shatter stereotypes and misunderstandings. We’re better for hearing them, and we want others to hear them, too.
People need to know Sheikh Ali and his coalition of Muslim leaders who are waging peace across Iraq alongside us. They need to know little Ghazel and her father who left their secure Sunni community so the Shiite doctors down the road could give her the lifesaving heart surgery she desperately needed. This father put his daughter in the hands of his “enemy” to make a statement that there can and will be peace in Iraq. These people matter, and so do their stories.
We live this out by never going anywhere without a camera and a paper and pen to document our day-to-day interactions. Every lifesaving heart surgery we perform in Iraq is documented and crafted into our story so people back home can feel like they’re right here with us, and also so the families of these children can see that their story is important and that their voice is being heard.
We’ve always been passionate about digital storytelling because we see it as a form of visual peacemaking. We began PLC with the story of the first child we saved, a boy named Aras, and we haven’t stopped telling stories since.
But of course, we’ll never stop developing and evolving how we’re doing it.
TDN: Why is visual storytelling important for nonprofits to invest in?
PLC: A love for good storytelling is in our DNA. It’s how we’re wired. To miss out on good stories means to miss out on so much of what it means to be human. Without a doubt, one of the most thrilling day-to-day tasks that I have is using the stories I hear to connect the people I love around the world with the people I love in Iraq. For a nonprofit to miss out on knowing and telling the stories of those they’re helping, it means others miss out on it too, and if that’s the case then how are they supposed to care about your cause?
If you want to cultivate a community of passionate advocates and donors who stick with you for the long run, start telling stories.
TDN: How do you decide what subject or stories you want to document? Who shoots and produces them?
PLC: Everything we do is filtered through our Core Values, so every story we tell reflects them in some way or another. Beyond that, we want to tell the stories we don’t think others are telling or hearing. We’re fully aware of the single story that most of the world hears about Iraq, and we’re out to tell the stories that people are missing out on - stories of hope, courage, and reconciliation.
In Iraq, we’ve had the privilege to work alongside filmmakers and photographers like Lydia Bullock, Heber Vega, Matt Brandon, Matthew Foster Addington from the Duck Duck Collective, Mario Mattei and the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers, and Jonathan Olinger and Ricky Norris from Discover The Journey.
TDN: Which videos have been most effective? Are there any that you feel failed to get the message across? How did you learn from those?
PLC: One of our first black-and-white videos (above) about a little girl named Nivar was huge for us. We were blown away by all the positive feedback and responses we received after we launched it. Kids loved it, parents loved it, and we heard stories from so many families who watched it together and talked about how to help Nivar.
We had a few ill-conceived vignettes of children that never lasted long. Those were the times we failed to develop a working plan for before we started to film.
We’ve learned the hard way... but we’re better for it. We’ve found that the best videos are simple and personal. If we try to communicate too much in one video, or if we stray from telling the story of just one child or family, we lose our impact.
TDN: Once you create a video, how do you make sure it gets seen?
PLC: We hand it over to our press secretary and he launches it out through the main social media outlets and our blog. If it’s a timeless piece that we want to be around for a while, we’ll put it up on our homepage along with e-mailing it to our followers. From there it makes it way to other blogs, walls, Twitter feeds, donor mailboxes... you name it!
But getting seen in sheer numbers is never our goal. We also want the right people to see it. If we create a video on development, it needs to be seen by people we know really care about development work. If it’s about the medical aspect of our work, then it needs to be seen by the people in the medical field. If our videos are missing the key audiences who would connect with it, we’re not doing our videos justice.
TDN: What percentage of your overall budget is dedicated to video, video staff, marketing, etc?
PLC: Until recently, we have focused most of our efforts on making sure the maximum amount of what we have is making its way to our programs - even if investing in more traditional and new marketing options would’ve produced more revenue.
Last year we put about 3% of our budget into media production (we don’t have any hired staff for media production but we contracted out a few jobs). Off the top of my head, we probably put about $7-8k into media creation last year.
Rather than assume that quality video and photography was out of reach for our paltry budget, we chose to do almost all of our design, video, and photography in-house. Most of our allocated budget was used to purchase equipment with a dedicated grant that was made for that purpose.
We also have one of the most passionate support groups we could ask for, so a lot of our best work was done by volunteers and supporters who wanted to be a part of our work.
TDN: Tell me about your latest video (above). What did you try to do differently from past videos?
PLC: With our most recent video we sought to articulate our grand vision of “Reconciliation through Healing” - the idea that violence destroys trust and physical healing rebuilds it. The people of Iraq have suffered tremendous injustices - many of which they attribute to America, Americans, and America’s foreign policy. So when we bring in Americans to heal their children, we have a great opportunity to rebuild trust and rebuild the worlds that have been destroyed. We help communities inside Iraq that are at odds with each other learn to work together, serve each other’s children, and openly convey this message of peace.
The short video is the most “big picture” piece we’ve created to date. It’s also our first entirely animated piece, which was a lot of fun! Animation allowed us to tell stories and convey historical elements that we could have never adequately captured with a physical camera.
TDN: Several of your videos, such as "Thoughts on Nivar," are mainly audio driven. Others, like "compulsive whistling video" are purely visual (and music) driven. How do you decide which style is be best to capture the story your trying to tell? Have you found one type of video more effective than the other?
PLC: We choose whichever style tells each individual story the best. If we have footage that does a great job communicating the story in a way that words would negate the impact, then we keep our mouths shut and let the visuals and music take over. If the footage needs a narrative to fill in the gaps, we grab a mic and try to do exactly that. A lot of times we don’t know which way will work best until we see what footage we have to work with.
Because our supporters live around the world, I think the most effective videos for us are the ones that transcend language and rely completely on visual storytelling. In that sense, our purely visual stories reach a much larger audience.
TDN: Have you ever gotten complaints about showing graphic heart surgery images without any warnings?
PLC: I think I’m the only one that’s complained. Seriously, I don’t have the stomach for it. I’ve been in multiple operating rooms to document surgeries but I still can’t get used to staring directly at the heart of a child I know and love. My heroes are the doctors we bring into Iraq that can mend one heart after another.
I think they’re important shots, though, and I’m glad we get them. It may sound odd, but the people who appreciate them most are the children’s parents. They love seeing the hands that are healing their child.
TDN: What tips do you have for other nonprofits that are trying to embrace this medium?
PLC: Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s an intimidating world out there - especially the medium of digital storytelling - and it’s easy to think all of this isn’t worth pursuing unless you’re able to be the best. That’s a mistake. Grab a camera, shoot hours of footage and be happy with the few seconds of actual good footage you end up with. Start creating digital stories and don’t be offended when others critique you. Be thankful for them and learn from them. The worst storytellers are the ones who are silent. Scream your digital lungs out and see what happens.
Learn more at PreemptiveLove.org and on Facebook.
Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 12:54PM 
Arkansas Puppy Mill Rescue - Humane Society of the United States
