Hey, Greenbelt-based nonprofits, charities and volunteer organizations! Greenbelt Access Television (GATe) works with groups like yours to create short promotional videos (also called PSAs or public service announcements). These videos can:

• Introduce viewers to your organization
• Call for volunteers for your organization
• Promote a cause important to your organization

The resulting videos would be “evergreen” or of long-lasting usefulness. For example, an introductory video can be shared on social media by the organization itself and by its many members and fans – and video is heralded as the most viral of all media these days! The video can also be embedded on the organization’s website, like this one about the very website you’re looking at, now embedded on the home page:

As a member of GATe’s board of directors, I volunteered to make that video to illustrate what an intro video might look like, and I’m betting that your organization would be a livelier video subject than a website.

Other introductory or call-for-volunteer videos that illustrate the service are these videos:

• Greenbelt Farmers Market.
• Greenbelt Refugee Aid
• Take Action to Stop Maglev
• Book it at the Library

How to get a Promotional Video for YOUR Organization

Just email Greenbeltaccess@gmail.com to get the ball rolling. GATe has also made dozens of videos promoting upcoming events by Greenbelt’s nonprofits – click here to see the many examples.

Write for Greenbelt Online

Like all good promotional materials are supposed to, the video for Greenbelt Online has “calls to action” – two of them. One is for viewers to read and subscribe to the website and the second is for people to write for this site. The advantages listed there are:

• Almost limitless word count (up to 1,000 is fine here. Longer articles could be posted in a series).
• Almost limitless space for photos and videos.
• No deadlines except those you create for yourself.
• Your article will be promoted via GreenbeltOnline’s social media channels.
• Help with editing and lay-out.
• The opportunity to have your own WordPress login and create the post yourself, for approval by the editor.
• Learning best practices for writing and lay-out articles for online viewership (especially mobile).
• Working with an editor to ensure accuracy, copyright compliance, and an appropriate tone.

The site has benefited from excellent contributions University of Maryland interns, like Drew Brown below. We’d LOVE to see more students posting their writings, photos and/or videos here.

Drew Brown, UMD student shown with Lore Rosenthal in the upper left, logged in and created articles himself (for review and approval by me) about animation classes; a Nigerian restaurant in Beltway Plaza; and Greenbelt churches and the LGBT community.