Video production for charities and non-profits in Ireland

Usually the one that asks for help. A short appeal works on social media, in emails to supporters and on a screen at your events, and it can run year after year. Special Olympics Ireland’s appeal is 71 seconds long and led by music, with no voiceover: athletes in sport after sport, volunteers with their collection buckets, then the call to donate.

If people don’t yet know what you do, start with a film that explains it, told by the people you help and the people who help them. Community Connect, Ireland’s baby bank, did that in four and a half minutes. If you’re short of volunteers or trustees, start there instead: Charities Institute Ireland used trustee films for Giving Tuesday. The first call is where we work out which one you need.

• The power of storytelling in video marketing

On their terms. We send the questions in advance and keep the room small: just our crew and whoever needs to be there. Nothing is live, so a pause or a stumble is simply cut, and nobody has to say anything they’d rather not.

With young people we give them space. At Foróige’s youth assembly that meant filming without getting in anyone’s face and keeping an eye on how they were coping, which is what Foróige wrote about us on Clutch. For Community Law & Mediation’s 50th anniversary film, a mother told the story of fighting for her son’s rights in her own words, and a former client closes the film. Consent and release forms are usually arranged by you, since you hold the relationships. We send our form for signing, and on the day we can help gather forms, with an iPad so people can sign electronically.

Plan every version before the shoot, then film once. The same day can give you the main film, short cuts for Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, vertical and square versions, and stills from the footage for your website and reports. Barnardos’ film came with a version without subtitles and three social cuts; Community Law & Mediation’s anniversary documentary came with vertical reels.

Good footage keeps working after the film is finished, too. The Irish Wheelchair Association’s national appeal was three short videos, each in square and vertical versions, cut from existing IWA footage with no new shoot. Captions come on every edit, because most people watch social video with the sound off.

• How to turn one video into 10 pieces of content

Yes, and we’re used to it. We won Special Olympics Ireland’s tender in 2022, and the Irish Wheelchair Association’s in 2023 and again in 2025. Many charities buy the way public bodies do, so the paperwork is ready: a current tax clearance certificate, insurance letters for venues on request, and one fixed price in writing, plus VAT, before anything starts.

Our insurance covers €6.5 million public liability, €13 million employer’s liability and €1.3 million professional indemnity, and we invoice against your purchase order. If you’re a smaller charity with no formal process, an estimate from our calculator and a call with us is all it takes. The full checklist is on our public sector page.