Updated: September 10, 2026
The people in your film are not a resource
Every nonprofit video faces the same tension. The most persuasive material is a real person describing what changed for them, and that person is often in a vulnerable position, sometimes because of the very circumstances the film is about.
Handled carelessly, this produces films that raise money in the short term and damage the organisation's relationship with the community it serves. Handled properly, it produces work that is both more ethical and more effective, because dignity reads on camera and pity does not survive a second viewing.
Consent that actually means something
A signature on a release form is the minimum, not the standard. Informed consent means the person understood what they were agreeing to, and that requires a conversation rather than a form.
They should know what the film is for, where it will appear, how long it will be used, whether it may be shared publicly on social platforms, and that they can decline without any effect on the services they receive. That last point matters enormously and is the one most often left unsaid. Someone who depends on your organisation may agree because they feel they should, and that is not consent in any meaningful sense.
Get the conversation right and then document it. Give people a copy of what they signed and a name to contact. Where language is a barrier, do it in the language they speak, with an interpreter who is not the person asking for the interview.
Additional care applies with children, with anyone whose circumstances could put them at risk if identified, and with people whose capacity to consent may be affected. In those cases, involve your safeguarding lead before the shoot rather than after it.
The right to change their mind
Build withdrawal into the arrangement from the start. Someone may agree on a difficult day and feel differently a month later, and an organisation that honours that will be trusted by everyone watching how it behaves.
Practically: agree how long the film will be used, keep a record of who appears in what, and be able to remove a piece from circulation if asked. That is straightforward for your own channels and harder once a film has been shared widely, so be honest about the limits rather than promising something you cannot deliver.
Show people the finished piece before it goes out. Not for editorial approval of the whole film, but so they see how they are represented. This costs an afternoon and prevents the situation nobody wants, where someone first sees themselves in a fundraising appeal that a neighbour showed them.
How the story is told
The ethical questions do not stop at consent. They continue into the edit, where framing decisions determine whether someone appears as a person or as an illustration of a problem.
- Let people speak for themselves rather than being described by a narrator over silent footage
- Use their own words about their situation rather than the organisation's language for it
- Show agency: what they did, what they decided, not only what was done for them
- Avoid the visual shorthand of hardship, which flattens a person into a condition
- Give context rather than implying that individual effort alone explains the outcome
- Credit people by name where they want that, since anonymity should be their choice
A useful test: would this person be comfortable if their employer, their child's teacher or their neighbour watched the film? If the answer is uncertain, the framing needs work.
When not to film someone at all
Some stories should not be told with a real person in front of a camera, and recognising that is part of doing this well.
If identification could bring harm, if the person is in acute crisis, if the only reason to feature them is that their situation is visually striking, or if they are agreeing under any kind of pressure, use another approach.
The alternatives are better than people assume. Staff and volunteers can describe the work without exposing anyone. Composite stories, clearly labelled as such, convey a pattern honestly. Voice only, with the face unseen, preserves testimony while protecting identity. And animation removes the problem entirely while still carrying a narrative, which is why it appears so often in this sector.
Working with schools and young people
Education and youth programmes bring an additional layer, and the rules are usually set by the institution rather than by you.
Schools maintain their own media permission records, updated annually, covering which students may be photographed or filmed and for what purposes. Ask for that list rather than collecting consents yourself, and expect it to exclude some children entirely. Those exclusions are not negotiable and are frequently in place for safeguarding reasons that will not be explained to you.
Plan the shoot so an excluded child is not isolated by the process. A class where three children have to sit apart while everyone else is filmed is a bad experience for those three. Filming an activity in which participation is genuinely optional, or shooting a group where individuals are not identifiable, avoids it.
Where young people appear prominently, consider what the footage will look like in five years and whether they will still be comfortable with it. A teenager who agreed at fifteen may feel differently at twenty, and a fundraising film with an indefinite shelf life is a long commitment on their behalf.
Practical points: an adult from the organisation stays present throughout, crew do not work unaccompanied with young people, and any location shots avoid identifying a school building alongside identifiable children.
Practical steps before the shoot
Brief the crew properly. A camera team that has worked mainly on commercial projects will not automatically know the rules here, and a well-meaning question from a sound recordist can be intrusive. Tell them what is off limits and who to defer to.
Have a staff member present who knows the participants, and let that person stop the filming without discussion if they judge it necessary.
Choose a setting where the participant is comfortable rather than one that looks best. A person interviewed in a familiar room speaks more freely than the same person in a lit studio, and the difference in what they say outweighs the difference in production value.
Allow far more time than a commercial interview would take. Rushing produces guarded answers, and guarded answers produce a film you end up carrying with narration.
Why this makes better films
Donors have seen a great deal of nonprofit video and have become quick to recognise the manipulative version of it. Work that treats people as participants rather than as evidence stands out, and it holds up when the same supporters see it again a year later.
It also protects the organisation. A film made carelessly can damage community trust in ways that outlast any campaign it funded.
We approach this kind of work with consent and framing agreed before a camera comes out, and we will say when a story is better told another way. There are more articles on nonprofit video on the blog, including producing nonprofit video on a tight budget, and background on the about page. If you have a story you are unsure how to tell, talk to us about it before you plan a shoot.
