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MillimeterIt's a 'G' Thing
Dec 1, 2006 11:59 AM, By Kristinha M. Anding
Web-based Channel G gets the word out for fellow nonprofits via video.
Online network Channel G produces four- to six-minute videos describing particular project goals for nonprofits such as Yéle Haiti (top), the Flagstaff International Relief Effort (F.I.R.E.) (middle), and Wildlife Conservation Society’s Crater Mountain Project (bottom).
Michael Kanter of Channel G is into doing good. Indeed, he says, the “G” of the nonprofit organization's name stands for everything good — not least of all, giving. It's all part of the organization's mission to maximize funding and awareness for other nonprofits through a web-based marketplace model.
Channel G culls pre-existing footage from nonprofits or shoots new material to produce videos describing particular project goals. As Channel G's executive producer, Kanter, along with volunteer editors and graphics professionals, oversees the editing and posting of the pieces on Channel G's online network. Visitors to the site can view the productions and make donations to the projects with the click of a mouse.
“We basically reach out to nonprofits and offer ourselves as an avenue to create a kind of viral campaign through the Web, instead of through mailers and the other things that nonprofits have been doing for so long,” explains Kanter, who also freelances for commercial and music video production companies in Los Angeles. “We're looking for easier ways for them to reach more people.”
Channel G uses Panasonic 24p cameras on its shoots and Apple Macintosh computers and Final Cut Pro software for editing. Chicago-based Orbit Media Studios donated time to help build the back end of the website, using proprietary software that allows Channel G staff and volunteers to update videos and news information from anywhere in the world.
Recent nonprofits highlighted on the site include Bozeman, Mont.-based Red Feather, which builds straw-bale housing for impoverished Native Americans; musician Wyclef Jean's New York-based Yéle Haiti, which focuses on youth empowerment projects in Haiti; and Paonia, Colo.-based FutaFriends, which aims to raise awareness about conservation of the Futaleufú river in Chile.
In addition to being featured on Channel G's website, project footage has been shown at film festivals and on the Plum and Lime television networks. Kanter says Channel G's eventual goal is to grow a television network dedicated to content underscoring the important environmental, social, and health-related work of nonprofits.
“With the shape the world and our country's in right now, I can always find the time to step back from my job and donate my time to something good,” Kanter says. “If I can build this into something that's here when I'm gone, then all the better.”
For more information about Channel G, visit www.channelg.tv.
