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Reader SurveyFinding a New Voice
Apr 14, 2006 1:00 AM, By Cody Holt
A former creative director for several Fortune 500 companies, Lori McDaniel found her path in nonprofit marketing and video.
Through her company, Voices of Hope Productions, Lori McDaniel offers the sophisticated marketing skills she learned in the corporate world to nonprofits and other advocacy groups.
Lori McDaniel is not like a lot of activists who see corporate America as the bad guy. Quite the contrary, she believes that nonprofits and other advocacy groups have a lot to learn from corporations about marketing and branding, and in particular the way video and technology can be used to communicate a message.
“I come from a creative direction, marketing design background, and have been fortunate enough to work on the agency side with some very large corporations,” McDaniel says. She lists Eastman Kodak, Johnson & Johnson, MetLife, and Schering-Plough as former clients. “The thing about these companies is they have very sophisticated corporate communications and marketing strategies. I want to take these techniques and apply them in the nonprofit and educational worlds.”
More than a year ago, McDaniel sold her house and left the corporate world behind. She took a marketing job with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence — New Jersey (NCADDNJ), and then last May, with a little nonprofit experience under her belt, she founded Voices of Hope Productions. Combining her marketing expertise with video, she is helping nonprofits' messages reach an even larger audience.
Although McDaniel didn't spend much time behind the lens or at the keyboard of an NLE as a corporate creative director, she embraced the technical side of her craft in the lower budget, do-it-yourself world of nonprofit marketing. Already an experienced photographer, she attended video classes at the Maine Photographic Workshops to enhance her understanding of moving images. She now works confidently in Final Cut Pro 5, and she has become proficient shooting with the four Panasonic video cameras, including two AG-DVX100 24p cameras, which she bought with the proceeds from selling her house.
“My style tends to be a little flashy, so a traditional documentarian may think my videos look like ads,” she says. “But I'm trying to reach as many people as possible and do it in a way that people are used to. I like to go with the flow rather than fight it.”
While still working full-time for the NCADDNJ, McDaniel has built a small client base for Voices of Hope, working evenings and weekends. Her dream is to start her own nonprofit youth media organization that would provide cameras to inner-city youths, while continuing Voices of Hope.
“I love the fact that I can walk around and show people my videos and use them in a business sense, and also make a difference in society,” she says.
