www.youtube.co.uk/beatbullying

Beatbullying launched its YouTube channel during anti-bullying week in November 2007 with a wide variety of content. Drawing on the celebrity support it receives for its campaigning work, they recorded messages from Leona Lewis, Ronan Keating, Kelly Holmes, Arson Wenger and many others that act as role models to young people and organised these into a playlist on their channel. The compilation video has now received over 117,000 views.

In addition to celebrity videos, there are also videos offering advice from both parents and professionals. Most importantly however, young people have been making their own videos about different types of bullying and their responses to it, and uploading them to the channel.

Sarah Dyer, Director of New Media, explains that one of the biggest advantages of having a YouTube channel has been the interactivity that it enables. "The channel has received a large number of comments from young people, many of whom have been bullied. They have found it a really useful place to go to interact with others who have suffered the same experiences as well as to get advice. In most cases we can act on these comments and put them in touch with someone that can help."

In terms of advice for other charities, Sarah says "Setting up a channel on YouTube is really easy. However, you do have to plan and to know what you want to get out of it. A good way to keep your channel fresh is to build up a library of content that you can draw on whenever you need something new rather than releasing it all at once."

www.youtube.co.uk/deccharity

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has used its YouTube channel to showcase all the appeal videos that it has released since the charity was set up in 1963.  The most recent appeal was for the Myanmar (Burma) cyclone and they were able to get their appeals up on YouTube very quickly after the disaster struck to maximise the number of people that they could reach.

In addition to putting the videos on their channel, the DEC also embedded Stephen Fry and Damian Lewis's Myanmar (Burma) appeals on the donate page of their website, giving a powerful call to action where people could react immediately, and further increasing the number of people that would see the appeal at no cost. Since they previously had no hosting capability for video content on their website this is a huge win.

Patricia Sanders, Head of Communications and Promotions at the DEC, says, "We have two main drivers to our use of YouTube. Firstly, when a new appeal launches it's all hands on deck to get the message out there as much as possible and drive people to donate. YouTube helps us to reach new audiences. We link to the channel from the other online media that we are using such as MySpace, Wikipedia and our website, as well as embedding the videos directly onto our site. Secondly, in our 'non-appeal state' we have a more subdued presence and the channel acts as an archive of all our video footage."

www.youtube.co.uk/friendsoftheearth

For the past 2 years, Friends of the Earth has run a one minute film competition through YouTube. One of last year's entries—Polar Bears, a film about climate change—has received almost 1 million hits. The theme of the 2008 competition is "Which bit of the Earth are you a friend of?" and gives members of the public the chance to show their work to high profile judges: Trainspotting Producer Andrew MacDonald and David Sproxton of Aardman Animation.

In addition to the competition, Friends of the Earth are using their channel for many different types of content including viral videos and interviews. They also uploaded videos from their Big Ask online march—a campaign that asked people to record their own message about climate change. Many celebrity supporters recorded their own messages and these videos are still attracting large numbers of views on YouTube.

Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth's Head of Campaigns, said: "Having a presence on YouTube has enabled us to reach new audiences in an affordable and effective way."

"The internet offers people the opportunity to engage with charities on their own terms—through text, music or video, as much as they like, at any time of day. For us this is an exciting and unmissable opportunity to make a connection with people and inspire them to get involved in our campaigns."

www.youtube.co.uk/missingpeople

As the UK's only charity that works with young runaways, missing and unidentified people, their families and others who care for them, Missing People has huge potential to maximise its use of online media.

Paul Tuohy, Missing People's Chief Executive explains, "Making appeals across traditional media can be very effective but YouTube allows us to give a 360-degree look at those we appeal for and the issue itself. Some of the videos we feature are those from parents. This allows families of the missing to feel involved in the search for their loved one and to have some control over it."

Missing People's channel features a mixture of more than 100 videos to date, including user-generated content and charity-produced appeals. The charity adds as many as 10–15 new videos per month and, since launch, more than forty of the cases featured have been resolved. "It's been a massive success." Paul says.

In addition to direct appeals for missing and unidentified people, the charity has been uploading a whole range of content including videos featuring special campaigns, supportive videos from the public and testimonials from supporters.

"Even small charities with limited budgets can use YouTube's nonprofit programme to get involved and reach their own target audiences," says Paul. "Keep it simple and focused and I think you'll find you have a huge amount of success with this medium."

www.youtube.co.uk/wateraid

WaterAid has been using YouTube since 2006. Originally relying on appeal videos that were produced for TV ads and meetings of supporters, they soon realised that they could produce viral videos especially for YouTube very cheaply. This meant that they could be more targeted to the YouTube community and particularly at young people who they found harder to reach through traditional media.

They have been experimenting with the videos that they produce and have had great success with several including "The stink goes on" and the series "Pooing in public". This is a series of 5 short videos that draws attention to the plight of people in Africa and Asia who don't have access to a toilet and the videos have spread virally to reach people all over the world, receiving up to 50,000 views each.

Andrew Cook, Director of Communications and Fundraising, summarises the impact that using YouTube has had for WaterAid:

"We can't afford to spend a lot of money on advertising so everything we do must cause people to take action or to raise money directly. YouTube provides a window to the world. It means that we can take our cause into people's living rooms, not just in the UK but all over the world, and for the first time we can give the people we work with in Africa and Asia a voice. Now people can see what WaterAid does through just a few clicks."