YouTube Announce Channel for Non-Profit Organisations

This announcement by Google caught my eye today as it relates to an article I wrote last week about clients using video on their web site and how services such as YouTube have now made that very easy to achieve.

Google has just launched a free service which provides non-profit organisations with their own YouTube channel. Many of my clients are non-profit and while it looks like the offer only applies to non-profits in the USA at the moment, it’s bound to rolled out in Europe sooner or later.

But YouTube is free I hear you cry. True, and that was the whole point of my article last week. But they are offering more than a free account. They are offering a channel. This means you benefit of your own dedicated, branded area on YouTube, promotion of your content on premium areas of YouTube and support in professional productions.

Of course Google are very smart people and this package comes with a very nice sweetener. They have included free on-line donation processing using Google Checkout, their own version or PayPal / World Pay etc. Donation processing is free with the package until at least the end of 2008.

You can read their full announcement here googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/youtube-and-checkout-for-non-profit.html

You can find out more about the initiative at youtube.com/nonprofits