charity:water, a YouTube Nonprofit, Raises $10,000 for Clean Water Using Ad Overlay

Since the launch of the YouTube Nonprofit Program in 2007, one of the primary things non-profit organizations have asked for is the ability to drive traffic off-site to pages where they can collect donations, signatures and email addresses.

Last week, we launched a new feature for all YouTube nonprofit partners, which allows them to do exactly that. The feature, called "Call to Action," gives nonprofits the ability to use InVideo overlays (transparent ads that show up during the video) to drive traffic to an off-YouTube web page. Already, we're seeing organizations use the feature with great success.

On Sunday, to commemorate World Water Day, we featured a video from charity:water on the YouTube homepage. The video included a Call to Action overlay that encouraged YouTube users to donate money to help build wells and provide clean, safe drinking water for those who don't have it.



The response from the YouTube community was overwhelming and charity:water was able to raise over $10,000 in one day from the video. That's enough to build two brand-new wells in the Central African Republic and give over 150 people clean drinking water for 20 years!

Interested in adding Call to Action overlays to your organization's videos? It's easy -- just go to "Edit Video" and fill out the fields in the section marked "Call to Action overlay." All you have to do is include a short headline, ad text, a destination url, and upload an optional image, and the overlay will appear whenever someone watches your video.

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, YouTube Team