Maryrose Dunton, the Head of User Experience at YouTube, spoke to Net Tuesday San Francisco this week about the YouTube Nonprofit Program (be sure to check out the new look of their landing page).

Here are a few notes from her presentation:

U.S. based organizations with 501(c)(3) status, that are not political or religious, are eligible to join. They are working on making the program international. If you are a Google Grant recipient, let them know. It sounds like your application will be processed more quickly since the criteria for Google Grants and the YouTube Nonprofit Program are the same.

Members of the program receive:

* A premium branded channel. For example, the Asia Society's channel has a banner with their logo at the top of the page, and the background includes their logo as well.
* The ability to upload videos of any length.
* Promotion in the "Promoted Videos" section of the site.
* Google Checkout on your channel with no processing fee.
* Listing in the Nonprofit Channel browsing area. Definitely take a look through the channels here. Interestingly, the channel with the most views is the Anaheim Ballet's channel with 4,962,582 views. Dunton said they add new content very regularly, sometimes more than once a day.

Dunton shared a few YouTube Nonprofit Basics with the group:

1. Keep it fresh and short. 2-3 minutes is ideal.
2. Upload regularly.
3. Be genuine. Don't post PSAs.
4. Engage and interact with the community. Don't be afraid of comments. You can moderate them, but don't turn them off.
5. Have a direct dialogue. Dunton said a lot of people come to them and say that they want to have a contest, which is fine, but you don't have to do something so elaborate to engage people. You can also post a video and ask people to post video comments using webcams on their computers.
6. Create a call to action.
7. Invest in your channel. Make sure it looks nice, works well and has fresh content. Favorite other nonprofits' videos.
8. Don't be afraid of comments, ratings or the related videos listed alongside your video channel, even if a video that is listed as related to your channel is against your issue.

What's next for YouTube for Nonprofits?

1. Going international
2. Helping to make viewing of nonprofits = action.
3. Improving discovery of nonprofit videos.

The YouTube Nonprofit Program was launched at the 2007 Clinton Global Intiative. You can watch a video of Bill Clinton talking about the YouTube Nonprofit Program above.