Nonprofit Event Video Production
Men Having Babies — 8th Annual West Coast Surrogacy Conference Welcome
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Transcript: Men Having Babies — 8th Annual West Coast Surrogacy Conference Welcome
Good morning everybody.
**Ron Poole-Dayan, MHB Executive Director**: My name is Ron Poldayan. I'm the Executive Director of Men Having Babies. I want to welcome you to what is actually our eighth annual West Coast Surrogacy conference.
You will have opportunities to hear from the experts going over how you can plan your parenting journey. So we'll have, you know, a session about the medical issues, a session about budgeting, insurance, legal issues.
But at the very least you'll be focused on what are those decisions you'll need to make and what are the topics you'll need to understand a little more to make those decisions.
**Susanna Park, MD, San Diego Fertility Center:** There are so many excellent resources at this conference and I hope the information you receive will excite you and inspire you in this journey to parenthood.
**Said Daneshmand, MD, San Diego Fertility Center:** As a father of three teenage daughters I understand the passion, the love that you all have at becoming parents.
As I tell many of our intended parents, you need a great team in place for this journey to be a smooth one to feel the confidence and the comfort that you're being taken care of.
**Brad Spencer, Same Love Surrogacy:** Eight years ago me and Jay were in the exact same situation you guys were in. Coming, finding information, picking our egg donor, picking our surrogate and we went through the exact process you're starting.
Both of us have six year old twin boys so we've gone through this journey and it was the inspiration for building our agency to give back the LGBTQ community.
**Ron Poole-Dayan, MHB Executive Director** We'll have an opportunity for you to hear from some parents, surrogates, an egg donor, because at the end of the day God willing you'll have children and this is in fact, right now, these minutes are part of their birth story. One day - I'm getting goosebumps - one day you'll be able to tell them that you are very mindful about how you wanted to create your family and that you made a point to sure that it's as positive as unique as they would be.
About This Video
Men Having Babies held its 8th annual West Coast Surrogacy conference in 2020. Ron Poldayan, the Executive Director, opens with a welcome to the room — then quickly explains why he's standing there. Eight years earlier, he and his partner Jay were sitting in the same seats, asking the same questions: which egg donor, which surrogate, what are the legal steps, what does the medical process look like. They now have 6-year-old twin boys. The video is a conference welcome, and its job is to set the room's tone before the experts take over. Poldayan does that by making the path concrete — "you need a great team in place" — and then landing a reframe that most conference openers never attempt: "Right now these minutes are part of their birth story." That's the moment where logistics become something else. This is a <span class="strong">nonprofit event video production</span> that works as a welcome, a recruitment tool for future attendees, and a record of what this community built over eight years.
What should a nonprofit conference welcome video include?
A reason the audience is in the right place, and someone credible to say it. Men Having Babies' conference welcome works because Ron Poldayan isn't just the Executive Director — he's also a parent who went through exactly the process everyone in the room is beginning. He knows the medical questions, the legal questions, the emotional weight of the donor and surrogate selection. When he says 'you need a great team in place,' it lands because he earned that sentence. The agenda overview is secondary to that credibility. Most conference welcome videos get this backwards.
How do you produce a conference welcome video that sets emotional tone, not just agenda?
Lead with a person, not a program schedule. The Men Having Babies welcome video mentions what sessions the conference will cover — medical, budgeting, legal, insurance — but that's not what anyone will remember. What they remember is Ron describing himself and Jay sitting in the same seats eight years ago, and the twins they have now. The emotional tone of the conference — 'you're not doing this alone, and it works' — is set by one personal story. The agenda follows. If you lead with the agenda, you're describing a schedule. If you lead with a story, you're describing a community.
How long should a nonprofit event welcome video be?
Two to four minutes, depending on what the opening needs to accomplish. A conference welcome that just sets tone and covers the schedule can be under two minutes. One that needs to establish an organization's identity, tell a founding story, or introduce first-time attendees to what the event is can run to four. Men Having Babies' welcome works because it's doing both — logistical orientation and emotional grounding — without padding either. The test is whether cutting anything would cost you something real. If you can cut a section without losing anything, it shouldn't be there.
How do you make a conference welcome video useful beyond the event itself?
Capture something the audience didn't already know — not just a welcome they could have heard in person. Ron Poldayan's 'these minutes are part of their birth story' reframe is the moment that makes this video worth keeping. It's not logistical. It's a shift in how the audience thinks about what they're doing. Prospective attendees watching this video before registering for next year's conference get something real: a sense of what the room feels like, what the organization believes, and who built it. That's the kind of content that recruits future attendees. A video that just says 'welcome to the conference' can't do that.
