articles/Business/gettingstartedbygivingback-page2
Published 01/02/2007
How to start?
We did a press release announcing our intentions to donate our services to any charity in need of photography services. We stipulated that the charity could not be a religious organisation (with some exceptions of course) because we didn't want to get every church and temple qualifying. We also stipulated that it couldn't be a school, unless the school helped children with illnesses or children who were underprivileged. This helped us avoid every wealthy private school calling us for work. We think it is very important to set guidelines because there are organisations that can take advantage of your generosity, although we did not experience any major issues. Once we set the guidelines we submitted the press release to several local newspapers from dailies to weeklies. The daily newspaper ran a front page story in the local section and it was read by everyone while the weekly put us in the "people to watch" section.
Let's just say word spread fast! And it was great free advertising! We had calls that day from small charities such as Rural Opportunities and Petpride, to large charities such as United Way. All had important assignments and just didn't have budgets to afford to hire professionals. They all intended to give an employee a small digital camera and hope to get decent results. This was exactly the response we hoped for - they needed us bad!
How important did our imagery become to the charities? Just imagine if you were a contributor. If you saw a brochure with images that touched your heart, that were clear and beautiful and sensitive, you'd be much more likely to donate to the cause, right? Well, that is the impact we had. Our imagery moved people to give as we had. Our imagery helped those who lives might have not been documented if we didn't do it. And in turn our imagery made us proud to do what we do. We sleep better every night knowing that we are respected for our kindness first and our talent second.
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