Image is everything when it comes to promoting an organization. And, as charities convey their missions to potential supporters via marketing materials, fund-raising solicitations, Web sites, and newspaper articles, images are all-important.
Many large organizations have long known this to be true. For example, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, uses photography extensively in its fund-raising and marketing campaigns, helping it raise $658.1-million from private donations last year.
“Few donors will be able to ever actually walk through the doors at St. Jude,” says Dara Royer, executive director of communications at the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, the hospital’s fund-raising arm. “But photography provides a window into our mission the way nothing else in a communicator’s tool kit can. It creates a direct connection.”
And that connection “evokes an emotional response,” says Jim Stipe, photography director at Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore. Such a response, he adds, “is what leads the viewer to take action—often by donating money, since that is usually the most direct action they can take.”
Especially when seeking news-media coverage for a charity, photos may make a crucial difference in how prominently the story is featured—or even whether it’s covered at all.
With so many newspapers and magazines in cost-cutting mode these days, “if you are a small nonprofit organization and you get a chance at some media exposure, you are going to be asked to provide images of your mission or your people,” says Mark Kozlowski, director of photography for QuadPhoto, a nationwide network of professional commercial photo studios that often provides free aid to charities. “Many publications simply do not have the resources to assign photographers anymore, and they’re going to ask you for photos.”
Telling Stories
Given that representing itself with compelling photography can benefit a charity in so many ways, how can a typical small nonprofit produce or obtain great images on a tiny—or even nonexistent—budget?
The essential first step, communications experts in and out of the nonprofit world agree, lies in a single word: story.
“My number-one piece of advice is to identify your story: show your work, what your specific organization brings to the table, and show your stakeholders involved in that activity. This defines who you are visually and immediately.” says Martin Kace, founder of Empax, in New York, a communications consultant for nonprofit clients.
He says that far too many charities focus on end-result success stories.
“A photo of happy kids is not a story, and story is what draws people into your organization,” he says. “The kids don’t need to be smiling, they need to be doing, doing the thing that your group is helping them do.”
And, adds Mr. Kace, there are also things to avoid depicting.
“Don’t use meeting shots, or pictures from your fund-raising galas. Don’t include a photo of everyone who has written you a check for more than $100,” he says. “These are fine in a blog, but not important to communicating your mission. Plus, as images, they tend to be static, uninteresting.”
Think before shooting photos, says Mr. Kozlowski: “The idea has to come first, before the images.”
What’s more, he says, consider not only the idea you are trying to get across but the audience you are attempting to reach: “As a nonprofit it’s easy to get so mission-focused that you end up talking only to your own supporters. They already feel your passion. You need to reach beyond your immediate circle to communicate to a larger public in an engaging and professional way—people who might not know about your group or your mission but might be very interested in learning more and supporting you.”
As Catholic Relief Service’s director of annual giving, Jean Simmons oversees 31 million direct-mail pieces sent to donors and potential supporters each year and relies on photographs to grab first the recipients’ eyes, and then their hearts and minds.
“Your mission is your story,” she says. “Even a tiny nonprofit can and should invest time defining what you are looking to say. Then you can best advise a photographer what to shoot and as a result get powerful photos that tell your specific story.”
Tips for Better Images
Photographers and nonprofit communications professionals offer the following suggestions for telling a charity’s story well through still images:
Use quality equipment. “It’s important to use an actual camera,” says Rachel Reuveni, a New York photographer who has donated her skills to charities that include a summer camp. “Even the newest smart phones don’t generate images large enough to reproduce well. Even if an image looks good on your screen, that doesn’t mean it will look good in print.”
To ensure good reproduction capability, says Mr. Stipe, use a 10 megapixel or higher camera. Select the highest resolution size (often called “highest quality” in a camera’s menu), and use the fully automatic setting (often called “P” or “Program” mode). When downloading images, 300 dpi and jpeg format is the industry standard, and bigger is always better when it comes to file size for print reproduction.
Get closer. “If there is a photographic emergency and someone sticks a camera in your hand, there are a few basic things anyone can do to improve the pictures you take,” says Scott Anderson, a Minneapolis photographer who has done pro bono work for animal shelters. “Get close, and make sure your subjects are looking at the camera. People open up more if you are face-to-face with them, and both these things bring a feeling of connection to the viewer.”
Avoid flash. “Whenever possible, use available light,” Mr. Anderson continues. “Camera flash usually looks horrible, and even most point-and-shoot cameras today are sensitive enough to handle low-light situations.”
Mix people and action. Although close-ups of the people a charity serves allow its supporters to “look into the eyes of that beneficiary and really connect,” says Ms. Simmons, of Catholic Relief Services, it’s important to support those close-ups with photos that show the charity’s mission at work. This combination, she says, “gives a whole range of images to work within any context —Web, direct mail, brochures.”
Protect clients’ privacy. A signed photo release not only protects a charity and its photographer from legal liability, but also gives the organizations’ clients a measure of control over the use of their images. This is an especially important concern for nonprofits that serve vulnerable individuals, such as medical patients, poor or homeless people, or children.
“We work with public schools, and as a general rule we are careful not to use children’s faces full on, to be sure we are protecting them,” says Kathy Beachler, interim executive director of Arts Every Day, a nonprofit in Baltimore that puts artists into city classrooms to offer arts education. The charity works under the blanket photo release the city requires from public-school students each year, but Ms. Beachler notes that simple, standard photo-release forms are widely available online.
When it comes to navigating privacy concerns at health charities, says St. Jude’s Ms. Royer, “informed consent is essential. We have a very deep process for how we consent”—i.e., make sure the patient’s family fully understands and agrees to how the young person’s likeness will be used. This is important because, Ms. Royer says, “We do not stage photographs. So if they’re an inpatient in their hospital bed or an outpatient visiting doctors, we are documenting and capturing that moment. In simply portraying what happens here in an authentic way, we are able to approach our patients with dignity and with respect, and not violating any type of ethical boundary of displaying your patients.”
Ms. Royer says that St. Jude has no set rules for what can or cannot appear in a photo, but that the patient’s needs always come first.
“We work with the physicians and the family’s social worker to make sure that this is truly the right time for them to be participating in a photo shoot or sharing their story with us,” she says.
Indeed, she says, it is often the families that approach the charity to offer their participation.
“They see the promotion that St. Jude does and they know the importance of fund raising as backbone of continuing our livesaving mission, and they say to us, ‘How can we get involved?’” Ms. Royer says. “So when the time arises, we contact that family and say, ‘We would like to photograph you with your doctor, is that something that is acceptable to you?’”
Show goals the charity has achieved. Although the aspiring homeowners served by Habitat for Humanity International don’t have much money and have often led difficult lives, the charity is leery of exploiting their struggle, says Bob Longino, creative director for the charity based in Americus, Ga.
“Instead, we rely on end-result photos,” he says. “You do need to set the stage: so you might have a photo of a poverty situation where there is trash and raw sewage and kids are having to play in that environment. But then you get to show the new row of Habitat houses and now the kids are playing in this transformed setting. You see the joy in their faces. That’s real.
“What you are able to say to people is, look what you are able to do with your donation,” he says. “You are able to give this kid a better chance, a better life and community and hope—that is what we shoot for.”