'Tis the Season

As photographers there are so many different ways you can give back to your community with or without a camera in your hand.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”
Zig Ziglar

by Skip Cohen

Okay gang, it's a topic I've written about over and over again through the years...giving back.  While it's something you should be doing all year long, the last quarter, with the seasonality of the holidays, tends to get more people thinking about charitable causes.

Here's the bottom line: In Jay Conrad Levinson's top 100 things guerrilla marketers need to do is give back to their community. Why? Because people like buying products and services from companies they perceive as giving something back. You're looking for your community to be good to you, so you need to be good to your community.

The best thing about giving back is that it can be virtually anything.  There's no such thing as a project too small. Over the years we've had photographers talk about helping kids at the local high school with newsletters and yearbooks; volunteer work at the local hospital; using photography to help families with loved ones in the military who are about to be deployed; editorial coverage for non-profits who are doing walkathons and community fund-raisers. The list is endless.

Then there are some wonderful organizations who can help you with a direction, each one being very photo-centric. NILMDTS, F.I.L.M., HeartsApart.Org, The Fisher House Program, PPA Charities, the Josephine Henrick Project and Thirst Relief.  Each organizations has hundreds of photographers involved. They're all listed with links to their sites in SCU's Giving Back section.

You've got a chance to give back to your community right now, but it won't happen if you procrastinate and three months "should" on yourself with a thought like, "You know what I should have done?"

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give!
Sir Winston Churchill

 Illustration Credit: © IGORS PETROVS - Fotolia.com