Sharing photos with a cause

Posted March 5th, 2008 at 3:46 pm by Carol Rudisill, TechSoup.org

 6 Comments / Filed in: Guest Opinions, Yahoo! For Good

Hi, my name is Carol and I’m a Flickr addict.

I’ve been hooked on Flickr since 2005, so you can imagine how excited I was when I heard I might be able to share my Flickr fever as part of my job! I work for TechSoup, a nonprofit that other nonprofits go to for technology help and resources. Typical nonprofits we work with are very small organizations working with the poor or youth activities.

Here at TechSoup we’ve been using Flickr’s photo service for years in a variety of ways. NetSquared, a TechSoup program, set up the “I Want Change!” and “NetSquared” Flickr Groups to help people share ideas about how nonprofits use Web 2.0 and social networking tools like Flickr to tell their stories and spark change. We encouraged NetSquared participants from all over the world to use event-specific tags to make it easy to share their pictures of group meetings and events on Flickr. So it seemed a perfect pairing when Flickr started talking with us about offering nonprofits a donation program of free Flickr Pro accounts.

When nonprofits turn to TechSoup for technology help and resources, they’re often looking for donations of software and hardware. Their technology is sometimes so out of date that they can hardly imagine something beyond the basics of word processing, fundraising, and virus protection. Donating Flickr Pro accounts will let nonprofits effortlessly use social networking both for fun and to help better fulfill their mission for social benefit.

I am a firm believer that photos have the power to amplify storytelling and provide a glimpse into the reality of a situation to move people to take action around causes. Such a believer that we think it’s important to reach out to the 90,000 nonprofits that are registered with TechSoup to help them find like-minded people by introducing them to the world that is available to them through Flickr and cool tools like tagging and creating groups. For example, Interplast has used Flickr to demonstrate the results of free reconstructive surgery for poor children in developing countries.

I have met so many amazing people through Flickr. I have chatted with people from countries I will never visit — people in war-torn areas who amaze me in their openness, people with shared interests and visions that can mobilize quickly to effect change. And I’ve even met some Flickr people face-to-face who have become good friends. I can’t imagine a world without Flickr. I am so glad to have a professional mission that now allows me to show nonprofits how Flickr can open so many possibilities for them, their staff, their volunteers, their clients, customers, and friends.

If you work as nonprofit volunteer or staff member, please check out the Flickr donation program on TechSoup. So, get on with it, go forth and load up your photos!

Carol Rudisill
Director, TechSoup Stock
TechSoup

Tagged: Flickr, Yahoo! For Good

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6 Comments Add your own

Ron Heiby | March 5th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

Unfortunate that the link to the Flickr donation program takes me to a page that gripes about my browser not having cookies enabled (both Firefox and Safari) when they do, and then takes me to a “File Not Found” page when I tell it to Continue anyway.

Nicki Dugan | March 6th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

@Ron – We’ve updated the link with one that’s not cookied http://techsoup.org/go/flickr… you should be able to access it now. If not, let us know.

Frank | March 14th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

Well, now the link keeps giving the following message:

http://techsoup.org/go/flickr/
####
Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.

Could not connect to JRun Server
####

Julie Han | March 17th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

@Frank, thanks for your comment. The link seems to be working.

Julie Han
Blog Team

ANN HAMBLEN | April 28th, 2008 at 2:00 am

HOW DO I SET UP;PHOTOS 4 CAUSE?/CYSTIC FIBROSIS/THANKS^GOD BLESS!!

Nicki Dugan | April 28th, 2008 at 10:36 am

@Ann: If you represent a registered non-profit, you can read more about applying for and setting up a free Flickr Pro account here.

Note that anyone can set up a Flickr photo account for free. A free account gets you:

* 100 MB monthly upload limit (10MB per photo)
* 3 sets
* Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
* Post any of your photos in up to 10 group pools
* Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later)

Hope that helps.

Nicki Dugan
Yodel Anecdotal Editor