SHOOTING FROM THE HEART

Photography That Makes A Difference

A HANDBOOK
FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
PURSUING DOCUMENTARY PROJECTS

2nd Edition - December, 2007

Photo: Natalie Fobes

BLUE EARTH ALLIANCE

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Heather Dwyer
Malcolm Edwards
Carey Evenson
Heather Joy Helbach-Olds
Chase Jarvis
Dan Lamont
Diane Love
Charles Mauzy
Larry Ockene
Dorothy Rissman
Peter Speyer
Nadine Stellavato
Adam L. Weintraub
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Rachel Dodson

Florian Schulz, Yellowstone to Yukon Project

Shooting From the Heart

A HANDBOOK FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS PURSUING
DOCUMENTARY PROJECTS
2nd Edition, December, 2007
This handbook was made possible with a grant from the American Society of
Media Photographers Foundation ASMP.org/foundation
Managing Editor: Dan Lamont www.danlamont.com
Copy Editor: Miriam Bullmer
Designer: Barbara Witt www.barbarawitt.com
Copyright notice:
All material in this pamphlet is copyrighted by Blue Earth Alliance
and the individual authors.
All rights reserved. 2007
Blue Earth Alliance
P.O. Box 94388 Seattle, WA 98124-6688
206.725.4913 www.blueearth.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PHOTOGRAPHY WITH A MISSION...........................................................1
by Natalie Fobes
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................2
by Dan Lamont
BEGINNING THE PROCESS......................................................................5
by Natalie Fobes
PLANNING AND BUDGETING..................................................................8
by Dan Lamont
RAISING FUNDS...................................................................................12
Introduction by Judy de Barros, Malcolm Edwards & Marissa Chevez
The Four Step Process by Scott Freeman
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF WRITING GRANTS...........................................24
by Judy de Barros
GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING: A PERSONAL STORY.................................30
by Marita Holdaway
CREATING A LASTING IMPRESSION.......................................................32
by David D. Johnson
FINDING AN AUDIENCE.......................................................................36
by Natalie Fobes
PUBLICIZING YOUR PROJECT....................................................................46
by Julie Geier
THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION...................................................................49
by Dan Lamont
DEVELOPING AN ONLINE PRESENCE....................................................59
by Russell Sparkman
APPENDICES: Table of Contents........................................................75

PHOTOGRAPHY WITH A MISSION

hotographers are the eyes and conscience of society.

Through our vision, photographers show others the places we live

in a new light and reveal our neighbors in a new way. Our photographs illuminate the dark corners of our cultural and environmental tapestry. These images record, for all time, the split second
in which the photographers shutter remains open. Life in the present becomes history in the future.
Blue Earth Alliance was founded by photographers for photographers. It is dedicated to helping photographers document endangered environments, threatened cultures, and current social issues.
Blue Earth Alliance is dedicated to you.

Natalie Fobes, cofounder

Natalie Fobes, Reaching Home

INTRODUCTION

n the mid-1990s award-wining photojournalist Natalie

Fobes and noted social documentary photographer Phil Borges

had just completed book and exhibit projects on subjects close to
their heartsin Fobess case the endangered salmon and salmondependent cultures of the North Pacific (Reaching Home: Pacific
Salmon, Pacific People); in Borgess case, a project on the people
of the Tibetan plateau (Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion). Based on these experiences, they realized there was an urgent
need for a nonprofit group that could help photographers along the
difficult path of successfully producing documentary photographic
work.
One of the most challenging problems facing documentary photographers is how to raise money for their projects. It is never easy.
However, the job may become less harrowing if the photographer is
closely associated with an established nonprofit organization.
Another challenge is the isolation in which many photographers
work. Many are independent artists and journalists who yearn for
the team camaraderie and lack the material and psychological support of more conventional work environments.
In 1996, in response to these needs, Fobes and Borges created Blue
Earth Alliance (BEA). The mission of Blue Earth Alliance is to
educate the public about endangered cultures, threatened environments, and other social concerns through photography. By supporting the power of photographic storytelling and the photographers
who tell those stories, Blue Earth Alliance aims to motivate society
to make positive changes.

INTRODUCTION

Through its educational efforts and active engagement in the professional community, BEA also strives to move forward the agenda
of all documentary photographers and photojournalists.
This book is designed to help photographers to implement a documentary photographic project. It is written by experienced members of the board of Blue Earth Alliance and other volunteers with
special and relevant expertise. The contents of this book roughly
parallel the sequence of steps required to successfully create and
complete a documentary project.
Photographers may apply to Blue Earth Alliance to sponsor a
project if it meets the mission of the organization. Applications are
currently reviewed twice a year; the deadlines are January 21 and
June 10. Information on how to apply is available elsewhere in this

Phil Borges, Tibetan Portrait

book and at www.blueearth.org. To view Blue Earth Alliance projects, go to www.blueearth.org/projects.

There are many benefits to having a project sponsored by Blue
Earth Alliance. Because Blue Earth Alliance is a 501(c)(3) not-forprofit organization, contributions to projects sponsored by BEA are
tax deductible (which is not the case with grants to individual artists). In addition, project photographers become eligible for funding by foundations that support the work of recognized nonprofits
(such as BEA) but do not offer grants to individual artists.
BEAs board and staff make every effort to assist photographers
on their way to the successful completion and distribution of their
projects. BEA also employs a grant expert who can assist project
photographers in identifying and applying for grants.

Shooting From The Heart

INTRODUCTION

Blue Earth Alliance and its expanding network of experienced

photographers, editors, educators, fund-raisers, and professionals from many fields, all of whom share a love for documentary
photography, can act as an advisory board and extended team for
BEA project photographers.
If your project is accepted by Blue Earth Alliance, you will be
assigned a board coordinator who will oversee the project and
answer your questions. You, as the photographer proposing the
project, become the project administrator and will be primarily
responsible for seeking funds for the project on behalf of Blue
Earth Alliance. Once you begin to receive funding, the gifts and
grants are made to Blue Earth, which then transfers funds to you
as the project progresses. In exchange for the fiscal sponsorship,
administrative costs, and project assistance, Blue Earth retains 10
percent of the collected funds to meet its expenses.
Project photographers are expected to make regular periodic reports that should include an overall description of what they have

Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People

by Natalie Fobes

accomplished, their fund-raising plans, and an accounting of any

funds that may have been spent on the project. The relationship
between a photographer and Blue Earth is spelled out in a legally
binding contract, which must be signed before BEA sponsorship of
the project begins.
Whether you choose to submit your project for Blue Earth
Alliance support or simply choose to use this book as an educational resource, we wish you the greatest success in your documentary endeavors. We all share one goal: to create photography
that makes a difference.

Dan Lamont

Editor, 2nd Edition, December, 2007

Shooting From The Heart

BEGINNING THE PROCESS

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
By Natalie Fobes

ou have an idea for a documentary project. You find

yourself thinking about it all the time. It is a story that has to be

told. One that no one is telling. One that you want to communicate through your photographs. You decide that you have to act
on your convictions.
Now the hard work begins. Decisions have to be made: how best
to photograph the story, who to talk with, where to go, when to
go, how to fund it. You are overwhelmed.
I know the feeling. Ive been there. In 1983 I had a burning desire
to tell the stories of salmon and the cultures that depend on the
salmon around the Pacific Rim. Sure, there were plenty of stories
in the newspapers about salmon. But they were stories about one
small aspectsuch as the closure of sportfishing seasons for lack
of fish. No one was looking at the story in its entirety.
For the next year I researched the story and requested all newspaper assignments relating to salmon. I knew this would be a
good project for the Alicia Patterson Foundation. I had heard
about this nonprofit when I first started in photography. Each year
six to eight journalists, including photographers, are selected for
these fellowships. In 1986 I received one. The grant allowed me

BEGINNING
THE PROCESS

to take 14 months off from my newspaper photography job to

pursue the story. I was ecstatic. But I soon realized that, although
most people make a plan and then look for money, I had the
money and no plan.
The story was huge, and complicated by the fact that salmon
return to the rivers of their births just once a year. How was I ever
going to cover it all?
After a month of sleepless nights and anxious days, I realized that
it just couldnt be done. I had to find situations that would represent different aspects of the story. I took a week to concentrate
on writing the general theme of the project. Then I divided it into
different categories, such as life cycle, logging impact on streams,
gillnetting, and marine mammal interception. In those days before
computers, I wrote everything I knew on index cards according to
subject and organized the cards in piles on the floor of my bedroom-turned-office.
As the piles grew, the project seemed to divide itself into five main
areas: the incredible life cycle of the salmon and the creatures
that feed on the fish; commercial and sport fishing; Indian fishing

Kakula Alban, East of a New Eden Project

and ceremonies; salmon farms and ranches; and habitat destruction. I examined each set of index cards to determine what situation would make the best photographs and when the best time to
photograph was. I then made hard decisions about what not to
photograph.

Shooting From The Heart

BEGINNING
THE PROCESS

For example, I could have photographed Indians fishing anywhere

in the Northwest, Canada, or Alaska. I decided that the dip-net
fishery on the Klickitat River in Washington would exemplify not
only the current dependence on salmon of the Yakama Indians,
but also the traditional fishing that members of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition wrote about in the early 1800s. As they did in
the old days, the fishermen stood on platforms hung from the
walls of the rivers canyon. Using nets on long poles, they caressed
the bottom to find the hidey-holes where the salmon rested. Most
important, the Yakama Indians had agreed to give me access, the
spring chinook fishing was just beginning, and the Klickitat was
only a five-hour drive from my Seattle home.
After I had decided what and where to photograph, I transferred
each subject onto Post-it notes. I placed those on a 12-month
calendar. I then had a visual outline that could be adjusted as my

Janis Miglavs, Africas

Undiscoverd Myths

plans changed. (Today many software programs make this organizational task even simpler.)
As soon as I made these hard decisions, I felt a weight lift from my
chest. Although I did not have every single decision, trip, or contact finalized, I did have enough to begin doing what I love: photographing real people living their lives.
I had discovered that by dividing the overall story into smaller stories I could get my arms around it. Instead of planning my whole
year, I took one month at a time. My 10-year project began with a
theme, piles of index cards, a calendar, and one small step.

Shooting From The Heart

PLANNING & BUDGETING

Edited by Dan Lamont

s photographers launch into major documentary projects

they face a conundrum. Most photographers are artists and storytellers.

Few are also planners and project managers. Yet designing and executing a large, long-term nonprofit documentary project demands all four
of these skills .

To successfully secure funding for a project the photographer must

meet a range of planning, budgeting, and documentation requirements

typically stipulated as part of grant applications. Following the dis-

ciplined, well-organized path this implies will not only enhance the

photographers chances of getting the money but will also surely im-

prove the overall quality and effectiveness of the finished project. In so

many ways, it pays to be organized.

The temptation when creating a budget is to simply open an Excel file

and start plugging in numbers, but before one creates ledger sheets

some careful planning is in order. Rational analysis of project needs

will give a clearer picture of true costs and help to avoid the missed
details that can bleed a project to death.

Start by defining the obvious elements: your mission (presumably

the creation of the images and other content elements you have in mind
for your project) and your goal (to successfully complete the project

and disseminate it through various publishing and exhibition channels).

Between those two points is a continuum of complicated and challeng-

ing activities. Each is associated with costs and resource needs that you
will have to identify and accommodate.

PLANNING &
BUDGETING

To manage all those activities, break them down into a series of linked
task areas. For instance, at the beginning of the process comes topical

research: learning about your subject so you know how to photograph

it. Then comes funding research and grant proposal writing. During the
preproduction phase you will need to gather resources, book travel arrangements, set up shoot dates, and line up all the other details.

During the production phase youll be out in the field making pictures
(a surprisingly small percentage of your time on most projects). This

phase involves many obviousand some not so obviousneeds and

costs. These include transportation, accommodations, meals, subcontract labor (assistants, fixers, translators, etc.), perhaps shipping or

baggage charges, specialized supplies, and rentals (dont forget the cost
of the dugout canoe and the mosquito netting): a whole host of expenses need to be accounted for.

But once you return from that wildly successful adventure in the field,

the real work begins. In postproduction youll have to process all those
images. Be they film or digital, they will all require work. Youll need
Gary Braasch, Earth Under Fire:
A World View of Global Warming Project

to caption and catalog images, perhaps make prints or prepare digital

files for distribution, contact publishers, contact galleries, frame im-

ages, and on and on depending on the nature of your project. Each of

these steps requires time, materials, and other resources. Add them to
your budget.

Then there are the business management issues and infrastructure (the

phone, the computers, insurance, etc.) that support the whole endeavor.
Those too will demand your attention and your resources.

Shooting From The Heart

PLANNING &
BUDGETING

As you go through this planning process, think carefully. Who will do

each task? You? An assistant, collaborator, or volunteer? What sorts of

resources will the completion of each task require? On what timeline?
What will it really (really) cost? Be specific. Be detailed. Be honest

with yourself. Now is not the time to be starry-eyed and delusional.

Many a well-intentioned and worthy project has failed because a photographer allowed him- or herself to ignore these details.

Amazingly, one of the most frequently overlooked expenses in a long-

term documentary project is income for the photographer. Dont forget

youll still have to eat and pay the rent while you work on your opus, so
build in a reasonable stipend for yourself.

The budgeting worksheets in the appendices section at the end of this

Perry Dilbeck, Truck Farmers:
The Last Harvest Project

book, are useful planning resources.

Once you have completed some type of useful total project analysis

you will be in a much better position to create a more traditional budget

spreadsheet that reflects what your real costs are going to be. Youll
need to include this budget in most grant applications.

But creating a budget is not just about costs; it is also about income.
Now that you know what youll need to spend to achieve your goal,
consider what revenue sources might be available. Make a realistic

projection of sources and amounts. What grant funding organizations

will you apply to and how much will you request? How much is coming from private funders? How about corporate in-kind contributions

(equipment, travel expense, etc.)? Print sales? Publication usage fees?

All of this should be factored into your budget.

Shooting From The Heart

10

In general, you should manage your project with the same (or greater)
PLANNING &
BUDGETING

diligence and oversight you use to manage your business. Board members and staff from granting agencies and many independent funders
look at a great many project proposals and are highly skilled at rec-

ognizing padded, underfunded, or incomplete budgets. The budget is

something that you must get right. It must be carefully thought out and
comprehensive. When in doubt, consult an accountant or bookkeeper.

Such an adviser is likely to offer a dispassionate, hard-nosed and useful

opinion about your financial assumptions.

Once youve identified all of the variables and nailed down the neces-

sary information, create a set of books for the project. Make it easy on
yourself by using bookkeeping software such as QuickBooks, Quick-

Books Pro, or Microsoft Money, or, if you prefer, simply use a database
such as Excel to create spreadsheets. Either approach will allow you to
modify your budget numbers as the project evolves without constantly

having to erase and recalculate totals each time something changes. Financial software also generates splendid reports that will not only help
you track expenses and keep tax records, but will also be a valuable

tool to show potential grant funders how well organized your project is.
Tim Matsui, Fear Project

If it all seems too daunting, hire a bookkeeper (and add this cost to the
overall budget).

Be meticulous about record keeping. You do not ever want to visit the
IRS with a shoe box full of receipts.

Remember, financial management and budgeting may be difficult and

tedious, but the success of your project absolutely depends on how well
you manage it.

Shooting From The Heart

11

RAISING FUNDS
INTRODUCTION TO FUND-RAISING

By Judy de Barros, Malcolm Edwards, and Marissa Chavez

his is it: sooner or later you will have to bite the bul-

let and raise funds to develop and complete your documentary

project. If you are like most of us, asking for money is something
you dont want to do. To be successful, you first must get over this
reluctance to ask for support.
Is your project worthwhile? Do you believe your project will add
value to peoples understanding of its subject? Do you believe that
spreading this knowledge is important? Is your project truly meaningful? Your answer to these questions is already yes or you would
not be working on it. The next step is to help others understand
why this project is valuable. Fund-raising is more than just asking
for money; it is about building relationships with people who care
about your work. When others learn about the valuable work you
are doing, you have created an opportunity for them to participate
in your project by providing financial support. If you are truly
convinced of the benefit of your work, you should be able to be
your own best missionary.
Blue Earth project photographers who were successful fund-raisers each believed their project was so important that people would
love to have the opportunity to contribute to something that valuable.

RAISING FUNDS

Do you need to be a nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status to raise

funds? The answer is no, but it may affect the way you go about
fund-raising.
You may be able to get contributions from a business even if you
do not have 501(c)(3) status if the contribution is for a legitimate
business expense. The most usual business expense category is
promotion. You must, however, offer a promotional benefit to
the business, and that should be stated up front. Recognizing the
business as a sponsor in publications, exhibits, or promotionsfor
exhibits is a typical way to create an advertising and promotion
business expense.
If you do have 501(c)(3) status, individuals can take a charitable
deduction for contributions made to your project. However, this
contribution is limited to the amount by which the contribution
exceeds the fair market value of anything received in return for the

Judy Blankenship, The Canari of

-Southern Ecuador Project

contribution. For example, if your fund-raising involves the usually successful method of giving a print in exchange for the contribution, the donation will not be tax deductible if the fair market
value of the print equals or exceeds the amount of the donation.
In this case, 501(c)(3) status is not relevant.
As an example, a now very successful photographer in the Northwest funded 10 of his photographic trips by asking individuals
to contribute to his anticipated trip expenses in exchange for the
right to select a print from images taken on the trip. The donation
for each print was set at a price slightly below the photographers
usual selling price. When the photographer returned from his
trips, he would set up a special exhibit so the donors could view

Shooting From The Heart

13

RAISING FUNDS

the images and select their print. This also whetted the appetite of
the donors for the next round of prints from the next trip. This
method was successful in funding the trips without 501(c)(3) status.
However, if you have donors who contribute to your project without receiving anything in return, their gift will be tax deductible
only if they make that donation to a registered nonprofit.
If you have 501(c)(3) status, charitable contributions by corporations and businesses are also tax deductible, and likewise are
subject to the limitation that the contribution must exceed the fair
market value of anything received in return. In-kind contributions
are also tax deductible. It is important to remember that individual charitable donations by employees are oftentimes matched by
their employer if the donation is made to a registered nonprofit.
This is another way in which businesses can help contribute to a
project.
Frequently, a business entity or an individual may be unwilling
to give money but quite willing to give in-kind contributions. Be
aware of what types of things such individuals and organizations

Omar Attum, Sinai Wilderness

may sell or produce to see if any are usable by you directly or

through an auction or other fund-raising device. Its also important to remember that in-kind donations, and cash contributions,
can be used to match funds raised through a grant.
Additionally, if you have 501(c)(3) status you will be able to apply
for grants from more foundations than if you were applying as an
individual artist. Most foundations are required by law to each

Shooting From The Heart

14

RAISING FUNDS

year give away 90 percent of their income to nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status. They cannot meet this obligation by
giving funds to individuals. Thus, this fund-raising avenue is not
available to your project unless your project has 501(c)(3) status
through a nonprofit organization.
Some foundations do give funds to individuals. The method of
applying these foundations is usually similar to that of applying
to foundations whose contributions may be made to nonprofit
organizations only. Several government agencies also will provide
funding for worthwhile projects. These agencies may or may not
require that the applicant be a nonprofit organization. Thus, the
material in this book about applying for grants has universal application.
All foundations and some businesses have specific procedures to
follow in seeking funds. Before you apply, make sure your project
is of the type that the funder is interested in. That information is
readily available from potential funders. Dont waste your time,
and theirs, applying for funds for a project that does not meet the
funders interests. Once you have found a grant source that aligns
well with your project, read through the entire application (paying

Brian Watt, Disappearing Cultures Project

special attention to deadlines and application procedures).

Surprisingly, one of the most commonly cited reasons for rejecting
a proposal is that the applicant failed to follow the organizations
rules about applying for funds. Another common difficulty is that
the applicant does not directly answer all of the questions in the
grant application in a clear and concise manner. You must be compelling and concise if you expect your application to be seriously

Shooting From The Heart

15

RAISING FUNDS

considered by the individuals who decide who will be funded.

Foundations are usually flooded with funding requests, and you
have to draw attention to the uniqueness of your project. If you
need it, get help writing. The clearer your application can be, the
better chance you have of receiving funding.

Cameron Davidson, Chesapeake Bay Watershed Project

Shooting From The Heart

16

RAISING FUNDS
FUND-RAISING: A FOUR STEP PROCESS

By Scott Freeman

here are two widely shared misconceptions about fund-

raising: (1) corporations are the biggest givers, and (2) the essence
of fund-raising is writing grant proposals. It is true that corporations give money away, and grant writing is important. But to get
anywhere you need to modify both of these ideas.
Why? I once had the opportunity to work for George Archibald,
a founder and director of a conservation organization called the
International Crane Foundation. Archibald started this group
from scratch 20 years ago; it now has a 160-acre campus and
a full-time paid staff of 27, all supported exclusively by private
donations. The MacArthur Foundation awarded him a genius
grant; an aunt of mine who has served on foundation boards for
30 years uses the same word to describe his facility with fund-raising. I hope this background will encourage you to pay attention
to what he describes as the first rule of fund-raising: People give
money to their friends.
Think about it. If you had money to give away, to whom would
you give it? Someone youve never met or heard of, who writes
you a proposal? Or someone you know and trust, and who is doing work you believe in? Heres another way to think about fundraising: in essence, you are seeking venture capital for an extremely high-risk project. Venture capitalists consistently declare that
they do not invest in a product as much as they invest in a person.

RAISING FUNDS

What does this mean to you?

Fund-raising is a four-step process: you identify prospects, cultivate them, make an ask, and follow up. Lets look at each phase
in turn.
IDENTIFYING PROSPECTS

Donations in the private sector come from three distinct sources:

individuals, charitable foundations, and corporations. Of the
three, individuals are far and away the most important. Individuals often want to support a hobby or a personal passion. They
want to be part of a community, and donating to a cause can offer
them that opportunity. Because of this, individuals are responsible
for more than 70 percent of private giving in the United States.
Additionally, 80 percent of all individual donations come from
families who have a household income of $70,000 or less. Contrary to what most people believe, you do not have to know a lot
of rich people to do fund-raising.
In contrast, corporations and foundations combined routinely
Richard Rollins, Endangered Spaces

account for less than 20 percent of private giving. Foundations

usually direct contributions to solve specific social or environmental problems identified in their mission statement. Corporations
give away money to better the lives of their employees, build name
recognition among customers, or add to their status as community
leaders.
Another major source of funding is the public sector, or the government. This can include support at each level of government,
including city, county, state, and federal. Government agencies try
to fill gaps by funding community services that are not supported
elsewhere.

Shooting From The Heart

18

RAISING FUNDS

It is critical to recognize, however, that every source expects something in return. In other words, your project has to fill a need that
an individual, foundation, corporation, or government agency has
identified. When you start to think about potential prospects, ask
yourself, Will this project align with their interests? To begin
identifying prospects, then, list funders from each of these four
sources whose concerns match up with your project. You should
be able to write a sentence declaring why your project would be of
special interest to them.
CULTIVATING INTEREST

Next, cultivate each of these sources. Remember that people give

money to their friends; to be successful you have to make personal
contact with potential funders. If you are a big-name photographer, your reputation may make this contact for you. But if you
are just starting out, you need to sell yourself. Be creative.
If you are targeting individuals, invite them to an exhibit of
your work. Send them cards or letters when you are traveling;
Sharon Seligman, Bearing Witness:
Beyond the Surface of Breast Cancer

send copies of newspaper or magazine articles youve produced.

Go to events that they have sponsored and thank them. Are they
interested in photography as a personal hobby? Offer to help
them with technique, or take them with you on location. Are they
interested in a particular cause? Send them photographs youve
taken on the subject. In short, show them how helping you can be
a rewarding experiencesomething that they will feel good about
and that will make their own lives better.
If you are targeting foundations, read their mission statements
and the grant application questions carefully. Think about whether your project aligns well with what they are looking for. Are you

Shooting From The Heart

19

RAISING FUNDS

helping to solve the specific problems theyre concerned about?

Study other projects or organizations they have funded in the past.
If you are targeting corporations, find out who is responsible for
making decisions about charitable contributions. Do they have a
corporate giving officer? Would a friend of yours who works for
the company be willing to pass your name along to them? Would
the company be willing to hang your work in a lobby or work
area? Could you give a workshop on photography to their employees, or to kids of employees? Perhaps your photographs could
support a project that the company already has under way. You
might call the companys giving officer to inquire about deadlines
and get a copy of their latest annual report.
If you are targeting government agencies, study their proposal
guidelines. Get on all of the mailing lists you can find for arts
agencies at the local, county, state, and national level. They will
let you know about funding opportunities and make you part of

Lorena Vachetti, Inca Plants Today Project

the community of artists being supported by these programs. Go

to openings and other events where you can meet people and learn
about projects that are being sponsored. Agency staff members
may be willing to grant a brief informational interview or take
phone calls.
ASKING FOR SUPPORT

How you ask for funding will vary dramatically, depending on the
source.
In general, individuals do not want to read a lengthy report on
your project. Dont snow them with paper! It is always better to
start off with a brief, concise presentation and provide them with
more information when they request it. A classic approach is to
Shooting From The Heart

20

RAISING FUNDS

make the ask over lunch (make sure that they aware this is a
meeting where they will be asked for a donation; dont surprise
them). After the ask has taken place you can follow up with a
brief written proposal. Be extremely specific about what they are
funding and why; make it clear that this is interesting and important and that you can pull it off.
Individual asks are also where you can be the most creative.
You can put together a house party, a gallery showing, a movie
screening, a car wash, or anything else you can think of. Just remember that you need a platform where you can let people know
about your project and an opportunity to make the ask, and then
make sure they know how and where they can donate.
Foundations almost always have a specific form that you will
need to fill out. Read through the grant application carefully.
Make sure you are aware of all the deadlines and understand all
the supplemental materials they ask for. Additionally, make sure
that your proposal is concise and clearly shows how your project
aligns with their aims. Board members have dozens of proposals
to review and will appreciate a clear and compact presentation. If
you are not comfortable with writing, get a friend to help.
Depending on how big they are, companies may ask you to draft
a proposal based on a specific form or set of guidelines. Also,
larger companies usually have set deadlines for proposals to be

Marie-Rose PhanLe, Healing Planet

submitted.
To the best of my knowledge, all government grants are form
based with extremely specific guidelines about the materials required, length of presentation, and even format (font size, margins, etc.). Sweat the details.

Shooting From The Heart

21

RAISING FUNDS

Keep in mind that its crucial to do a lot of asking. Every person or

agency you contact funds just a tiny fraction of the proposals they
receive. Furthermore, few people or agencies like to be the sole
fundermost vastly prefer being part of a diverse base of support
for a project.
FOLLOWING UP

After submitting a proposal, make a follow-up call to confirm that

the proposal was received and to clarify when a decision will be
made. Whether or not you are funded, be sure to thank the person
or agency for considering your proposal and for contributing to
the community. Above all, do not take rejection personally. Expect to struggle a bit when youre new at this, and learn from each
experience.
If you are funded, begin planning how you can continue the cultivation process. This begins with the thank-you note. Any time
you receive any type of donation from an individual (or even from
a foundation, corporation, or government agency), always follow
up with a thank-you note. After people donate to your project you
have one chance to make them feel like their donation was welcomed and appreciated. This is the thank-you note.
After you have sent your thank-yous, acknowledge your funders
in every way you can think of. If you promise a print for a specific
contribution, make sure it gets delivered promptly. Many foundation boards and companies ask for a formal report, either partway
through a project or upon completion; most government agencies
require this. Even if this is not required, do it. Send copies of your
photos, newspaper clippings, and/or notices about your progress.
Build confidence that their money is being put to good use. And

Shooting From The Heart

22

RAISING FUNDS

whenever possible, provide specific, quantifiable evidence that you

are making an impact. Platitudes like I feel Ive increased public
awareness about the plight of immigrants doesnt have the same
impact as The enclosed clippings, featuring my photographs, are
the first time that a regional newspaper has featured a story on the
Laotian community.

Phil Borges

Shooting From The Heart

23

THE NUTS & BOLTS OF WRITING GRANTS

by Judy de Barros

riting grants can be a useful way to raise money, espe-

cially for larger projects. However, dont rely solely on grant writing for all of your funding, especially because grant makers like to
support projects that other people are also supporting. It is a good
idea to seek money and goods from friends, business connections,
and other individuals who are connected to your work.
Writing grants requires talking with funders. The more direct
contact you make and the better your relationship with a funder,
the better your chances are for getting money. Just as in asking for
gifts or donations of goods or labor, personal connections and relationships help. Dont worry if you dont have relationships with
funders now: you will develop many after you begin the grantwriting process.
Grant writing is time consuming and not an easy or fast way to
get money. You must invest time in building relationships with
funders and gaining experience in writing proposals. Be prepared
to put in your hours. And be prepared to write and rewrite your
proposal several times. After youve completed one grant application, the others are easier.
Not every grant is funded. You will almost certainly have proposals rejected. Dont take it personally, and dont let it slow you
down. If your proposal is not funded, ask your foundation contacts why and inquire if they have other suggestions of where else
you might apply.

THE NUTS & BOLTS

OF WRITING GRANTS

Following is an outline of the grant-writing process, some tips,

and a copy of a grant application, complete with suggestions to
guide you through filling it out.
DESCRIBING YOUR PROJECT AND
EDUCATING FUNDERS ABOUT YOUR PROJECT

One of the most important parts of grant writing is talking to

funders and describing your project concisely and easily. This is
just as important as writing a good proposal.
Before you begin, you should compose a clear and concise description of your project and the amount of money you are seeking.
You will need this when you are talking to and writing to funders.
Develop, and practice saying, a 60-second statement that describes your project. In addition, write a 100- to 150-word written description. You only want to hit the highlights, not tell the
whole story. It shouldnt be a memorized speech, or even the same
each time, but should flow easily and quickly. When you phone a
funder or send an e-mail, you wont have a lot of time to get your
idea across. Most foundations are understaffed, and many are
family run. They get lots of calls, e-mails, and letters requesting
funding. It is important to make your points in a brief and friendly
way. You have to make a quick impression.
Robert Semeniuk, World Health

Because funders receive many grant applications, your project

will stand out if they have heard of it or talked to you before they
read the proposal. Each call, letter, or e-mail helps to develop a
relationship between you and the funder. Most funders know
each other, so, if they cannot fund a project, they may send you to

Shooting From The Heart

25

THE NUTS & BOLTS

OF WRITING GRANTS

someone else. Remember that funders will be more likely to fund

projects that are familiar to them or relate to their personal or
professional lives.
IDENTIFYING FUNDERS

Writing grants is time consuming, so limit your applications to

funders who might actually give you money. Dont waste your
time writing a grant proposal if there is only a slim chance you
will get it. It is well worth your efforts to identify funders that are
likely to be receptive to your proposal.
Make a list of connections you or your project might already
share with prospective funders. Consider location, broad content
areas addressed by your work, affiliations, friends, gender, age,
and so on. It always helps if you can find some sort of connection.
Identify potential funders through recommendations from friends,
arts commissions, or foundation directories such as the Pacific
Northwest Grant Makers. Forum Directory or the Foundation
Center Directory (see resource list on page XX). Cross-reference
Ron Wurzer, Palestinian Portrait

the information as many ways as possible. For example, reference

the listings by region, subject matter, age, gender, arts, environment, education, health, etc.
Make a list of any and all funders that seem likely to fund your
project. The list should be long and varied. If possible, do this on
a computer so you can add notes as you go. If you dont have a
computer, use index (recipe) cards. The goal of this process is to
start with many possible funders and narrow it down to a few.

Shooting From The Heart

26

THE NUTS & BOLTS

OF WRITING GRANTS

Look up the funders profiles in foundation directories. Each foundation and corporation has its own mission statement and funding
guidelines; make sure your proposal fits these guidelines. The profiles will list any limitations, such as geographic location, content
area, economic limits, size of project, etc. If your project doesnt
meet the criteria, cross the foundation off your list. (You can keep
it in mind for another project or pass it on to a friend.) Now you
have a shorter list.
Call or e-mail those on this list to ask for funding guidelines and
an annual report. When you call or e-mail, use the short and clear
description of your project. State your name, address, and phone
number clearly. If you dont hear from them within a week, call
back. You are beginning to educate funders about your project
and establish a relationship.
Once you have received the guidelines and reports, read them

David Maisel, Black Maps

carefully. The annual report will list projects previously funded.

These will give you a sense of how and if your project fits their
mission. If you know anybody they have funded, call and discuss
your project. Ask if they think you have a chance. If you have
questions, call the funders. Take the opportunity to give a short
statement about your project. Then ask your questions. Write
down what the funders say. Listen to their advice about funding.
Dont ask things that are already explained in the guidelines or reports. You want to develop a relationship but not waste their time.
If your project doesnt match the guidelines for any reason (cost,
time, content, medium, etc.), simply cross it off the list. Dont try
to talk funders into funding youjust move on. Sometimes they
will say that all of their money for this year is gone but will suggest that you reapply next year. Be sure to make a note of this for

Shooting From The Heart

27

THE NUTS & BOLTS

OF WRITING GRANTS

next year! At this point you should have a list of eight to 10 foundations that may be a match for your project.
Now, reread the guidelines. Call each foundation on your list and
ask to speak to a grants specialist. Give your name and (again)
briefly tell them about your project. Ask if you can discuss it to
make sure it meets their guidelines. Tell them you have read the
guidelines and the annual report. Be brief. Some grants specialists are more open than others; you might even have a chance to
describe different aspects of your project. This conversation will
help you determine if it is worth your while to write the proposal
or suggest ways to slant your proposal to make it fit the funders
interests. For example, you might find that a funder doesnt pay

Rebecca Norris Webb, The Glass Between Us:

Reflections On Urban Creatures

for exhibits, but may fund a research portion of your project. If

it doesnt seem like a match, ask the grants specialist for recommendations of where to go next. Funders usually know and talk to
each other.
Based on these conversations, choose three to five funders that will
be your prime targets. You will by now know quite a bit about
each funder and will likely have established a relationship with
them. You should be reasonably sure that your proposal will be
in the running for funding. When you begin writing, you will be
better able to tweak the proposal to meet each funders guidelines
and mission.
FILLING OUT THE GRANT APPLICATION FORM

Each grant application is different, but they all have the same
basic elements. Follow the directions for each grant.

Shooting From The Heart

28

THE NUTS & BOLTS

OF WRITING GRANTS

Before you begin, make a clean copy of the application form so

you have one to write on and one for the final copy.
Read the application carefully. Make notes about any questions
or requirements that are unclear. Call the grants specialist at the
foundation and ask for clarification. Again, when you talk to them
introduce yourself and give a very brief description of your project.
Follow the directions carefully. If the directions say they want
only four pages, dont write six. If they ask for slides, dont send
prints. If something seems silly, unclear, or unreasonable, call and
ask about it. Dont skip things or change the order without asking.
Many proposals are thrown out because the applicants didnt
follow the directions. You want to make it as easy as possible for
the funders to read your proposal, and following the foundations
format helps.

Jeffrey M. Sauger, Where Furrows Run Deep

Shooting From The Heart

29

GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING
A PERSONAL STORY

By Marita Holdaway

n this world of limited funding, you have to be creative.

Dont overlook small funding opportunities. I learned the value of

soliciting small donations when I was trying to raise funds for a
trip to China to photograph an international conference on women.
A grant from the Mother Jones Foundation covered my airfare
and lodging. But I needed film and money for food and transportation while in China. I turned to my friends and business associates for help.
Its very important to ask your friends who they know and if they
can refer you to their connections. When I described my upcoming trip to a friend who works at Microsoft, he went to bat for me
and convinced the company to donate a computer.
Because I buy almost all of my photography supplies from one
store in Seattle, I asked them if they could donate film. They did.
One of the most successful fund-raising techniques I used was my
postcard campaign. I needed money for incidental expenditures.
I offered to send friends and acquaintances postcards from China
if they donated $5 or more. I was surprised and pleased that the
average donation was $25. As an extra incentive, I offered a photograph of their choice from the trip if they donated $100.

GRASSROOTS
FUNDRAISING

My grassroots postcard and print effort raised more than $3,000

from more than 120 people. Not only did these people feel as if
they were part of a team ensuring my success, they also received
something in return. People want to help. I gave them an affordable way to do it.
So remember that requesting items such as film and processing
and offering small things such as postcards can do a lot to increase
your funds. Sure, its nice to get a $10,000 grant, but the reality
is there arent as many of those grants as there are good projects.
Your fund-raising efforts should utilize both.
Dont be afraid to ask everyone you know for support, and be
clever in the way you ask!

John Trotter, No Agua, No Vida: The Thirsty Colorado River Delta

Shooting From The Heart

31

CREATING A LASTING IMPRESSION

By David D. Johnson

CLA basketball coach John Wooden once said: Failure

to prepare is preparing to fail

Failing to prepare and present your proposal materials correctly
may also cause you to fail in securing the funding you want.
Think about how you would present yourself when going for a
job interview. You should consider many of the same things when
mailing off your proposal to seek funding support. Your proposal
materials may be the first and only impression someone will have
of you as a photographer, and as a businessperson.
Ask yourself these questions: What kind of impression am I making with my material? Is it the correct one? Will the person who
receives my proposal know I am organized, work in a professional
manner, follow directions, and pay attention to details?
Here are some tips to help you make the right impression.
ORGANIZATION AND PRESENTATION

Start with the envelope or package. It should be new and easy to

reuse for return mailing of your materials.
Make the package simple to open. Use enough tape to ensure that
it will remain closed, but dont get carried away!
The address should be typed or printed so that it is easy to read.

CREATING A LASTING
IMPRESSION

Give your package its own identity by attaching to the outside a

high-quality color copy of a photograph with your proposal title.
This will help your package stand out.
Remember, this is the first impression someone will have of you.
Take the time to create an attractive package. Believe it or not,
some people will even notice if the stamps are straight!
PROPOSAL LETTER

Your letter should be neatly typed, and written with correct grammar and spelling. Ask a friend to read through it to make sure it is
clear.
Be focused and to the point. Provide all of the requested information in a concise manner.
Before you write the letter, research and plan your project. Make
Subhanker Banerjee, Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge

sure your ideas are practical, obtainable, and realistic.

When estimating costs for your project, be realistic and honest.
For example, dont budget $10,000 for film and only $100 for annual living expenses. This will red-flag your proposal.
Do not be misleading! You should be able to back up what you
say.
RESUME

Again, this should be neatly typed, and written with correct grammar and spelling.
Limit yourself to one or two pages. Cover the highlights of your
career, not everything you have done in your life.

Shooting From The Heart

33

CREATING A LASTING
IMPRESSION

Design your rsum in chronological order. This makes it easy for

the recipient to locate information.
VISUAL MATERIALS

Do not send original slides or prints. Do send professional highquality copy slides. Remember, your skill as a photographer will
be judged by the quality of your copy slides.
If you cannot produce high-quality copy slides, hire someone who
knows how to do it.
Label your slides clearly, with your name, phone number, and
required information on each slide.
Present only the number of slides requested.

Sung Kwan Ma, Koryo People

OTHER MATERIALS

Put your name on everything you send.

Send only the requested information. Sending information that is
not requested will only get in the way of the required materials
and may slow down the process.
VISUAL CONTINUITY

Give your entire proposal a cohesive and professional look. Use a

computer and a word-processing program to create your proposal
materials.
Use the same typeface throughout your proposal materials, one
that is easy to read.
If possible, print all of your materials on the same paper stock.

Shooting From The Heart

34

CREATING A LASTING
IMPRESSION

Remember, when you mail off your proposal materials, the first
impression someone will have of you is the look of your presentation. You want it to say you are professional, trustworthy, creative, and talented.
On the other hand, dont send a slick presentation with fancy
logos and cool graphic design that is devoid of any substance. It
may be considered nothing but window dressing.
PERSONAL EXAMPLE

When I interviewed for my last teaching position, one of the first

things the department chair said was Were very impressed with
your teaching credentials and the presentation of your materials.
I got that teaching position!

Art Wolfe, The Living Wild

Shooting From The Heart

35

FINDING AN AUDIENCE
GETTING THE WORK OUT THERE

By Natalie Fobes

f you really want to push a button with a marketing

expert, just whisper, If you build it, they will come. Hell shoot
back, No they wont. And, unfortunately, hell be right.
People who are passionate about their work expect others to be
just as passionate. They are not. Your job is to get them to be.
Getting your work and your message out will take just as much
time and effort, if not more, as getting the photos. Marketing has
to be an integral part of your work plan.
BOOK PUBLISHING

Most photographers dream of seeing their projects published as a

book.
First the bad news: books are seldom financially rewarding. Advances and royalties are usually small. If you make back your expenses and the time youve invested in the project, you are lucky.
Few books sell more than 5,000 copies.
The profit margin for publishers is small, too. Each proposal is
scrutinized carefully. An editor or editorial committee looks at the
proposal first. If they like it, they send it to the sales and marketing staff. Many fine book proposals have been rejected because the
numbers have not penciled out in the sales and marketing committee. It is not uncommon to get five, 10, or 15 rejections.

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

So why pursue a book contract? It is simple. There is nothing to

compare to seeing your work published in book form. Youve
spent a chunk of your life pursuing a story you believe needs to be
told. And, through the book, others will experience the story you
are telling.
There are three ways to find a publisher: using a literary agent,
working with a packager, or finding one on your own.
Literary agents take proposals to publishers and negotiate contracts. Over the years they have developed relationships with publishers that allow them to get in the door. Their experience guides
them to publishers that would be a good fit with a project. They
normally receive 10 to 20 percent of the advance and royalties.
Packagers will work with you to develop the content, design, and
approach of a book. They will take the proposal and mock-ups to
publishers and negotiate the contract. They pay the writer and/or
photographer, design the book, and supervise the printing. They
then present the completed project to the publisher for distribution. Because they design and supervise the entire project, packag-

Melanie Stephens, Women and War

ers receive a higher percentage of the advance and royalties than

literary agents.
Finding a publisher on your own is time consuming and frustrating. You must first research publishing companies and editors to
determine who would be interested in the book. Then you have
to get in the door. In the hectic world of book publishing, this is a
major obstacle. Timing is everything. If you are lucky enough to
find an interested company, you then must negotiate the contract,
a process that can take months. You will receive all of the advance
and royalties, but you might not have negotiated the best deal.

Shooting From The Heart

37

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

Some photographers and writers decide to self-publish. This

means you take on the role of publisher. You hire the writer,
designer, and printer, and you supervise the production and printing. You also cover all of the costs. But the job isnt finished when
the book is printed. You must then set up a distribution system in
order to sell the book or get it into the stores. And you will have
to warehouse the unsold copies. Self-publishing gives you total
control. And a major financing headache.
Book proposals. While every literary agent, packager, or publisher
has his or her own guidelines, a book proposal should include the
following.
1. The books title
2. The authors name
3. A brief description of the books content and theme

Heather Moran, Into Deep Water:

American Shrimpers

4. The proposed format of the book, including dimensions

and number of pages
5. The number of photographs and words
6. A description of the potential audience
7. A description of similar books and sales figures, if known
8. A chapter outline
9. Writing and photography samples
One last tip. Make it easy for the overworked, underpaid editors
to see the essence of your book idea. Dont beat them down with
superfluous facts and figures. Let your excitement shine through,
but show them that you understand business, too.

Shooting From The Heart

38

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER PUBLISHING

When I work on personal projects, I try to find funding along the

way. My salmon project is a good example of finding multiple
sources of funding, many of them based on magazine and newspaper publishing.
My experience can serve as a case history. When I began my salmon project, in 1983, I proposed the story to National Geographic
magazine. Bob Gilka, then director of photography, wrote a very
nice letter of rejection. While he thought the proposal was very interesting, he asked, Who gives a damn about fish anyway? I realized I had written the proposal in such a way that he didnt realize
the importance of the fish to the cultures of the northern Pacific
Rim. I rewrote it and applied for the Alicia Patterson Fellowship,
which is given to journalists to pursue stories of importance. In
1986 I received one of six grants of $25,000.
I went back to National Geographic to see if they would be inter-

Corey Hendrickson
The Shoshone Interpretive

ested in the story. Rich Clarkson, the director of photographyat

that time, congratulated me on winning the grant. But he had a
suggestion: We think you should change your topic.
I didnt take his advice, and for the next 14 months I traveled
around the Pacific Rim to photograph and write about the salmon
and the cultures of the salmon.
When my fellowship was over, I again contacted National Geographic. Tom Kennedy, then the new director of photography,
regretfully turned down my proposal. My employer, The Seattle
Times, published my work in a special section. I was a Pulitzer
Prize finalist in a writing category for those stories. At the same

Shooting From The Heart

39

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

time, a similar story National Geographic was working on fell

through, and Kennedy hired me to continue work on the salmon
story. The story ran in July 1990.
After three years of searching, my determined literary agent found
a publisher for the salmon book. I completed the work by using
my personal funds. Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People, was published in 1994 by Alaska Northwest Books.
I share this story for two reasons. First, if you believe in what you
are doing, dont take no for an answer. When one door closes,
look for another that may be open. Second, dont expect to get
all of your funding in one place. I used my own savings, assignment fees, a grant, and stock photography fees to fund my 10-year
project.
Magazine proposals. Write magazine proposals the way you write
grant proposals. Begin with a short introduction of the subject.
This one-page treatment includes why it is an important story, the
themes you intend to explore, the places and people you anticipate

Anna Mia Davidson, Beyond the Cliche

photographing, and why you are the photographer for the job.
Follow this page with an abbreviated list of photo possibilities
that are divided into the themes discussed on the first page. This
list allows the editor to quickly pick up on the visuals of the story.
The third page is devoted to the proposed budget for the story.
Include your fees for the number of days or weeks you need to
complete the story, the amount and cost of film and processing,
travel, phone, and other expenses. Unfortunately, this page has
become increasingly important in this day of belt-tightening.

Shooting From The Heart

40

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

Include a cover letter with a one-paragraph summary of the proposal. Remember that editors have little time to dwell on proposals. At the very least you want them to read your cover letter.
Follow up with a phone call to make sure they have received your
package and see if they have any questions. Listen to their comments. Dont argue with them if they say no. Thank them for their
time and go on to the next editor on your list.
I suggest that you approach one editor at a time. While the chance
that two magazines will want to hire you to do the story is slim, it
does happen.

Wes Pope, Nature Versus Man

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY

While your long-term goal may be to have your photographs

published in a book, there is no reason you cant license the use
of them before that time. In fact, there is every reason to try to
license the use of your photographs while you are shooting your
project. We all have to eat pay th rent and support the costs of
our photographic pursuits.
Stock photography has become an increasingly important source
for funding personal projects. The stock photography market is
complex and we cant adequately dissect it in the space available
in this document. Both the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP, www.asmp.org), and the Stock Artists Alliance
(SAA, www.stockartistsalliance.org), two leading professional associations, provide excellent and detailed information and advice
about this industry. Use there resources or, better still, become a
member to receive professional benefits and support our industry.

Shooting From The Heart

41

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

During the years since Reaching Home was conceived, shot and
published, both imaging technology and the stock photography
industry have gone through revolutionary change. These changes
have increased the number of markets for photography and made
distribution easier than ever before but the proliferation of images
has caused a significant collapse in the price structure of some sectors of the stock photography market. For a more detailed discussion of these changes please refer to the section titled The Digital
Revolution: Impacts on Documentary Photojournalism.
MUSEUM AND GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

Magazines and newspapers are not the only places to show a project. Increasingly I have turned to gallery and museum exhibits as a
way to have my message heard.
Exhibits educate and thrill people. Original photographs communicate directly with the viewers. It is a more intimate and powerful experience than looking at the same photographs in books or
magazines. The best exhibits elicit an emotional response in view Greg Constantine, Nowhere People

ers, in addition to educating them.

My foray into traveling museum exhibits began after the salmon
book came out in 1994. I realized that the publisher would promote it for just a year or two. I didnt want this 10-year project
to fade into memory. A friend recommended that I talk with the
Burke Museum in Seattle about having an exhibit.
I was thrilled when the exhibit manager, Scott Freeman, said yes.
And then I did a panic dance. I had never put together a major
show. I hadnt a clue how to design it. I didnt realize how expensive the prints, frames, and shipping crates would be.

Shooting From The Heart

42

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

Slowly, ideas began to form. I wanted the traveling exhibit to support the book, and the book to act as a catalogue for the exhibit. I
named the exhibit Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People,
which is also the name of the book. I selected only book photographs to include in the exhibit. I used captions I had written
for the book as caption cards for the exhibit. I adapted the short
essays I had written for the book into banners that explained each
section of the exhibit.
In consultation with Gary Wingert, an exhibit designer at the
Burke, I grouped the photographs into five sections: salmon biology and wildlife, indigenous cultures in North America and Japan,
commercial fishing, Japanese and Russian fishing, and habitat
destruction.
An exhibit is a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The
design of the exhibit should lead a viewer from one element to
another in a seamless manner. With a simple glance around the
room, the viewer should be able to see where to go next.
This can be done in a number of ways. Walls can channel the
viewers through the exhibit. Photographs can be placed at a location that invite the viewer forward. Banners and information
boards can mark a change of topic.
I used all of these for Reaching Home. The entrance framed a
large salmon photograph that marked the beginning of the exhibit. Large photographs began and ended each section. Banners gave
people more information about the topics of the story. And Garys
skillful placement of ancient artifacts beckoned people to move
through the room.

Shooting From The Heart

43

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

Putting a traveling exhibit together is an expensive proposition. I

looked for support in the professional photography community
and in the seafood industry. A&I Labsin Los Angeles and its coowner David Alexander printed the photographs at a discount.
Icicle Seafoods donated money toward the cost of the frames. I
made up the difference between the hard costs and the donations
with my own funds. This difference amounted to thousands of
dollars. I invested this money because I believed in the importance
of the salmon story, and I calculated that by charging museums a
leasing fee I would make back my investment within two years.
Remember, there is no rule that says you have to go broke doing a
good thing for the causes you support.
Marketing the exhibit. I market the exhibit the same way I market
myself. My assistant or I send out a packet of information about
the exhibit to museum curators we think will be interested in
leasing Reaching Home. The packet includes a description of the
exhibit, insurance values, photographs of the exhibit installed, a

Peter Menzel, Nutrition 101

recommended layout, a contract, and letters of recommendation

from other curators.
My assistant makes a number of follow-up phone calls to discuss
the fee, shipping expenses, and schedules. We have the curators
send us a condition report and coordinate any repairs that need
to be made. My assistant makes at least 10 phone calls for every
museum she books.
We have leased the salmon exhibit to 21 museums since 1995. At
least a million people have seen the exhibit in the last few years.
The exhibit went on permanent display at a venue in Seattle after
2001.

Shooting From The Heart

44

FINDING
AN AUDIENCE

Traveling exhibit services. While I chose to represent the exhibit

myselfand am glad I didyou may decide the expense and time
it takes is not worth it. There are many exhibit services across the
country. These companies offer a range of services that may include the design and fabrication of an exhibit in addition to leasing it.
Call your local museum and ask if they can give you a list of these
companies, or search for them on the Web. Make sure you read
the contract, know the reputation of the company, and understand
what you are getting into before signing with any of them.

Tammy Cromer-Campbell, Fruit of the Orchard: Enviornmental Justice in

East Texas to Enviromental Justice in the USA

Shooting From The Heart

45

PUBLICIZING YOUR PROJECT

By Julee Geier

continuous and well-focused publicity effort is es-

sential for the success of any photography book or project. The

strategy below is the one Ive followed to publicize several recent
photography books by Blue Earth Alliance cofounder Phil Borges.
The first step is to brainstorm as many story angles as possible.
Think of leads that might be of interest to the different medianewspapers, magazines, radio, and television. The key is to
get beyond focusing on one main story idea and tailor the storys
hook to the particular medium and audience. Photo District
News magazine might be most interested in a profile of Phil
Borges the photographer and a survey of his photographs. Common Ground magazine, in contrast, would most likely prefer a
story about the main theme in Phils Tibetan Portrait book: the
Tibetan belief in compassion. A small-town newspaper in Napa,
California, would almost certainly be interested in hearing about
a photography student from their local community college who
succeeded in publishing a book of his photography. Radio stations
almost anywhere can appreciate Borgess vivid accounts of adventures during his travels around the world to create images for his
books.
After mapping out story angles, determine who should receive the
information. While researching the media is time consuming, it is
not difficult. My favorite method is to visit a good magazine stand
and copy the contact information from the publications that have

PUBLICIZING
YOUR PROJECT

potential. (editors note: mailing list services, most notably Ad

Base and Agency Access, keep up to date lists of editorial contacts
and most publications. These lists are available by subscription)
A visit to the library reference center can produce publications
with information on magazines, newspapers, and television and
radio programs, along with the names of individuals to whom you
can direct your press kit. Once you have identified potential contacts, call ahead and confirm with the companys receptionist that
the person is still on staff, and, if not, who has replaced him or
her.
Once I have identified the individuals I want to approach, I begin
the publicity process by sending a press kit. I automatically assume that these people are (1) very busy, and (2) inundated with
hundreds of press releases and media kits annually. Because of

Heather McClintock, The Innocent:

Casualties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda

this, it is essential to make the exterior of your folder inviting and

keep the written information interesting yet simple and short.
My press kits include a short, handwritten cover letter, information about the book or project, a biography of the photographer,
clear copies of previous press, and high-quality color copies of the
photography. All of this is placed in an attractive folder with a
photograph affixed to the front.
So much for the easy part. The next step is the phone calls. Most
publicity efforts dont succeed without a heavy dose of persistence.
When I follow up on a press-kit mailing, I expect to speak to a
machine on the first four attempts. If and when I do get someone
on the line, I try to say as much as possible with as few words
as possibleagain, these people have heard it all before. I often

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PUBLICIZING
YOUR PROJECT

review my notes before making calls, reminding myself of the key

points that may appeal most to this particular media person. Frustrating as it is, speaking directly with a contact rarely generates
coverage. However, I will have succeeded by simply introducing
one more person to the photography and projects of Phil Borges.
Obviously, there is much more to obtaining publicity than just
this basic outline. The books I refer to the most on the subject are
1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer and Guerrilla
P.R . by Michael Levine. Both are excellent sources of education
and ideas.

Tammy Cromer-Campbell, Fruit of the Orchard

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THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

DEALING WITH (AND BENEFITING FROM) THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

By Dan Lamont

hen the Blue Earth Alliance board was considering

the need to revise Shooting from the Heart, the first and most
compelling issue driving us was the tremendous impact and rate
of change in digital technology. In the few years BEA has existed
photography has evolved from mostly analog to almost entirely
digital technology. Even traditionalists who lug view cameras
into the field are significantly touched by the flood tide of digital
technology.
This change is so rapid and complex it is really impossible in this
document to be completely current and comprehensive. The target
is moving too fast. Online forums, professional association and
the large and growing technology training industry are excellent
sources of up to date information. Please see the appendices for
these links. Our job here is to consider some of the specific needs
and issues confronting documentary photographers and to look at
some ways digital technologies can be used and managed to make
documentary projects more successful.
Digital imaging is neither necessarily cheaper nor easier than
traditional processes. The fact is digital photography has simply
shifted the burden. A lot of the work that used to be handled
by others (photo lab technicians, editors, prepress people, etc) is
now the responsibility of the photographer. The initial expenses

THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

associated with digital capture can be quite high (when one

considers cameras, computer hardware, software, etc) and there
are all sorts of the other secondary costs and issues associated with
digital imaging. Software and hardware must be updated, training
is an ongoing need, systems fail and require troubleshooting and
repair. Then there is the most significant issue -- time in front of
the computer doing the digital workflow. Photographers who
forget to build these variables into their schedules and budgets
will find themselves easily bogged down by the demands of digital
imaging.
That said, one of the greatest potential virtues of digital imaging
is cost containment. Properly managed, digital imaging costs
are predictable and fixed. Once youve mapped out your digital
imaging budget it doesnt matter if you shoot one frame or a
thousand, the cost is essentially the same. For a documentary
photographer scraping by on tight money, this ability to control
image production costs can make the difference between
continuing a project or being forced by expenses to delay or give
up mid-stream.

Annie Musselman, The Kyanyawara Project

Because shooting more doesnt seem to cost more many

photographers seize the opportunity. They go NUTS! exclaims
National Geographic Senior Editor Ken Geiger. According to
Gieger, who was hired to usher the Geographic into the digital
age, Geographic assignments can now generate terabytes of
image data tens of thousands of pictures on a story. But
despite more images to sift through digital technology has been
a boon to picture editors. He describes the physically exhausting
work editors faced when reviewing the hundreds of rolls of film
photographers would send from the field. At the end of the day

Shooting From The Heart

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

wed be wiped out, Geiger said. Now (editing digital files) we

can easily go through the equivalent of 100 rolls a day.
The photographers themselves are lifting a good deal of the
editors burden. The myth of the globe trotting photojournalists
spending evenings in an exotic hotel bar has been replaced by the
reality of spending evenings in hotel rooms downloading, editing
and captioning. Editors are reaping the benefit, Geiger admits.
All the back-end work has gone to the photographers. This
new reality is both good and bad. On the up side, photographers
now have instant gratification. They can see the results of their
work to make sure they are on the right track. BEA co-founder
Phil Borges, who spends a great deal of time photographing
indigenous cultures in far off lands, benefits significantly from the
instantaneous feedback he can get using digital equipment first
by being able to see the shot hes just made on his cameras LCD
and later in his tent or hotel room being able to look at the whole
take. I love the ability to see how Im doing, Borges explained.
Like many other digital photographers Borges carries a digital
wallet a small battery powered hard drive that incorporates a
card reader. He can download cards in the field and then at the
end of the day transfer those image folders through a laptop to
redundant mini hard drives.
Wise use of technology helps simplify this work. Many
photographers use handy tools like memory card readers that
can be snapped together in daisy chains so multiple cards can be
simultaneously downloaded. They also use software like Photo
Mechanic, which allows captions and other meta data to be
preset and attached automatically to each image file on download.
Software can also automatically make backup copies of all image

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

files to a second hard drive. Still, despite continuing improvement

in workflow tools, the fact remains that shooting digital means
more of the photographers time is spent at the computer
Of course digital gizmos consume electricity and finding a power
source in the remote areas some documentary photographers
traverse can be a real challenge. Geigers power solution for
Geographics photographers reflects a budget rarely available
to independent documentary photographers. While in the field
Geographic shooters usually plug inverters into the power on our
Toyota Land Cruisers, he said. The rest of us have to be more
resourceful.
The Seattle Times has sent photographers to Afghanistan, Iraq,

Greg Constantine, Nowhere People

Indonesia and Africa in recent years and their solution to keeping

the photographers cameras, computers and satellite phones
working is rudimentary. We round up as many batteries as we
can, laughs Manager for Newsroom IT Greg Anderson. Phil
Borges has a similar solution. I travel with a suitcase full of
chargers, he admits. Borges, whose work rarely has him away
from some electrical outlet for more than a day or so, also carries
a number of plug adapters that work in different countries. In
really remote areas photographers can use solar powered chargers
like those sold by Brunton, but these can be bulky, expensive, slow
and not very useful if the sun isnt shining.
Another concern is how to keep complex computerized cameras
operating in extreme conditions often encountered by globe
trotting photojournalists. Dust is the principal enemy. It gets into
the camera bodies and is attracted to the charged surface of the
image sensors. Minimizing lens changes and carrying cleaning kits
helps. The newest generation of cameras has self-cleaning sensors
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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

that vibrate the dust off. But despite the confidence expressed
by the camera reps some skeptical independent camera repair
technicians question the long-term durability of such systems.
The new digital-dedicated lens also present some challenges
along with their convenience. Zoom mechanisms and electronic
connections are far more prone to failure than the robust brass
of a bygone era. And with the heavy lenses and the battery-laden
camera bodies weight has become an issue. Many photographers
(of a certain age) complain about sore necks after a day of
shooting.
Fortunately, failure rates are far lower than one might expect
for such complex machines and most photographers have been
pleasantly surprised by how robust, weatherproof and generally
convenient the leading DSLR cameras can be.
The rapid growth of digital media has given rise to an ironically
expressive acronym. DAM stands for digital asset management
and it describes a huge and often frustrating new territory for
photographers and indeed all media content producers and
publishers. Unlike traditional photography, which creates physical
artifacts (negatives, transparencies, prints), the basic stuff of
digital photography is, like all binary code, just a sequence of ones
and zeros lots and lots of ones and zeros. How photographers
should best handle their own digital data and how they pass
them along to their publishers has shaped up to be the greatest
challenge in the shift to new media.
With top of the line cameras generating between 12 and 16
megapixel files (34 to 46 megabytes to make a TIFF each time
the shutter button is pushed) the greatest and most important

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

challenge of digital photography is how to manage all the

data. Consequently DAM, has become the hot button issue for
photographers in recent years. A number of software packages
have been introduced to help make photographers lives easier.
Apples Aperture software and Adobes Lightroom have greatly
simplified image workflow while cataloging software like
Microsofts Expression Media (known pre-buyout as iView
Media Pro) have made organizing work far more efficient. Other
competitors of note in this field include ACDsee, Canto Cumulous
and Extensis Portfolio. A number of authors have have written
and continue to revise useful guides on how to manage all these
workflow aids. Prolific Tim Gray, now with Microsofts Rich
Media Group, has written a number of useful books, as have
perennial Photoshop helpmates Scott Kelby and Martin Evening.
Perhaps the best of the breed is Peter Kroghs The DAM Book
(Peachpit Press) with its companion web site www.damuseful.com.
As digital image files get bigger and more numerous the issue that
still has everybody wringing their hands is how photographers
should best manage the long-term storage of all the images they

Florian Schulz, Yellowstone to Yukon

make. There are a variety of schemes (outlined very well in

Kroghs book), but all of them are subject to the Achilles Heel
of all computing -- obsolescence and the rate of technological
change. Anybody with a box full of old floppy disks knows what
were talking about. DVD standards are a battleground of giants
at the moment. Off-site server based storage is fine for your moms
jpegs but usually too slow and limited for professional use. Hard
drives are an enduring technology and they are getting cheaper but
they seem to fill up faster every day (thanks to the larger image
files) and they can fail at inopportune times. At the moment there
isnt an obvious, simple solution of the horizon and the fact is

Shooting From The Heart

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

that creators of digital images are simply going to need to adapt

to changes in the digital storage landscape by migrating their data
as needs, circumstances and technology dictate. The approach
endorsed by most savvy, appropriately paranoid photographers
today is to back up all images onto at least two hard drives,
one of which is stored off site and also write copies onto DVDs.
Thankfully, new operating systems (Apples 10.5 Leopard and
Microsofts Vista), take this need into account and make the
process far simpler and more automated than it once was.
In the early days of digital one of the most vexing imaging
issues was the lack of industry standards for managing crucial
elements like file protocols, color management and metadata.
In recent years a consortium of professional associations led
by the American Society of Media Photographers <www.asmp.
org> created and continue to refine The Universal Photographic
Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG). Building on know prepress
and color management standards and the traditions of the
International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) that
long ago established captioning and transmission guidelines for
wire service photos, these rational new rules have articulated
a common sense approach to digital asset management, giving
photographers and image users alike a set of shared standards
that speed workflow, enhance consistency and encourage product
development. To encourage adoption UPDIG has made the
standards freely and readily available online at www.updig.org
While it seems there is no summit on the climb up the digital
learning curve eventually most photographers at least reach a
plateau and as industry standards have evolved and workflow
has become more efficient independent content producers have

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

the opportunity to reap some of the benefits of digital media that

had publishers salivating way back in the early 1990s namely
the ability to repurpose digital content. Once the investment
has been made to create them, digital media content assets can
be mixed and matched and copied without loss of quality and
distributed extremely cheaply through a variety of channels
(print, online, broadcast, etc). The potential thus exists to scale
the cost of production across many distribution income sources.
This becomes particularly relevant in an era where opportunities
for lavish display of photojournalism in magazines have gotten
noticeably slimmer and traditional book publishing contracts
have become few and far between, while digital technologies have

Camille Seaman, Siberia Is Melting

enabled a plethora free media outlets that have the potential to

generate small but numerous increments of income.
Photographers usually get into major documentary projects
because they want their important message to reach an audience
but the audience is becoming increasingly fractured, their media
usage split among many media types and outlets. Reaching a
broad audience in ways that respond to their diverse needs, media
expectations and learning styles can be a complicated thing. To
be successful a documentary photographer needs to adopt new
approaches and learn even more new skills.
In the parlance of the times, that means using multimedia,
which is more than the simple remix of an image set into a web
slide show. Rather it is a sophisticated blending of different
media types (still photos, text, audio, video, graphics) selected
and utilized in ways that make a story richer, more informative
and more exciting. A great source for stories of this type can
be found at Mediastorm www.mediastorm.org . Launched in

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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

2005 by former MSNBC and Corbis exec Brian Storm, the site
is a showcase for cutting edge multimedia photojournalism and
story telling. Under its submissions link the site provides an
excellent series of tutorials on multimedia production using tools
like Final Cut Pro. Other organizations, from the BBC http://
www.bbctraining.com/newMedia.asp to NPRs This American
Life http://www.thisamericanlife.org/About_Submissions.aspx
generously offer similarly useful tutorials for aspiring multimedia
practitioners.
Those limited staff job opportunities that still exist for
photojournalists invariably require some multimedia expertise
and professional groups like the National Press Photographers
Association and private workshops from Maine to Santa Fe have
discovered that their multimedia course offerings cant keep
up with the growing demand. Beyond new skill development
(in audio, video, web authoring programs, etc), the take away
message is that in new media documentary photojournalism is a
team effort there is simple too much to know and do for one
person. So the savvy project photographer needs to be multiskilled and must consider being part or creating a team.
During the many years it took to produce his epic work Life:
A Journey Through Time Blue Earth Alliance sponsored
photographer Franz Lanting rode the breaking wave of digital
imaging and multimedia, adapting new media tools and
technologies during the course of the project. In the end Lanting
worked with collaborators to produce not only a beautiful
coffee table book but also a sophisticated web site http://www.
lifethroughtime.com/, video programs, numerous magazine articles
and even a stunning audio/visual musical collaboration with noted
composer Phillip Glass.
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THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION

For Gail Mooney shooting her BEA sponsored Delta Blues

Musicians project had to be both stills and video. Her video
(see a sample at http://www.kellymooney.com/Video-04.php
incorporated both media to tell a visually and aurally engaging
story. Benjamin Drummond and Sara Steele have collaborated
from the beginning on their project Facing Climate Change http://
www.bendrum.com/climate_change.html. He is a photographer
and also a web designer; she is a writer with production and
project management skills.
Gallery walls and small circulation magazines are certainly
satisfying venues for photography and digital technology presents
documentary photographers with inevitable and sometimes
frustrating costs and challenges but through the use of digital
technology we now an opportunity to share our message
inexpensively, conveniently and convincingly on a global scale.
.

Gail Mooney, The Delta Blues Musicians

and the Road They Traveled

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DEVELOPING AN ONLINE PRESENCE

WEB PUBLISHING: A PRIMER ON PRESENTING PHOTOGRAPHY
ON THE INTERNET

By Russell Sparkman

uring the heady days of the Internet revolution

everyone had a dotcom business plan in their back pocket and a

plan to retire as a millionaire within a few years. I was bitten by
the bug, too. My casual interest in the Internet became a passion
that resulted in the creation of One World Journeys in 1998. My
goal was to utilize the tools of the web to bring people inspiring
and educational stories about our world.

By 2002 One World Journeys http://www.oneworldjourneys.com
had produced six expeditions with six teams of photographers
and writers. Our expeditions explored topics from global warming
to the importance of salmon to the eco-system. Our teams have
traveled from Alaska to the south sea atoll of Palmyra. Almost 2
million people have visited our site since its launch.
It is an exciting time to be a documentary photographer. Digital
publishing provides opportunities for reaching large audiences
that in the past were only available to big circulation magazines
like National Geographic and newspapers like the New York
Times.
Unlike traditional forms of print publishing or broadcasting,
the cost of digital publishing on-line is minimal. Computers and
software are relatively inexpensive and readily accessible to all.

DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

With a few good resource books and a little bit of time just about
anyone can build their own web site. Thats the good news.
Today a web presence is essentially mandatory. It is the first place
people go to research most topics and if you arent there you
arent anywhere and just about anyone can build a web site.
The bad news is that the desire to build ones own homepage
sometimes means the principles of design and function are
overlooked. Of the gazillion web sites published, only a fraction
employ the right kind of planning that results in a great web site.
Since your web site is going to be number gazillion and one, Id
like to offer a couple of useful points:
1. Your web site must be designed to achieve your goals AND
satisfy the needs of your audience.
2. The difference between creating a so-so web experience and
a great web experience will be a result of planning, research,
analysis, and at least a working knowledge of the arcane language
of web site development.
DIGITAL PUBLISHING OVERVIEW

The following explanations provide a broad-brush overview of

how to plan a project for digital publication on the Internet.
Peter Menzel, Nutrition 101

PART ONE: Define your audience

Before building your web site you need to answer yourself a

question. Who am I building it for?

A web site can be simple or amazingly complex. Complexity

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DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

increases as you add degrees of functionality to your site. What

these functions are depends on what you and your audience need.

For instance, a web site that simply displays your name, address,
phone number, email address and images is infinitely less complex
than a web site full of interactive multimedia including Flash
animation, audio and video. Add the ability to gather data about
visitors to your site and you are talking about a major escalation
of planning, development and cost.

Define your audience and their needs before you begin building
your site.

Yes, defining your target audience, and their needs, sounds like
something that only marketing and advertising people must be
concerned about. But the fact is that your own web site is your
own magazine, your own TV channel and your own radio station.
You have to think not only in terms of who is it for, and what will
they get from it, but also how are they going to find out about it
in the first place.
PART TWO: Establish a process for planning, building and

maintaining your web site

Whether you decide to build the web site by yourself, or
collaborate with a web site developer, its imperative to establish
a process that incorporates research, documentation, project
management and evaluation.
There are many approaches to managing web site development.
If you are working with a professional individual or organization
you will be led through this process. However, youll be ahead

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DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

of the game by having at least a working knowledge of this

scope of the process. One book that I recommend is Web
Project Management, by Ashley Friedlein, published by Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers. Ive adapted the following work stage
overview from Web Project Management.
WORK STAGE #1: Preproduction

In a preproduction stage you define your digital publishing project

through a process of project clarification, solution definition and
project specification. During the project clarification stage you
must answer the question Why create the web site? Here, youll
define what your audience will see and do when they come to your
web site.

In solution definition, you answer the question How will I build
my web site? This will depend on the functionality you determine
Subhankar Banerjee, Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge

will meet your audiences needs, as well as your budget.

In the project specification stage you will answer the question
What exactly am I going to build? Is it going to be an all Flash
presentation, or is it going to be built in basic HTML? This
is where you identify the specific production needs including
information architecture and navigation, graphics, text and colors.
Often, the information architecture and navigation overview are
spelled out in a diagram referred to as a site map. A site map
looks a bit like a family tree, where the home page is the head of
the family of information that will become your web. Branching
off from the home page is the information hierarchy, with each
level of information typically diminishing in importance the
further away from the home page it gets.

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DEVELOPING AN
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This means, for instance, that your portfolio of images will have a
much higher level of importance to your audience than the About
Me page where you share tidbits about your personal life,
such as the love you have for your collection of PEZ dispensers.
Decisions like these will drive decisions that affect site design and
site navigation.
WORK STAGE #2: Production

During the production phase, the planning that was laid out
in the preproduction phase is implemented. For example, site
design based on site maps and navigation schemes finalized in
preproduction takes place. Fonts, graphics, photographs, etc., are
selected in advance of, and concurrent with, programming.
Programming is usually done by an experienced web site developer
who is well versed in a variety of ways in which a web site can be
developed.
At the basic end of the programming spectrum is HTML
(hypertext markup language.) It is the backbone of web site
development. With a basic knowledge of HTML you could easily
put together a simple web site. However, youre probably going to
want a bit more than that.
Most of the bells and whistles you see used on web sites today
animated graphics and photos, portfolio slide shows, pop-up
windows and menus, information gathering entry forms, database
queries, and much, much more - are created with a mixture of
tools that programmers pull from their tool kit of skills. These
skills include proficiency with advanced programming methods
such as Flash, Cold Fusion, Java script, Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) and DHTML (see glossary at end for help with these terms).

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DEVELOPING AN
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Testing follows programming. During this time, its also important

to begin promotion of your site by learning about search engine
optimization, search engine placement and by developing
strategies to build on-line awareness of your site.
WORK STAGE #3: Maintenance

Its tempting to think that once the web site is launched,

everythings all set, and you can breathe easy and move on. Think
again! How the site will be maintained from the monthly server
fees for hosting the site to how new content will be added all
become post-launch issues. Oh, and dont forget that marketing
and promotion of the site will be an ongoing task.
WORK STAGE #4: Review and Evaluation

When it comes to understanding the full meaning of the

expression it aint over until its over nothing beats putting
up a web site. By its nature it is seldom over. Immediately upon
launching the fruits of your efforts, youll begin to evaluate the site
as to how well the end result achieved the objectives established.
By analyzing this you will be able to make what changes are
necessary.
FIVE SCENARIOS FOR WEB SITE PRODUCTION

Getting your photography onto the Internet involves making

choices. How you define your audience, for instance, will speak
Heather McClintock, The Innocent:
Casulaties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda

volumes about how youre going to present your photographs online.

For example, if the primary audience for your on-line photographs
is your Blue Earth Alliance advisor, then you may not need
anything more than to open an account with a photo-sharing site.

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DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

This gives you the ability to upload your images privately and
discreetly, and to have them reviewed, with captions, by those to
whom you have provided access.
On the other hand, if youre trying to persuade National
Geographic to partner with you on your project, you probably
want something that is a richer, more inspiring presentation.
There are many ways to get your photographs on-line or build a
web site. Here are some scenarios that range in cost from free
(except for your time, of course) to seriously expensive.

1. BUILD IT YOURSELF

Not too long ago you had to be the adventurous type to

build a functional credible web site? Learning HTML and
Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) and CSS and Flash
and Dreamweaver and maybe Fireworks and Cold Fusion
isnt impossible. People do it every day and those are the
types of tools you need to know to hand-build really cool
sites. But the learning curve does take time the commodity
we just cant seem to make more of.
So if you are time challenged but still want to be I the
drivers seat there are an ever growing number of templates
and simple web utilities that will help you build a site that
might suit your needs admirably well.
Many Mac users already know that a .Mac account buys
you not only server space but nice template tool to build
your own site. Being Mac, it is easy and works great.
Microsoft, not to be outdone, has introduced its Expression

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Media suite that includes a well reviewed Expression Web

authoring tool, which is really set up more to compete with
Adobes Dreamweaver.
Rapid Weaver http://www.realmacsoftware.com/
rapidweaver/ is a good example of a fairly sophisticated
web utility that lets you avoid the alphabet soup of web
authoring tools but gives you an opportunity to build some
pretty cool stuff. Plug into this some slick modules created
using shareware or very cheap Flash templates (Simple
Viewer http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
make marvelously optimized customizable image shows
while Soundslides http://www.soundslides.com/ lets you do
true multimedia). Options of this kind are all over the web.
Check the professional forums first.
Youll need to also subscribe to a web hosting service but
this has become amazingly cheap, with gigabytes of space,
unlimited email addresses, multiple domains, useful site
visit statistics, FTP and a bunch of other features available

Florian Schulz, Yellowstone to Yukon

for under $10 a month. The Achilles heal of these services

is, well, service. There are many bogus web host ratings
on the web so again, check professional forums for advice
on who is best and call the final candidates to see if a
human being actually picks up the phone and knows what
they are talking about.

2. PAY FOR IT, PART I: CUSTOM DESIGNED WEB SITES

Commissioning an individual web designer, or a company,
to build your web site provides greater insurance that a
professionally programmed, functionally solid site will be
built.
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You will be paying top dollar (think thousands) for a

good designer so be prepared and be demanding. Consider
the concept and design variables already discussed in this
article. Know what you really need. Make some sketches of
what you envision. Create a list of sites you like and dont
and articulate why. Avoid project creep. Often designers
will make all sorts of way cool suggestions that are
irrelevant to your needs and will run up the development
costs. Also, designers often just design the skin and
(sometimes unbeknownst to their clients), subcontract the
back-end functional development to a propeller head you
never meet. Make sure this chain of command doesnt
interfere with you getting the functionality you need. If you
play your cards right youll get a unique package that will
stand out on the web but it wont come cheap.
Another cost many site owners neglect to consider is site
management. Who will be the site administrator, you? A
staff member (if you have one)? The design firm? One way
or another the site will need to be updated, which takes
time, skill and familiarity with the associated tasks and, of
course, money.

3. PAY FOR IT, PART II: TEMPLATED PORTFOLIO SERVICES

In recent years the number of database driven templated
web portfolio sites has jumped dramatically. While these
used to be cookie cutter affairs new vendors seem to jump
into the game every day and many of the template sites
now available offer very sophisticated Flash capabilities
presented in handsome designs that can be modified so that

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DEVELOPING AN
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in many cases it is hard for the audience to realize they are

looking at a template.
The cost and range of services and requirements varies
a great deal. Some sites allow personalized URLs while
others tag your name at the end of their URL. Some offer
multimedia some dont. Ditto FTP for image transfers.
Many offer some e-commerce component. There is
usually a set-up fee (sometimes waved or discounted as a
promotional deal) and these vary wildly -- from a couple
hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollars! There is
also usually a monthly or quarterly subscription fee which
is invariable much more expensive than simply signing up
with a web host and managing your site yourself. Server
space is also typically more limited on these sites than the
web hosts offer (but can be increased for a price, of course).
The big advantage to these services is they are turnkey
and customer service is good. Typically you simply upload
jpegs (in some cases Tiffs or raw files are OK too) that

Greg Constantine, Nowhere People

are managed in a simple (i.e. no HTML skills necessary)

interface. When you want to update the site simply loads
your images to your password protected user page,
reshuffle your images in the vendor-provided utility and
repost. If you want to delegate the tedious work of site
development but have a tight budget (and maybe go take
pictures instead) and can live with the upfront costs and
the possibility that your site may look a lot like the rest of
your vendors customers sites then this is a good way to go.
Some examples:

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Live Books http://www.livebooks.com

Print Room http://www.printroom.com/
Folio Link http://www.foliolink.com/
Site Welder http://www.sitewelder.com/
ImageCulture http://www.imageculture.com

4. HOSTED E-COMMERCE STOCK PHOTO SITES

New wrinkles in the fabric of online communication for
photographers are hybrid sites that allow photographers
not only to display their work but also to distribute it and
make transactions. Sites like Digital Railroad < http://www.
digitalrailroad.net/> and Photo Shelter http://psc.photoshelter.com/
combine some of the features of templated personal sites with the
functionality of stock photography web portals like Getty Images
and Corbis. For a modest monthly fee plus a modest commission
on sales users have a tool that gives them easy, user-friendly access
to markets they might never have reached at costs a fraction of
what the big stock purveyors charge photographers.
The down side is the individual photographers sites all look the
same a usability convenience for browsing potential clients but
not necessarily the best way for an image portfolio to stand out.
One reasonable approach is to use these e-commerce services
in conjunction with (as a link off of) a more uniquely branded
portfolio site.
5. BLOGS AND PHOTO SHARING SITES
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DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

These days everybody has something they want to share, as the

proliferation of blogs and other user generate content attests.
There are countless sites available to channel this creative juice
from Flikr to youTube to eBlogger to Wordpress to Facebook. All
of them allow for the posting of visual content but none really
do it in a way that will make a professional impression. So why
mention them in this context? Search Engine Optimization! Many
cagey photographers have glorious portfolio web sites and also
have a blog and Flikr and Facebook pages. On all these free and
simple to use web locations they plug their real site and their
projects. This is the heart of Web 2.0 the viral dissemination
of digital information, the proverbial data cloud. If I am a photo
enthusiast and see your recently update site on Flikr I might just
visit the site for your great documentary project. I send the link to
a few like-minded friends and after a while your Google ranking
starts to soar. This is cheap and easy promotion. Just do it.
And speaking of search engine optimization (SEO): We cant
begin to cover SEO adequately here. For a good primer see ASMP

Franz Lanting, Life: A Journey Through Time

member Blake Dischers site http://www.go-seo.com. The thing to

remember is that SEO is REALLY important. You may have the
coolest looking site in the world but if nobody is there to see it
The most useful tip we can offer is while Flash sites look really
cool to you and me they are invisible (really) to the web crawling
bots that help bring eyeballs to your online images which helps
determine Google rankings, which helps bring more eyeballs
which you get it. Web crawlers read characters not image pixels,
so in order to get your site seen you need to get some words on it.
They need to be the right kind and quantity of words in the right
places on the site. There is a lot of strategy involved in this and it
is a moving target, like everything in new media. The best bet

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is to read what you can and befriend an expert. The professional

associations like ASMP are good sources as well.
Our culture has rapidly gone from asking world wide what?
to whats your URL? The influence the Internet has on
our business has increased exponentially as more and more
photographers tell their stories and sell their photographs on-line
through their web sites. Your first step toward the future will be
your web site.
Good luck and, most importantly, have fun!

GLOSSARY OF USEFUL TERMS

Source: Web Design In a Nutshell

By Jennifer Niederst
Publisher: OReilly
ISBN#: 0-596-00196-7
Terminology associated with web design and development can be
a confusing alphabet soup mixture of acronyms and unfamiliar
terms, where java, for instance, refers to a programming
language and not a cup of coffee. Following is an introductory
list of some of the scarier terms. Familiarity with these terms will
benefit your relationship with web developers in particular.
ASP: Active Server Pages. The part of Microsofts Internet
Information Server software that allows server-side scripting for
the creation of dynamically generated web pages and database
functions. Web pages created with ASP commonly have the suffix.
asp.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. An addition to HTML for controlling
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presentation of a document, including color, typography,

alignment of text and images, etc.
DHTML: Dynamic HTML. An integration of Java Script,
Cascading Style Sheets, and the Document Object Model. With
DHTML, content can move across the screen or respond to user
inputs.
FLASH: An application developed by Macromedia that adds highimpact interactivity and animation to web sites. Popular tool for
making photography presentations on line come alive.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. A protocol for moving files over the
Internet from one computer to another. FTP is a client/server
system: one machine must be running at FTP server, the other an
FTP client.

Annie Musselman, The Kyanyawara Project

GIF: Graphic Interchange Format. Common file format of

web graphic images. GIF is a palette-based, 8-bit format that
compresses images with the lossless LZW compression scheme.
GIF is most appropriate for images with areas of flat color and
sharp contrast. See also LZW compression.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. The format of web
documents.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The protocol that defines
how web pages and media are requested and transferred between
servers and browsers.
Image map: A single image that contains multiple hypertext links.
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DEVELOPING AN
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Java: A cross-platform, object-oriented programming language

developed by Sun Microsystems. It can be used to create whole
applications; however, its primary contribution to the Web has
been in the form of Java applets, self-contained, mini-executable
programs.
Java Script: A client-side scripting language developed by Netscape
that adds interactivity and conditional behavior to web pages. It
has little in common with Java.
JPEG: A lossy compression algorithm developed by the Joint
Photographic Experts Group. It is used by files in the JFIF format,
which are commonly referred to as JPEG files. JPEG is most
efficient at compressing images with gradations in tone and no
sharp edge contrasts. Photographic images are typically best saved
in JPEG format.
MP3: Audio file format (MPEG I, Level-III) capable of high levels
of compression with little discernible loss of quality. It has become
the standard for sharing audio files over the Internet.
PDF: Portable Document Format. A file format developed by
Adobe Systems used for capturing formatted page layouts for
distribution. PDF documents, when viewed with the required
Adobe Acrobat Reader, will appear exactly as they were intended.
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. An open source, server-side tool for
creating dynamically generated web pages (similar to Microsofts
ASP).

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Rollover: The act of passing the mouse pointer over an elements

DEVELOPING AN
ONLINE PRESENCE

space, or the events triggered by that action (such as a changing

graphic or pop-up message, sometimes called rollover events).
Web Palette: The set of 216 colors that will not dither or shift
when viewed with browsers on 8-bit monitors.
XHTML: A reworking of the HTML 4.0 Specification to abide by
the rules and syntax of XML.
XML: Extensible Markup Language. A new standard for marking
up documents and data. XML is based on SGML, but with a
reduced feature set that is more appropriate for distribution via
the Web. XML allows authors to create customized tag sets to
provide functionality not available with HTML.

Camille Seaman, Siberia Is Melting

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APPENDICES
TIPS AND TRICKS:
Fundraising Background and Tips on Getting Individual Donations
by Kim Klein, Grassroots Fundraising Journal.................................................76
Quick Tips: Budgeting..............................................................................................82

BLUE EARTH ALLIANCE GRANT FUNDING ISSUES TO CONSIDER:

A QUICK GUIDE........................................................................................................83

BLUE EARTH ALLIANCE WORKSHEETS AND SAMPLES:

Goals and Objectives: Ideas and Definitions...................................................85
Needs Statement.......................................................................................................86
Beginning Budgets.....................................................................................................87
Project Budget Sample (Promotion and Distribution)..................................88
Fundraising Timeline.................................................................................................89

SUCCESSFUL BLUE EARTH APPLICATION FROM SARA STEELE

AND BENJAMIN DRUMMOND.......................................................................90
SAMPLE PROPOSAL FROM GARY BRAASCH...........................................105
COACHING FROM BEA PHOTOGRAPHER, LYDIA LUM.......................116
SUCCESSFUL GRANT APPLICATION FROM JON LOWENSTEIN......124
EVALUATING, REPORTING, AND FOLLOWING UP.................................130

Fundraising Background &

Tips on getting Individual Donations
Source: Kim Klein
Grassroots Fundraising Journal

Who Gives?
Sources of Funding:
Public Sector (govt)
Earned Income
Private Sector

30%
50%
20% (area with most growth)

Private Sector Breakdown (2005 total giveaway $261 billion):

Individuals
76%
Focus on this, thats where the money is at
Bequests
8%
Foundations
11%
Corporations
5%

Individual Giving

1/3 of individual giving goes to churches

Why are they so successful?
Because they are consistently asking people who they know
(who are loyal) every week, and all the time for donations. You
need to figure out whos in your front row/pew
And remember any amount of $ is valuable!

Principle of Exchange:
People will pay you to do the work they cant do for themselves.
7 out of 10 adults give (thats 70% of the population) and the
demographics for younger people (18 to 28 year olds) is slightly
higher, where 8 out of 10 people give.
80% of all donations come from families with incomes of $70K
or under.
Purpose of Fundraising
To build relationships, build a base of supporters (its long term), it can
translate into more money, more political and community power.

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When building out your individual donors/investors you get a broad

base of support, because they become invested in your mission and
will vote/support policies and projects in line with your mission.
Basics of Fundraising
Case Statement (an INTERNAL document): fundraising should be
mission driven, a case statement makes sure you are clear about the
mission. It helps you to answer the following questions:
WHY your project exists?
Goals, whats your bigger picture?
Objectives, should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic, and Time limited)
History/Track Record, your accomplishments
Structure/Who, are you a collective, an individual etc?
Budget, including expense/income and a fundraising plan (like a
business plan)
Mission Message
People recite messages with their traditional mission message
using words like: empower, inspire, helps -- these all
speak to what you do and how you do it.
You really need to be giving a message that answers the
questions: WHY SHOULD I CARE?
This will translate your mission statement into a cocktail party
speech to make it accessible.
Try to get to the CORE values, some examples:
We believe every child should be a wanted child
(Planned Parenthood)
We believe violence is never an answer to domestic disputes
The goal is to get at their hearts first, rather than their heads
Also, answer the questions of whats your big idea, some
examples:
We believe another world is possible (World Social Forum)
ACLU is our nations guardian of liberty
A mission message also gives you message control so that
everyone is out their saying the same basic line.
Contents of a mission message, should include:
What is it you most believe/value
Accessible, no jargon
Easy to repeat
Goes to the heart/passion
Has to inspire someone to ask tell me more about it.
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Cultivating Donors
A healthy organization/project should look (approx.) like this:

10% of Donors providing

60% of funds

Thoughtful Donors

Habit Giver Donors

20% of Donors providing
20% of funds
Impulse Donors
70% of Donors providing
20% of funds

Make a map of your donors and see how it lines up and that can show
what you have to work on.

Donor Progression moving people up the triangle.

Step 1: Impulse Donors:
This is a person who usually gives as an impulse gift. Acquisition
strategies of 1st time donors:
Events (fundraising dinners, etc.)
Online
Personal Ask
Direct mail usually the most lucrative
Next steps in cultivation: Should have a paper newsletter, a blog, a
website with updates, or something to keep them in the loop.
Something personalized. For some people this can be a test, they
donate once to see how they are treated. If they like how they are
treated they will step up their donation next time.

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Step 2: Habit Giver

Take a list of donors who have given several times and then review
donors of who you could ratchet up, this is the upgrade process.
Call/Write/Ask them to give at a higher level than what they have
been giving at.
Step 3: Thoughtful Donor
Think about who should be included here? Ask board members to do
to strategize of who can go in this category. Every couple of years
should assess donors and ask them for upgrades.
Conversion Rate of Donors:
1st impulse gift: only 40% will give a 2nd time.
2nd gift: retention to 3rd and 4th gift is 70%
3rd, 4th gift: 85-90% retention rate
5th time and up

Major Donor Campaign

Need a specific monetary goal (make it what you want, not what
you need)

Make a gift range chart (in general) will need:

1 gift = 10%+
2 gifts = 10%+
3-5 gifts = 10%+
So on

Example:
Goal of $40,000
1 gift = $4,000, need 4 prospects
2 gifts = $2,000 (4,000/2), need 8 prospects
4 gifts = $1,000 (4,000/4), need 16 prospects
So on

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How many prospects do you identify?

With a face to face ask, youll usually have a 50% success rate, of that
half, 50% will give less than what you ask for. So, if you need 1 donor
at the full amount, you need to ask at least four people (half will say
no, one will give less)
Identifying Prospects: all prospects should include
1. current/lapsed donors
2. board members (current/past)
3. volunteers
4. clients/members/alumni
5. allies/stakeholders
6. industry/field
7. vendors/friends/family

Tracking Donors
Every person on your database should be coded (i.e. a volunteer,
donor, ally, etc.). This is so that you wont waste resources on
sending things to the wrong people. Keep your list clean and
segmented.
Once a donor gives ALWAYS send them a thank you note, and make
sure they are included in all of your updates (emails, newsletters, any
updates you send out).
Suggestions for good donor databases:
-

etapestry (web based)

donor perfect
fundrasiersoftware.com (started by activists)
fundraiser basic ($89, great start up database w/ free tech
support)

Raps that Raise $$$

Use the raps for letters (written), the pitch (spoken), etc.
Common components for a letter or pitch:
1. Story putting a face to the issue (one person, one family)
2. Statistic one compelling one translated into a story

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3. solution what is your group/project doing about the problem,

leads to action
4. Action what do you want them to do, be SPECIFIC if you
want money from them ask for a specific range. Dont leave it
open ended.
5. Who you are why are you involved?

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APPENDICES

QUICK TIPS: BUDGETING

f you submit your project to the Blue Earth Alliance

you will be required to provide a detailed budget. as Grant

giving organizations will also require a good, tight budget. Dont
underestimate the importance of a budget! It can make or break
your project. Below are a few important issues to consider when
you sit down with your spreadsheet.
The role of budgets:
Budgets translate project pieces into a fiscal picture for the
funder.
Budgets clarify for the funder what you intend to do.
Budgets show how you will use the money to carry out
your project.
Budgets prove your management capability.
Budget information defends your project to the funder.
Tips for writing your budget:
Give yourself enough time.
Take notes on how you get your figures.
Create budget worksheets.
Go over your figures for accuracy. Have someone else check
the budget.
Dont forget to include everything you will need to
complete your project.
Put all relevant budget information on the budget page.
Keep records. Staple all of your budget work together and
put it in a file.
You may be asked to defend your budget and to explain the
costs.
When you get funding, you will have to follow the budget,
so make sure it is realistic and reflects the actual costs.

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APPENDICES

GRANT FUNDING ISSUES TO CONSIDER: A QUICK GUIDE

s we have stressed elsewhere in this guide, the most

daunting challenge in conceiving, executing and publishing a

major documentary project is the sheer magnitude of all the tasks
involved. To successfully get your arms around something so huge
it is always best to break down the job into manageable chunks.
Below we offer a useful paradigm as you consider your project
and how to make it a reality.
Vision: Your vision guides and inspires your work. It keeps you
going in the right direction. It usually is not part of a proposal,
but reflecting on it and keeping it in mind can help you in writing
down your goals and objectives.
Mission: What is the mission, or purpose, of your potential
sponsor? Your proposals, goals, and objectives must fit into or
meet the mission of the organization.
Needs statement: Identify the needs or problems that concern your
potential sponsor and explain how you will address them, which
is why you are writing the proposal. Refer back to your needs
statement as you write to make sure you are addressing these
needs.
Goals and objectives: The goals and objectives describe the results
you want to accomplish through your project and how you plan
to achieve them. Explain exactly what you will do and what you
will require. Be clear and realistic.

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APPENDICES

Timeline: The timeline lists the steps needed to complete your

project. Describe when each activity will happen and who will be
responsible. Check back to your goals and objectives when writing
your timeline, and make sure you have included all of the steps
needed. Be realistic.
Outcomes/results/impact/evaluation: What changes will your
project make, and how will you be able to tell that these changes
have happened? (Make sure they are related to the identified
needs.) Explain why the project will be effective.
Budget: What resources will you need to pay for your project?
What are the specific costs? How many staff members will you
require? How many stamps? The budget must be connected to the
goals and objectives. Again, be realistic.
Support materials: Some funders request additional support
materials. Choose materials that illustrate the need, the strengths
of the project staff, and how this project will meet the stated need.

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APPENDICES

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: IDEAS AND DEFINITIONS

Goal: A goal states what the overall result of your project will be.
It is a general statement of what you want to achieve. Think of the
goal in football or a race. It states where you want to be and what
you want to accomplish at the end of the project. What will the
end result of the project be? It must meet or fit into the mission of
your organization. It must address a need.
Objectives: Objectives state specifically what the project will
accomplish in measurable terms, breaking down the goal into
manageable pieces. They answer the questions who, what, when,
where, how many, how often, how long; provide numbers and
percentages; and spell out what you will do to reach your goal.
Objectives are specific and measurable. They must meet the goal,
and they should be realistic, not optimistic. State what you really
can do with the funds, not what you wish you could do.
Need(s) your project will address:

Goal of your project:

Specific objectives to meet the goal:

1.
2.
3.

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APPENDICES

NEEDS STATEMENT

What needs or problems does your sponsoring organization

address?
1.
2.
3.
What specific needs or problems will this project address?
1.
2.
3.
What other organizations or projects are addressing these
problems?
1.
2.
3.
What is unique about your project? How does it differ from
others?
1.
2.
3.
How might you work cooperatively with similar projects?
1.
2.
3.

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APPENDICES

BEGINNING BUDGETS

What will it take to do my project?

My project will last ______ months.
My project will begin on __________ and end on ___________.
My project will serve _________ people.
My total project cost will be ________________.

To complete my project, I will need (list everything you need):

Manpower (your salary, your assistants salary):
Space (Mortgage or rent):
Direct program costs (supplies, travel, phone, materials, etc.):

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Facing Climate Change

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 1 of 17

Heres the paradox: if the scientists are right, were living through the biggest thing thats
happened since human civilization emerged. One species, ours, has by itself in the course of a
couple of generations managed to powerfully raise the temperature of an entire planet, to knock
its most basic systems out of kilter. But oddly, though we know about it, we dont know about it.
It hasnt registered in our gut; it isnt part of our culture.
Bill McKibben
Facing Climate Change illustrates global change through local people. From seminomadic reindeer herders in Norway, to dusty bicyclists in Beijing and maple syrup
producers in Vermont, we profile ordinary people around the world as they confront
and adapt to the complex issues surrounding climate change. This collaborative
project, between photographer Benjamin Drummond and author Sara Steele, is a body
of documentary art that engages the American public with people facing change. Our
project unites the environmental, social and cultural impacts of a warming planet, making
it central to the mission of Blue Earth Alliance. We seek your guidance to maximize our
potential to collect, create and distribute our work.
Though the responsibility and consequences may be unequally distributed, climate change
is happening everywhere and to everyone at once. This is why, according to author Bill
McKibben, it threatens constantly to become backdrop, context, instead of event. And
this is especially true for Americans, because of our growing disconnect from both the
environment and the rest of humanity. For many, a temperature change of a couple of
degrees, or a rise in sea level of a few centimeters, does not register as an immediate
threat. With increasing frequency, the ceaseless, abstract transformation is punctuated
by a dramatic and horrific event close to home, such as Hurricane Katrina, or a lethal heat
wave in Europe. But then it is the catastrophe at hand that absorbs our attention, and we
somehow forget that it is in this same context that our favorite ski areas remain bare, and
the majority of maple syrup now comes from cooler forests in Canada. Additionally, when
global warming does receive media coverage, it is cornered as an environmental, scientifi c
or political concern; a special interest issue that remains inaccessible or uninteresting to all
but a few. And when it is reported as a humanitarian issue, the news follows well-beaten
trails to hardships in fringe communities we have become desensitized to.
As Americans who comprise five percent of the global population, yet emit 30 percent of
the worlds greenhouse gases, we hold both responsibility and leadership potential in
confronting climate issues. So how do we engage our culture with the problem? To quote
McKibben again, Art, like religion, is one of the ways we digest what is happening to us,
make the sense out of it that proceeds to action. Facing Climate Change will contribute a
body of documentary art designed to raise awareness, unsettle an industrialized audience
and empower political and personal decision-making. Three major themes are at the core
of our project:
1 Exclusive focus on local people
Our focus on ordinary people, equalized through a global lens, will elucidate the
environmental, social and cultural impacts of this crisis. The juxtaposition of personal
profiles that are both dramatic and exotic, accessible and familiar, make a vast and abstract
problem personal. For example, reindeer herders in Norway and maple syrup producers

in Vermont are both contending with variable winter conditions that challenge their
livelihoods. Our project will align these people and put a face to the issues.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 2 of 17

2 Climate change doesnt act alone

Our profiles will illustrate how climate change amplifies existing threats, ecological
stressors and economic divides. Cod fishermen in the North Atlantic, for example, are
contending with changes in the productivity and distribution of their stocks. Overfishing
alone is sometimes to blame, but overfishing combined with climate change has proven
particularly lethal. We believe that documenting the whole story, rather than isolating
evidence, is both more accurate and engaging.
3 A shift in dialogue
Our work embodies an innovative and dynamic shift away from proving and convincing
that climate change is real, to understanding and confronting its impacts on everyday
people as we struggle to mitigate and adapt. We build upon the foundation set by Elizabeth
Kolbert, Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Gary Braasch and others who have worked with scientists
to collate and communicate the overwhelming evidence on anthropogenic warming. We
recently met with Braasch, who is excited by this shift in dialogue and agreed that our
personal focus on people is an important next step.
At her recent Seattle Arts & Lectures appearance, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert said,
Today, you can pretty much go anywhere and find a climate change story. Her comment
invites explanation for how we choose where to go, and how we work to fulfill our themes.
Using guides such as the International Panel on Climate Changes assessment reports, we
chose stories that combine to form a balanced representation of both impacts and peoples
worldwide. While we specifically avoid profiling scientists, we do contact them to learn
more about the issues and seek recommendations for where to go and who to profile. It
is important to distinguish between profiling people that live in places where science
indicates change is occurring, and using local, informal observation as evidence, which
we avoid. Finally, working as a team creates synergy between the photos and text of the
finished piece, and allows us to better integrate ourselves within the community and form
the necessary personal relationships for an in-depth story.
We plan to distribute this material as separate magazine articles, exhibits, presentations
and a book. Our aim is to reach as broad an American audience as possible. We will capitalize on our collective experience with marketing, exhibit and collateral design, fundraising, education and working with local environmental groups to find unconventional venues
for this work that will connect with people not typically reached by art books. We are
particularly excited to work with school children, both in the U.S. and abroad.
This project grew out of the profiles we have created for The Dippers Attitude:
Conversations with Northwest Naturalists, an ongoing collaboration that explores who
Northwest naturalists are, how they attend to the natural world, and why that matters. We
have also examined issues of people and landscape with a Larson International Fellowship
from Carleton College for Bone Wood Alpaca: An Exploration in the High Peruvian Andes.
More information on our past work is included on our joint resum. Text and images from
both projects can also be found on Benjs Web site at www.bendrum.com. Facing Climate
Change builds upon these past collaborations and marks our first fulltime commitment to
independent journalism and documentary art.
Planning for Facing Climate Change began in June of 2006. At the end of October, we
returned from a three-month self-funded expedition collecting profiles of reindeer herders
from northern Norway, volunteer glacier monitors in Iceland and cod fishermen of the
North Atlantic. In December, the material was on display at Benaroya Hall during Elizabeth

Kolberts Seattle Arts & Lectures event, and at the Seattle REI during a panel discussion
on local climate change. We are currently working to create an exhibit for the Swedish
Cultural Center, an article for Orion magazine, and a presentation for North Cascades
Institutes Sourdough Speaker Series. As you will see in our shooting schedule, during
2007 we also plan to add several domestic stories to our collection while working to secure
necessary support for future fieldwork abroad.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274

Please view our slide show, along with the other materials, and let us know how we can
clarify our proposal or answer any questions. We look forward to joining the Blue Earth
Alliance community as we continue to work to engage our culture in the complexity of
global climate change through the power of a local face.

page 3 of 17

Contact us
Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele
2651 NW 95th Street
Seattle, Washington 98117-2849
206 599 9274
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.bendrum.com
www.facingclimatechange.org

Quotes by Bill McKibben from Imagine That: What the word needs now is art, sweet art
published by Grist magazine, April 2005.

Photograph captions
Facing Climate Change
The Nordic Countries, collected Fall 2006

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 4 of 17

1 Volunteer glacier monitors in Iceland

There have been glaciers in Iceland for millions of years, but by
the end of next century they could be gone. At the end of a melt
season, we accompany seven volunteers who keep a watchful eye
on the countrys shrinking glaciers and file reports for the Icelandic
Glaciological Society. There are more than thirty volunteers, ranging
from sheepherders to geochemists, many of whose families have
lived beside these glaciers for generations.
2 Aalstein means main stone
Sheepherder Indrii Aalsteinsson has volunteered with the Icelandic
Glaciological Society for 23 years. Before that, his father monitored
Kaldalnsjkull for 49 years. And before that his grandfather, great
grandfather and great great grandfather grazed the sheep of
Skjaldfnn on pastures surrounding the glacier. Indrii uses a large
wooden compass his father made to measure the distance between
this cairn and the terminus of Kaldalnsjkull. He picks up a stone
every 10 meters to keep count.
Skjaldfnn, the name of Indriis farm, means shield of snow. Two
years ago, the large shield-shaped patch of snow that used to hover
year-round above his barn, melted for the first time.
3 A longer walk in the park
As warden for Skaftafell National Park, a place where one of the most
active geothermal areas in the world meets Europes largest ice cap,
Vatnajkull, Ragnar Frank Kristjnsson is intimate with a history ruled
by natural disaster and changing climatic conditions. Skaftafell is
one of Icelands most popular parks. Each year visitors have to walk
a little farther to see the glacier, says Ragnar, But its not just the
advances and retreats were noticing, 30 years ago you couldnt see
that mountain over the glacier.
4 The twine between us
Hannes Jnssons grandfather was a well-known mailman. Traveling
by horseback, he could navigate the endless mire of glacial outwash,
soft black ash and shifting silt-laden rivers that prevented completion
of a ring road around Iceland until 1974. Today, Hannes and his wife
operate a youth hostel that sits on a 10,000 year-old moraine. They
send tourists through the valleys where his grandfather delivered
mail.
Hannes took over monitoring Skeiarrjkull from his uncle in 1995.
That year he built a new rock cairn because the ice had retreated so
far from the ones his uncle and grandfather had used as measuring
points. This year, Hannes and a friend walk almost half a mile from his
new marker to the terminus. They measure with 100 meters of blue
bailing twine stretched between them. My grandfather and my uncle
have seen the beginning of the fast melting, but Ive seen it melt the
fastest, and I will see more if this continues.

5 Smi reindeer herdsmen from Norway

Reindeer husbandry has supported civilization across the Eurasian
Arctic and Subarctic for thousands of years. As the semi-nomadic
Smi herdsmen of northern Norway face irreversible impacts from
global warming, more immediate threats from government regulation
and loss of habitat hinder their ability to adapt.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 5 of 17

6 Reindeer on a boat
As Sorysund hits the shore and lights up the corral with blinding
floodlights, the bow doors split open, a ramp is lowered and the crew
hurries to lash a temporary fence to the gate. The herders chase small
groups of reindeer down the steep bank to the beach, and onto the
boat, which can hold 600 animals. It is 3 a.m. and raining.
Recent increases in the regulation of grazing rights, combined
with private development on traditional pastureland and migration
routes, requires these reindeer to be transported six hours by boat.
From the landing, they will resume their natural migration route
to winter pastures 100 miles inland. When faced with challenging
climate conditions, these same pressures limit the ability of herders
to keep their animals exactly in the right place at the right time, says
reindeer herder Niklas Labba.
7 After the migration, the fall sort
After the fall migration, herders in Finnmark gather their semidomestic reindeer to separate the herds, mark new calves and cull
animals for slaughter. Over three days, this districts 6,000 reindeer
will bark, grunt and stampede through a series of progressively
smaller corrals. When the reindeer are released, they graze on inland
lichen mats. Recently, warmer temperatures have triggered freezethaw events that form impenetrable crusts of ice over winter pastures.
8 Finnmark without reindeer
Finnmark without reindeer is like Seattle without electricity. Britt
Marie Labba Paivio mends fence while her village waits for enough
snow to gather their reindeer by snowmobile. If the herders must wait
too long, the reindeer calves will leave their mothers and it will be
impossible to determine ownership.
Travel over pastureland is also impacted by changes in vegetation.
Recent research shows a 90 percent increase in the extent of birch
forest around Kautokeino in the past 40 years. Apart from the
challenge of herding reindeer through thick brush, birch trees inhibit
the re-growth of lichen mats that provide important winter forage.
9 Ealt: pasture, eallu: herd, eallin: life
At the corral, herders set up traditional teepee-shaped tents, called
laavos, and park cars, ATVs and dirt bikes beside them. People butcher
reindeer and leave the skins out to dry; dogs bark and balance on
the backs of bucking ATVs; kids build animals out of snow. Inside the
laavos, people lie on skins, chew on reindeer fat and text message on
cell phones.
Worldwide, there are 27 different reindeer peoples, nearly
100,000 reindeer owners and three million domesticated and semidomesticated reindeer on four million square kilometers of pasture.
The Smi are one of the largest groups of semi-nomadic reindeer
herding people, and the highest concentration of reindeer herders

and animals per square kilometer is in Finnmark. Finnmark also has

the highest degree of development and the highest rate of loss of
grazing land in the world. Some estimate that by 2050 between 70
and 90 percent of reindeer pastures in the euro-arctic region will be
unavailable.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 6 of 17

10 Money in the bank

Asking how many reindeer I have is like asking how much money I
have in the bank. Ellen Karin Gaup, 19, just started her second year
of a two-year practicum with reindeer husbandry. The experience
is designed to teach young people herding and corral management
skills, along with traditional cooking and sewing technique. After
shadowing her father for the first year of the practicum, Ellen Karin is
prepared to take on more independent responsibility for the herd.
11 The lasso ring is a foundation for life
Confidence building locally is the critical thing for adaptation to
global warming in the Arctic, says Svein Mathiesen, a professor
at Smi University College. This could be the paradigm for how
people understand that traditional knowledge has value. And Im not
talking about spirituality and religion, Im talking about castrating
male reindeer, simply allowing people to use their knowledge about
management and nature.
12 Cod fishermen of the North Atlantic
In the North Atlantic dramatic short-term climate oscillations are the
norm, including past warming events that may help to illustrate the
future of hunting and fishing in a warmer sea. We visit with fishermen
as they unload their catch in Icelands Herring Capitol of the World,
pull in longlines with a Norwegian fisherman who wonders if tourism
will be more predictable than cod, and accompany a modern hunter
and fisherman from Greenlands largest city.
13 Klondike of the Atlantic
The great herring adventure of Siglufjrur, Iceland, 19031968,
permeated the countrys northernmost town with the smell of rotting
fish and the excitement of a booming gold rush. Tens of thousands
of seasonal workers came to harbor with the herring ships, labored
at salting stations and enjoyed unprecedented social and economic
freedom. Then, in the late sixties, years of unsustainable harvest
levels, combined with a changing climate, brought about a sudden
and complete collapse of the herring stock. More recently, smaller
ventures with capelin and shrimp have met a similar fate. Today, the
Herring Capital of the World has a population of only 1300.
Fishery crises have become common throughout the North Atlantic
in recent decades. Overfishing alone is sometimes to blame, but
overfishing combined with climate change has proven particularly
lethal. The future is uncertain for this young crew unloading their
catch of cod and haddock on a stormy day that kept most fishermen at
home.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 7 of 17

14 Waiting to pull in the lines

Brge Iversen Jr. leaves the harbor at 1 a.m. and starts looking at the
fish finder after two hours of crossing Vestfjrden. It is too dark to see
the horizon, but he can see the lights of four other boats from Ballstad.
The fishermen talk back and forth on radios, looking for fish. They do
not register as many as they would like, but at 4:45 a.m. they all set
lines in the same direction. Dawn is coming soon. The fish will sink
from the surface and feed as they go. It takes Brge half an hour to
set seven long lines with 300 hooks each. It took him 14 hours to bait
the hooks with mackerel. With over three miles of line behind him, he
naps and rocks and waits.
Brges family has fished from Ballstad for five generations. In
recent years, waters have warmed and cod have not returned to this
fjrd to spawn, forcing Brge and other small boat fishermen further
out to sea. He and his wife recently began to rent fishermens cottages
to tourists and are currently building a fish market and caf.
15 Facing change
Jonas Heilmann stands at the throttle swinging slowly side-to-side,
scanning the water for seal. He motors one direction and decides it
is too windy. He goes the other way. Its hard to spot a seal when its
windy, so he fishes, stopping in some places hes fished before, and
some new ones. Today he fishes for cod, halibut and redfish. Other
days he hunts whale, birds, reindeer, or musk ox.
In a place with volatile environmental and market conditions,
flexibility and diversification define the success of small-scale
hunters and fishermen. As warming seas impact the productivity and
distribution of marine resources, and unpredictable weather keeps
Jonas from hunting and fishing more than before, he prepares to open
a cooperative factory that will process and export meat from local
hunters and fishermen in Greenlands capitol city, Nuuk. Jonas hopes
this new direction will enable him to continue to live off of a warmer,
and stormier, sea.

The Dippers Attitude

Conversations with Northwest Naturalists (20052006)
16 Dana Visalli
Why be a naturalist? It has to do with living in a natural world. If
you dimly perceive that we live in an organic context, it effects the
way you perceive life, what you think about and what you think is
important. For me there was this natural affinity for the natural world;
the mystery is that everybody doesnt have it, because we are of the
earth, of the air and sun and water. Its poetic, but its simply physically
true. That is what we are made of. Youd think everyone would feel
that connection and its stunning the degree to which our society has
drifted away. Being a naturalist or being an ecologist is not so much a
profession as what we need to be as a culture.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

17 Libby Mills
You spend all of these days completely drenched. You wear Gore-Tex,
and youre completely drenched. So the next day you wear rubber,
and youre still completely drenched. Through all of this rain the
dipper is singing, and I started thinking: you know, this is a really
good bird, the model of good cheer in the eye of adversity. What we
all need in the early part of the 21st century is the dippers attitude,
because its raining on us, and its snowing on us, its hailing on us
in political ways. The dipper is such a cheerful bird to be around, and
theyre of the river and rivers are such a neat thing all of their own.

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 8 of 17

Bone Wood Alpaca

People and Landscape in the High Peruvian Andes (2001)
18 The only man who talked to us at all had come up from Ayacucho
to fix the bells on the old adobe church. He said that people were
starting to come back to work, people who had fled during the Shining
Path, leaving the terrorism.
We were facing a small girl on a very narrow street with high adobe
walls on either side. She stopped absolutely motionless, her head low
so that her face was almost hidden. We turned to look after we had
passed, she still had not moved. Her head was still down.
On the way down we stopped at a monastery and picked white
wild roses. Our driver took us up to some mineral springs where the
people come to bathe. Off to one side, there was a shallow depression,
scattered with bird feathers. There was a small hole at one end of it.
Any bird that flies over here is dead, he said. It has been this way for a
long time.
19 We drank fermented and boiled corn water from a yellow pesticide jug with a salt miner named Celestio. Everyday he and 120 others
come down from snow to salt to dance in the pans in a whitening process. Streams of mineral water, orange with algae, are channeled to
some 1500 salt-crusted pans where the water is allowed to evaporate,
and the resulting salt is scraped, danced upon, and piled.
20 On Day of the Dead, the girls were all very nervous about
carrying their bread babies to the cemetery. They were wrapped and
unwrapped several times. My baby was bundled in seven blankets.
The mourners had all moved their shrines up to the cemetery. They
awaited a blessing from the priest before frantically grabbing away as
much of the food as they could. A sullen scowling teenager, tossing
a baby head from hand to hand, led a group of younger boys trying
to steal and eat bread babies from groups of giggling girls. The girls
tore eucalyptus sticks from the trees to beat them off. Alicia, because
hers was always stolen, was carrying an unwanted doll, Daphne and I
had the bread, but Concepcin, we realized once we were back at the
house, had carried a real baby.

July 2007
One hot city
Britains Meteorological Office predicts that El Nio climate patterns may combine with
ever-higher levels of greenhouse gases to make 2007 the hottest year on record. The current
record was set in the El Nio year of 1998, while a heat wave in 2003 the fourth hottest on
record killed almost 15,000 people in France alone. At the peak of a heat wave this summer,
well travel to a European or American city to talk with residents as they struggle to keep
their cool.
Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 10 of 17

September 2007
Firefighters of the American West
The last 15 years have seen a four-fold increase in large wild fires in the western United
States. A research paper published last summer by the journal Science, found that warming
creates longer, drier seasons, and better conditions for catastrophic fires. Well profile
firefighters battling some of the seasons biggest blazes, as well as the residents contending
with increasing risks and smoky summers.
April 2008
Goat herders, young consumers and Chinas yellow dragons
In April 2006, the earliest dust storm ever recorded blew in from Inner-Mongolia, choking
Beijing and other cities. Though spring dust storms are common in northern China and
Mongolia, a complex combination of factors including, overgrazing, drought and warmer
winters have caused theses storms to increase in frequency and intensity over the last few
decades. The dust from these giant storms can even blow across the Pacific to darken the
snows of the Rocky Mountains. The government has recently started an ambitious treeplanting program to attempt to mitigate these storms before the Summer Olympics arrive
in 2008. Well travel to Beijing and Inner-Mongolia at the height of the sandstorm season to
speak with both herders at the edge of the growing desert, and the urban inhabitants living
and driving their new cars down wind.
June 2008
Living on the chars in Bangladesh
The inhabitants of the chars the unstable alluvial deposits along the Bay of Bengal are
used to change. They have grown accustomed to the annual floods and cyclones that both
sustain life and wash away their land and livelihood. But as sea levels rise, monsoons drop
more rain, and bigger cyclones bring higher tidal surges, their survival becomes even more
precarious. Well profile rice farmers and fishermen on the fringe of a rising tide, where a
one-meter rise in sea level could displace 30 million people.
September 2008
People and malaria in Africas Eastern Highlands
Up to 2.7 million people die of malaria each year, and it is estimated that 75 percent of
those are African children. The highlands around Nairobi, Kenya have long been free from
malaria, as the high altitude has simply been too cold for the mosquitoes that spread this
ancient plague. In 2005, researchers detected larvae at over 6,000 feet, a record for Kenya,
but not news for local residents who have been noticing more mosquitoes and a rise in
malaria cases over the last decade. Well travel to this mosquito-free capital and speak with
farmers and health professionals grappling with this new disease.

Shooting schedule
Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 9 of 17

August 2006
Volunteer glacier monitors in Iceland completed
There have been glaciers in Iceland for millions of years, but by the end of next century
they could be gone. At the end of a melt season, we accompany seven volunteers who
keep a watchful eye on the countrys shrinking glaciers and file reports for the Icelandic
Glaciological Society. There are more than thirty volunteers, ranging from sheepherders to
geochemists, many of whose families have lived beside these glaciers for generations.
September 2006
Cod fishermen of the North Atlantic completed
In the North Atlantic dramatic short-term climate oscillations are the norm, including past
warming events that may help to illustrate the future of hunting and fishing in a warmer
sea. We visit with fishermen as they unload their catch in Icelands Herring Capitol of the
World, pull in longlines with a Norwegian fisherman who wonders if tourism will be more
predictable than cod, and accompany a modern hunter and fisherman from Greenlands
largest city.
October 2006
Smi reindeer herdsmen from Norway completed
Reindeer husbandry has supported civilization across the Eurasian Arctic and Subarctic
for thousands of years. As the semi-nomadic Smi herdsmen of northern Norway face
irreversible impacts from global warming, more immediate threats from government
regulation and loss of habitat hinder their ability to adapt.
February 2007
Lift operators and skiers across the United States
Last winter the Pacific Northwest saw a 78 percent drop in skier visits due to warm
temperatures. This winter, with temperatures too warm to even produce artificial snow, many
East Coast resorts have bare slopes. Some Swiss banks are now refusing to lend money to
resorts below 4000 feet; and, according to a recent report by the United Nations, half of all
ski areas could be forced to close over the next 50 years. Well visit local and mega ski resorts
on both coasts to explore the future of powdery profit.
April 2007
Tree-tappers and Vermont's maple syrup industry
Traditionally, spring in northern New England provides optimal freeze-thaw patterns
for producing maple syrup. But in recent years, the transition from winter to spring has
accelerated, shortening the freeze-thaw cycle. Other stressors, such as drought, air pollution
and pests, have also increased. Well tap trees with maple syrup producers in Vermont, as
they contend with less sap, and more competition from Canadians with cooler forests.

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 11 of 17

February 2009
Climate refugees from the South Pacific
A recent report released by the British Treasury warns that failure to act on climate change
could create hundreds of millions of refugees that will cost nations from five to 20 percent of
their gross domestic product each year. The Pacific Access Category is an immigration deal
between New Zealand, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Fiji, and Tonga that enables people who are displaced
from their homes by climate change to move to a less vulnerable environment. Each country
has been allocated a set quota of citizens who can be granted residency in New Zealand
every year. First, well visit Tuvalu during the spring tides to examine how climate change is
impacting peoples land, water and food supplies. Then, well travel to New Zealand to talk
with climate change refugees about the tides of change.
June 2009
Qoyllur Riti, Peru's celebration of snow
As temperatures rise in the Andes, scientists estimate that 80 percent of Perus ice caps
will melt in next 15 years, resulting in less water for both potato farmers in the highlands
and thirsty residents in Lima. We will return to Peru to attend the festival of Qollyur Riti,
the largest indigenous pilgrimage in the Americas, where guardians of the ceremony have
recently stopped the tradition of bringing sacred ice down to water the fields, in an attempt
to protect whats left of the glacier.

Note
The above schedule is subject to change. The availability of funding, other media coverage,
natural events and new scientific developments may require stories to be rescheduled or
replaced. We have also frontloaded the schedule with domestic, lower-cost fieldwork to give
us time to secure support for further stories overseas.

Budget
July 2006
Equipment

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 12 of 17

$7000

August 2006
Volunteer glacier monitors in Iceland
Duration
4 weeks
Airfare
$1050
Living
$4000
Film
$300
Total
$5350
September 2006
Cod Fishermen of North Atlantic
Duration
2 weeks
Airfare
$1500
Living
$1200
Film
$50
Total
$2750
October 2006
Smi reindeer herdsmen from Norway
Duration
6 weeks
Airfare
$1050
Living
$5000
Film
$300
Total
$6350
December 2006
Seattle Arts & Lectures Exhibit
Printing
$800 (inkind donation)
Supplies
$300
Total
$1100

Total to date

$22,550

February 2007
Lift operators and skiers across the U.S.
Duration
2 weeks
Airfare
$1200
Living
$2000
Film
$150
Total
$3350
April 2007
Tree-tappers and Vermont's syrup industry
Duration
1 week
Airfare
$600
Living
$1000
Film
$100
Total
$1700
August 2007
One hot city
Duration
Airfare
Living
Film
Total

September 2007
Firefighters of the American West
Duration
2 weeks
Airfare
$800
Living
$1000
Film
$150
Total
$1950
April 2008
Goat herders, young consumers and
Chinas yellow dragons
Duration
6 weeks
Airfare
$2500
Living
$3000
Film
$400
Total
$5900
June 2008
Living on the chars in Bangladesh
Duration
3 weeks
Airfare
$2500
Living
$1500
Film
$300
Total
$4300
September 2008
People and malaria in Africas eastern highlands
Duration
3 weeks
Airfare
$3500
Living
$1500
Film
$300
Total
$5300
February 2008
Climate refugees from the South Pacific
Duration
6 weeks
Airfare
$5000
Living
$4500
Film
$400
Total
$9900
June 2009
Qoyllur Riti, Peru's celebration of snow
Duration
3 weeks
Airfare
$1800
Living
$1500
Film
$300
Total
$3600
Exhibits, outreach and events
Total
$15,000

Total to raise
1 week
$1000
$1000
$100
$2100

$53,100

Potential funding sources

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 13 of 17

Private foundations and individuals

Aaron Siskind Foundation
Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network
Artists Trust GAP Program
The Mountaineers Foundation
Partnerships and corporate sponsors
Patagonia
The Alliance for Climate Protection
Toyota
National Resource Defense Council
World Wildlife Fund
Ad Council
Climate Solutions
North Cascades Institute
Seattle Arts & Lectures
Publications
Orion
Smithsonian
Grist

We continue to expand this list through the Foundation Center, Philanthropy Northwest,
Guidestar, other resources and personal connections.

Joint resum
Benjamin Drummond

Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 14 of 17

WORK HISTORY
North Cascades Institute Marketing coordinator, brand manager, in-house designer and photographer.
Managed the marketing and publications for this growing conservation nonprofit. Responsible for the
design and production of all print and electronic publications. Led branding team in identifying and
addressing challenges and opportunities as the organization marked its 20th birthday and opened a
new facility. Along with Sara Steele, conceived and designed original installation for North Cascades
Environmental Learning Center in North Cascades National Park. (20022006)
Publishing Services, Western Washington University As official university photographer, documented
events, programs and student life for University publications. Introduced digital photographic workflow
and archive system to the department. (2003)
Publications Office, Carleton College Photographed student life for college publications and designed
posters for weekly convocation series. (19982002)
SeaMount Institute As program director, PADI scuba instructor and EMT, worked with executive
director to organize and run high school experiential outdoor programs in the Northwest and Hawaii
aimed at furthering a sense of place. Programs integrated an investigation of the local ecology with
scuba certification, outdoor survival or mountaineering. (19972000)
EDUCATION AND AWARDS
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota Bachelor of Arts in Geology with Distinction (2002)
Larson International Fellow See Bone Wood Alpaca on next page. (2001)
University and College Designers Association Award of Excellence Student poster design (2001)
School of Visual Concepts, Seattle Typography, letterforms and trademark design (2003)

Sara Joy Steele

WORK HISTORY
North Cascades Institute As exhibit coordinator, conceived and directed the design and installation of
educational exhibits at the new Learning Center. As learning center assistant, provided administrative
support to educational programs and researched and procured lab equipment. Also led the development
of the Foodshed Project, a program to maximize the consumption of local foods and educate about the
power of food choice. (20042006)
Bellingham Community Food Co-op / Sustainable Connections Farm Fund Served on the Farm Fund
advisory board throughout the development and implementation of Food to Bank On, a program that
supports fledging farmers and donates their produce to food banks. Initiated mentorship program pairing experienced farmers with new growers, and profiled participants for publicity materials. (20032005)
Minnesota Center For Book Arts, Minneapolis As youth and community programs associate, independently designed and instructed workshops in book arts for children and adults. Personal focus on curriculum development for Youth Farm and Market, a day camp for low-income inner-city youth. (20012002)
Coffee House Press, Minneapolis Performed editorial, publicity, and marketing tasks, including reading,
reviewing and replying to manuscript submissions. (2002)
EDUCATION AND AWARDS
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota Bachelor of Arts in Natural History, a self-designed major
exploring the creative communication of science. Combined coursework from Biology, English and
Environmental Studies. (2001)
Carleton Class of 1884 Short Story Prize (2001)
School for International Training, Comparative Ecology, Ecuador Spanish, natural and cultural history,
nature writing (2000)
Associated Colleges of the Midwest, North Woods Experience Field Station Independent study, writing
and illustration (2000)

Projects and collaborations

Facing Climate Change: Illustrating Global Change through Local People
Photographs by Benjamin Drummond, text by Sara Steele
See letter for detailed description. Excerpts from the Nordic countries exhibited at Benaroya
Hall for Elizabeth Kolberts Seattle Arts and Lectures appearance and Seattle REI for a panel
discussion on climate change in the northwest, December 2006. (2006ongoing)
Facing Climate Change

Benjamin Drummond
and Sara Joy Steele

facingclimatechange.org
206 599 9274
page 15 of 17

The Dippers Attitude: Conversations with Northwest Naturalists

Photographs by Benjamin Drummond, interviews edited by Sara Steele
Inspired by our time at North Cascades Institute, this ongoing collection explores who
northwest naturalists are, how they attend to the natural world and why that matters. Short
profiles in each naturalist's voice are paired with black and white portraits from the field, to
celebrate a rooted community of people who seek greater understanding of the place where
they live. Unpublished. Excerpts will be exhibited at North Cascades Environmental Learning
Center, summer 2007. More at www.bendrum.com. (2005ongoing)
North Cascades Environmental Learning Center installation
Development and coordination by Sara Steele, design and photos by Benjamin Drummond
We created five large-scale, permanent educational exhibits on this new 10 million dollar
campus. Highlights include: a 12 interactive magnetic wall map in the dining hall, used
to illustrate where our food comes from, a 17 exterior satellite projection of northwest
Washington State, interior backlit photographs, and a large banner celebrating the Institutes
20th birthday. (2006)
Bellingham Community Food Co-op / Sustainable Connections Farm Fund poster series
Text and coordination by Sara Steele, design and photography by Benjamin Drummond
Our work included the development of an identity and mark for the philanthropic Farm Fund
arm of the Co-op, and a series of pro-bono posters and materials that profile participating
farmers, and encourage donations to the project at checkout. (20032004)
Bone Wood Alpaca: People and Landscape in the High Peruvian Andes
Photographs by Benjamin Drummond, text by Sara Steele
Sponsored by a Larson International Fellowship from Carleton College, Bone Wood Alpaca
is an exploration of people and landscape between 9,000 and 19,000 feet in the Peruvian
Andes. Written vignettes are combined with images to form a journal that addresses
the complicated relationship between physical and cultural landscape. Presented as a
multimedia presentation, book and Web site, and featured in the Carleton Voice alumni
magazine. Complete project at www.bendrum.com. (2001)
Blue Ice: An Illustrated Guide to a Glacier
Photographs and text by Benjamin Drummond, edited by Sara Steele
Blue Ice presents the basic concepts of glaciology using the Blue Glacier of the Olympic
Mountains as a case study. The 70-page book was completed as part of a B.A. in Geology at
Carleton College. Photographs from this project have appeared in National Geographic and a
Scholastic childrens book. Complete project at www.bendrum.com. (2002)
Balanced Upon This Land
Text by Sara Steele, design by Benjamin Drummond
A collection of personal natural history essays, poetry, and short stories, completed as part
of a B.A. in Natural History at Carleton College. The piece is organized by region and based
on human relationship to landscape. Manuscript available by request. (2001)

Shooting From The Heart

105

Shooting From The Heart

106

By Lydia Lum
Copyright 2003
Welcome to fundraising!
I began fundraising in September 1999 to defray the costs of my Angel Island work while it was
under the auspices of a 501(c)(3) umbrella organization in Texas. Im a career journalist who has
primarily worked in daily newspaper staff jobs, covering a variety of local and national stories as well as
assignments from corporate or public relations work.
Before 1999, when Id done personal projects, Id simply use part of my savings, then sold stories to
make back my investment. Or, Id pick up extra, unrelated assignments or work overtime. And, I admit
Im a lifelong coupon clipper of the Sunday newspaper circular!!
But, I couldnt afford the Angle Island project on savings alone. What to do?
I got advice and help from many peoplein and out of journalism. I learned to use the words support,
consider, and defray quite often, and have done the same in this write-up. My goals became, and
remain, to tell the Angel Island story to the widest audience possible, and to raise a reasonable amount of
funds to defray my costs. (Angel Island is the Ellis Island of the West, with a long, hurtful history among
Chinese immigrant before Worl War II. See www.angel-island.com).
What follows is a recounting of fundraisers that resulted in more than $50,000 since 1999. More than
80 percent of the $50,000+ has come from individual donors and a few corporate matches. The most
common tax-deductible donation was $100. But donations ranged from $20 to a foundation match of
$15,000. They comprise more than 150 donors. Many are Chinese, but 1/3 to 1/2 are not Asian. Some
items in this write-up can be done without an umbrella, though gifts may be larger if they are taxdeductible for the donor.
I think its a similar concept as shooting images: Depending on the shoot, planning an legwork are
usually necessary before you make the image. And, circumstances such as natural lightor lack of
itcan result in your deciding when and where to shoot. Sometimes you take these skills for granted,
because youve done them so many times. The same concepts are used in fundraising. If you havent
done much fundraising before, just think of it as a learning curve like the first portrait you photographed.
Or your first photo essay. Or your first corporate report.
In this write-up, Ill use the word umbrella often. It was not Blue Earth at the time, but the group
was like BEAan established, non-profit arts organization that sponsored and exhibited my work, and
let me raise tax-deductible donations. Ill also mention Clint, who was the executive director or that
umbrella.

Slideshow fundraiser
In October 1999, I held my first fundraiser. It was a dinner buffet with a narrated slideshow of images
from the Angel Island work-in-progress.
I recruited two friends who were radio broadcasters to help prepare the show. These two were so tickled,
in fact, they wrote the script themselves. I was glad for their input since Im so close to the topic. This
also freed my time to handle other details.
I rented a portable sound system at rock-bottom price, with permission from the umbrella to use their
name since non-profits got a cheaper rate. A university loaned the slide projector. I cut a deal with an
Indian restaurant (correct!) that had held similar events. They would cordon off half the restaurant and
serve a buffet with soft drinks. Throw in gratuity and wed pay $12 per person.
I bought some economical linen-look paper and envelopes from a paper supply store. I drafted a onepage invitation with the basic info of time, date, and place. I included just a couple short paragraphs
about Angel Island, my experience as a journalist, and winning a $2,500 individual art grant earlier that
year to support my project.
The invitation listed a requested donation of $40 for those attending the event, to help support
the work. That would more than cover the $12 meal. After a 10 percent cut to the umbrella per the
arrangement, that left $25.20 that wouldafter paying the equipment rental costs, stationary, and Xerox
costsgo directly to defray project costs.
A word about the requested donation. Its hard for me to suggest donation amounts. I dont know why,
maybe its because its my work and I got into it by choice. But by specifying a dollar figure, it gave
people an idea of my needs in a professional way. I did not offer discounts. After all, where to draw the
line? Couples? Whats a couple? Married? On their first date? Angel Island survivors? Their family?
Should it be immediate family?
I had Kinkos Xerox the invitation onto the stationary. I posted the invitation on bulletin boards at a
few camera stores, my workplace, and a few client offices. I mailed more than 300 invitations to people
in and out of Houston -- my umbrella let me use their bulk-mail rate, which reduced my postage -- to
friends, family, colleagues, the Angel Island survivors, their families. I also got several mailing lists
of Chinese community groups in Houston. Even though non-Houstonians wouldnt attend, I figured
some out-of-town donations might come in anyway. And they did! One was for $1,000. There were also
several in the $20-250 range.
If someone had shown up for dinner with only $20, I wouldve let him in. A gift is a gift. But no one
gave less than $40 at the event. In fact, many gave $50. A few brought checks of $200 and higher. All
donations were tax-deductible, minus meal costs.
Showtime! Everything went smoothly. Head count at the event was over 50. Clint, of the umbrella, made
a few short announcements. He also recognized and named the donors whod given $250 and above.

Thats how I learned that public recognition is a nice, easy thank-you to donors. Dinner was tasty, and
our little 20-minute show went well. I did a short Q&A afterwards. Some people wrote additional checks
after viewing the Angel Island content and images of the survivors. Net incomeafter expenseswas
more than $6,400. This included the donation from out-of-town.
But the buck didnt stop there. Direct mail, phone calls, personal visits! Network! Network! Network!
With $6,400+ in the coffers, I gave as much time and effort to my project as possible, while juggling a
full-time staff job and a couple freelance clients. I continued fundraising, building on the momentum
from the slide show dinner.
I met with a few people who gave me hit lists of several dozen potential donors and contact info. These
people were the usual suspects who bought tables at Chinese-themed community events. Some were
Chinese, others not Asian. Hardly any of them had attended the slide show dinner fundraiser.
I also drafted a list of Houstonians who Id met on assignment. They often appeared in newspaper
society pages and in stories about high-profile campaigns like United Way, university drives, etc.
Most of this list was non-Asian, but I figured if these people were accustomed to regularly making
contributions of $500 and $1,000 or more, then they were probably accustomed to being solicited. They
were business executives, investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, and entrepreneurs.
My thinking was, since my work appeared daily in the Houston Chronicle, they might be familiar with
my work as a journalist, which would build my credibility. From October 1999 through February 2000,
I raised another $18,000 from contacting people on these lists. I spent about 2-3 hours weekly. Most of
that time was spent prepping little packages of press clippings and info about past exhibitions.
I used a combination of short, one-page letters that I direct-mailed, and then either made a follow-up
phone call or scheduled a short visit (20 minutes or so) to an office. I limited my office appointments
to people Id already had dealings with in person, unless he or she asked to meet me. The one-page
letter stated my (2) original goalsa traveling photo exhibition, and a book based on the Angel Island
survivor memoirsand a little bit about who I was. Most donations were $250 and $500. Some were
$100 and several were $1,000. Some donors included forms from their companies so I could easily
secure corporate matches, doubling that contribution. As I secured donations, Id add peoples names
to the next round of letters and thered be a sentence like, Donors to this work include John Doe, Sally
Can, Jeff Roe, Mary Eng, whoever. That way, potential donors would recognize names of people who
theyd expectand not expectto see supporting such work.
This effort was very cost efficient -- just some postage, Xeroxing, and sometime garage parking. In some
cases, Id ask donors for referrals for more potential donors. John, Mary, who else do you think would
be interested in supporting this work? Then, Id call that person and tell them I was a referral and why.
Each time, I specified a donation for that person to consider. My standard pitch line, in writing or in
conversation, became Would you consider a tax-deductible donation of (dollar amount)? Id been
advised that if I simply left the solicitation open-ended, then donors who mightve given $500 or $1,000
would simply give $50 or $100 and save their contribution dollars for another cause. During these

months, about half the individuals I approached declined to give. Among those that did donate, about
half gave the requested amount. The other still gave $100 or more. Regardless of outcome, I got my
answers quickly, and there were certainly no hard feelings. After all, I was asking for gifts. Efficiency
was important because I was still working full-time and doing Angel Island project work and fundraising
on the side.
In November 1999, the umbrella group exhibited some of my images at their public arts space, so it
was great to tie fundraising to an event where donors and potential donors could view the work. In
my packages of press clippings, I made sure to include invitations to the shows opening reception. At
the exhibition, Clint of the umbrella group put some of the pre-printed envelopes (left-over from the
slideshow dinner a couple months earlier) next to the guestbook and some promotional materials. That
was savvy of Clint because some patrons, including working photographers, generously dropped a few
$20 and $50 checks into the coffers.
Clint helped stretch the dollars in different ways. When 40 images had been matted and framed
for exhibition, Clint wrote a check directly from the project account that housed all the monies Id
raised. By doing that, I didnt have to shell out the $2,400 myself, then wait for reimbursement after
submitting receipts. (That was actually the way we handled much of the arrangement, based on my
logging expenses for film, travel, long-distance and postage.) Even better, because the umbrella group
was a 501(c)(3), no sales tax was owed to the frame shop. If Id written the check though, then gotten
reimbursed, I would have paid sales tax.
In the fall of 1999, I applied for an individual fellowship that wouldve supported the Angel Island
work with a grant of more than $20,000. I lost and unfortunately, have lost every year since, in that
annual competition. Its disappointed because there are fewer Angel Island survivors than World War II
veterans, and they can only be found through word-of-mouth. There is no central listing. Pursuing these
first-person histories will be impossible very soon.

For me, that made fundraising even more important. Fortunately, the funds kept trickling in. But so did
in-kind help. Several people donated frequent flier miles. Others gave me a few pre-paid phone cards.
Lawyer Harry offered use of his office because they were receiving free long-distance for a period of
time. I gratefully accepted these gifts because they made the fundraised dollars stretch further.
I decided to take a leave of absence from the newspaper. The demands of a full-time job, the momentum
of the Angel Island project and fundraising, and my freelance business were pushing me too hard. I
thought that continuing the project and fundraising, along with freelancing, would be the best move. My
leave of absence began in January 2000.
I kept my eye out for a foundation grant that might add dollars to my project fund quickly. In late 1999,
I applied for a grant from Houston Endowment foundation, which primarily funded 501(c)(3) programs
in the greater Houston area. Because I had an umbrella arrangement with an existing 501(c)(3), I could
apply.

I recycled much of my application and essays from the failed $20,000 fellowship effort. Houston
Endowment asked for a list of names of the Angel Island projects major donors. I had already
established those levels at $200, $500, and $1,000. I also gave the foundation a budget and total number
of dollars I had raised so far. In early 2000, Houston Endowment awarded a $15,000 grant supporting
Angel Island work.
I tried to increase my success rate with individual solicitations of $500 and $1,000, etc. After a few
potential donors put me off, told me to call back, put me off again, and kept going in circles, I stepped
back and sought more advice. This time, I went to political consultant Nancy, because she knew my
work at the newspaper, and she worked with several of these potential donors. I was wondering if I
should continue pursuing these particular people. Should I persist, or was I banging my head against the
wall?
I introduced the Angel Island project to Nancy, and detailed my fundraising. Then I learned that Nancy
had completed some post-graduated work with Asian-American studies. She had been disappointed to
see the lack of literature. Lydia, do you realize how important your work is? We really need the Angel
Island story told to a mass audience.
Then she gently scolded me for spending some much time raising funds. (Nancy was accustomed to
raising thousands of dollars over the course of a meal.) While I appreciated her emphasis on efficiency,
I reminded her that options were few. I had lost of the competition for the $20,000 individual fellowship
and needed to keep fundraising part-time while the umbrella arrangement was still available.
By the end of the conversation, wed cut a deal: With the permission of a city official whose father I had
interviewed for my Angel Island work, wed do a direct-mail solicitation of the city officials political
donors. The one-page letter, singed by the city official, would ask donors to consider making a $100 taxdeductible contribution to the Angel Island project fund to support my ongoing work and original goals.
The letter also publicized an exhibition of my work at Rice University. The requested donation was
for $100 because the average campaign donation had been $100. Nancy, a seasoned political veteran,
was unsure how donors would respond. Usually, donor lists were tapped for political causes, and kept
confidential. I drafted the letter, and Nancy and the city official proofread and approved it.
But, the cost to send this letter was $3,000, including postage and the database service. Under the
arrangement, I could not directly access the donor list of get their names. So, others who normally sent
political solicitations on behalf of the city official would do this. I knew this was a big investment of
project fund dollars, but I figured we needed only 30 donors giving $100 each to break even. It was
worth a try. I knew Id brought in a number of $1,000 donations on my own, leveraging my reputation at
the newspaper, so perhaps some of the same marketing could work.
At this same time, some people were contacting me about my plans once my leave of absence began.
One of them was a senator whod made a $250 donation several months earlier. Over the course of
a couple of conversations, I accepted the following offer: The senator and his wife would host and
underwrite a catered reception at their home in Houston. They did a lot of entertaining, of course,
fundraising not only for political causes, but also educational and not-for-profit. (They were not Asian,

by the way.) This receptions would precede the opening reception of the Rice University show, which
was about a mile from where the senator lived.
Even better, we publicized the senators reception in this direct-mail solicitation signed by the city
official. So not only was he asking recipients to consider making a $100 tax-deductible donation to
support my work, but we added a line saying that donors of $200 and higher would be invited to the
senators reception.
The letters were mailed late February 2000. Response was immediate and very good. Many gave the
requested $100, but more than 1/4 gave $200 to secure the invitation to the senators reception. A few
checks were for $500 and $1,000. These donors either had good dealing with me through my staff job,
or a freelance story, or somehow they connected with the Angel Island wtory. There also were checks
carrying from $20 to $75, which added up quickly.
Among the response to this letter was an offer of a challenge grant, which I was unfamiliar with but
quickly learned. In other words, the donor was challenging others to make contributions. This donor
would match contributions, dollar for dollar, until a certain amount was reached. It was like doubling the
monies raised, for the same amount of effort.
I also invited several potential donors to the senators reception. There, much time was spent
schmoozing and, of course, meeting many of the people whod made the $200 donations and higher
under the city officials solicitation. Wed also set up an area at the senators home where I displayed a
few of my images separate from the Rice University show.
We had a short program at the senators house, then went over to Rice, where we officially opened the
month-long show and had another reception and short program.
After it was all over, I telephoned a few whod attended the senators reception, but werent donors.
I also contacted several whod been invited but didnt show up, but again, were accustomed to being
solicited. I advertised the challenge grant offer, and asked them to consider a $500 tax-deductible
donation. I quickly secured several more contributions in the $250 and $500 range, and again, thanked
them for the gifts.
From the time the city officials letter was sent until early April 2000, an additional $14,000 was raised.
Most of that came from the combination of that letter plus: the senators reception, the public exhibition
at Rice, my follow-up phone calls, and the challenge grant.
With all of that in the coffers, I stepped back from aggressive fundraising to focus as much time as
possible on project work and freelance assignments. During the 12 months of this umbrella arrangement,
about $28,000 was used to defray my costs of project work, based on itemized receipts. That included
checks Clint wrote directly from the project fund, including paying for the $3,000 distribution of the city
official letter.

There have been other ways Ive financed the Angel Island work. Ive sold images for one-time use to
several publications. But I also learned of a way to earn occasional, quick income: the lecture circuit. In
June 200, I was the invited speaker for employees at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in
northern California. For an hour-long presentation about the Chinese immigration experience at Angel
Island, including Q&A, I was paid an honorarium because I was a hired contractor for this purpose. This
was freelance income, but also a different, and enjoyable way to support my project. Plus, some travel
opportunity. For the Livermore presentation, I recycled material from the slide show dinner fundraiser,
as well as material from the failed grant application for $20,000. I showed slides that were images from
my work-in-progress.
I began marketing my availability to do such lectures and now do a few each year. The audiences vary
from corporate to community, elementary school to university. In 2001, the U.S. Army sponsored a
weeklong tour for me to speak to troops in Germany. Some of these lectures I do pro bono. Others I do
from honoraria ranging from $250 to $1,000 or more, plus travel expense. The slideshow presentations
vary from 20 minutes to 2 hours. Afterward, I always secure a letter of recommendation from the client
to keep on file, and these are used to secure the next engagement.

As we neared the end of the umbrella arrangement in 2000, my work-in-progress exhibited at a Southern
California gallery. Again, we put out the pre-printed envelopes left over from many months ago,
alongside the guestbook and press clippings. A few more of those ever-important $20 and $50 donations
came in.
In August 2000, I formed my own 501(c)(3) called Angel Island Project and the monies leftover from
the umbrella arrangement formed the new treasury. I formed a small board of directors and officers. In
2002, the Angel Island work-in-progress was accepted by Blue Earth Alliance for umbrella sponsorship,
so the AIP board agreed to dissolve. Most of those treasury monies went to Blue Earth to continue
defraying the costs of my completing the original works.
In 2003, I began the final leg of fundraising, with a much smaller goal this time$10,000. The first
$1,200 was secured very efficiently through internet solicitations, and more may be on the way.
Individuals email me periodically when they find my Angel Island website. They have shared snippets
about a relative immigrating through there, or some interest in genealogy, etc. In many cases, I
emailed a quick note thanking them, and getting their contact info so that I can send an invitation if an
exhibition is held in their area, or a fundraising is held to support my work. So far, I have emailed 10
of those peopleagain, Asian and non-Asianand 5 have made donations. One was $500. There was
also a company match of another persons donations. In another case, a community group matched an
individuals donation.
I include the URL for Blue Earth and the projects link, where they can view some of my work and
confirm the umbrella relationship. I also include a little bit about why this person contacted me in the
first place, and so far, theyve always remembered initiating with me. Whats been nice is that even

though Ive offered to answer questions by phone or snail-mail them more information, the donors have
quickly confirmed and pledged by email, so Ive done these solicitations late at night and at no cost.
These email solicitations are different from other Ive done. I dont request a specific amount. Why? I
know little about these potential donors, and have never met them. Are they working? Retired? Single?
Married with 10 children and three elderly relatives under one roof? In one instance, I got a very polite
email reply raying she was retired and on fixed income. I wrote back thanks for your consideration and
taking the time to write. No harm done. I do remind the donors to include company match forms with
their check so that we can fill them out.
Ill do a few more of these emailed solicitations, but also a final round of direct-mail solicitations to
some individuals in Houston who are accustomed to being solicited, whom I havent approached in the
earlier efforts.
A few words about what fundraising can mean, aside from much-needed dollars, of course.
Among journalists, fundraising is largely taboo because it can create conflicts of interest. I knew that
going in, and accepted it as a potential occupational hazard. Most of my career work has been editorial.
I have never accepted an editorial assignment covering a relative, friend, or a client who was contacting
me for a freelance job.
Since beginning the fundraising in 1999, I have only had to turn away one editorial assignment because
of a conflict of interest. The assignment involved legislation sponsored by the same senator who had
hosted the reception at his home in 200 on behalf of my Angle Island work. There was no way I could
cover that story without bias. I told my editor, and an assignment worth about $1,500 was tabled.
This was only one person, though, out of more than 150 donors in more than three years. Odds are very
low that this kind of situation will come up often as my career in journalism continues. Its a big world.
There are plenty of stories and people to cover editorially. Even though I walked away from a $1,500
assignment, the connections I have made through fundraising have led to my being hired for several
small editing and public relations assignments that have probably netted more than $1,000 anyway. I
think my risk of hurting my overall career would be much higher if I were still in my 20s and not as
established.

Jon Lowenstein
Alicia Patterson Grant Application
The United States is at a watershed moment.

Our nations businesses have a seemingly endless need for immigrant labor,
contributing mightily to the largest trans-national migration in world history that
shows no sign of abating. During the past decade, millions of Latin American
migrants have risked their lives to journey to the United States in search of the
Sueno Americano, or American Dream.
The reality they encounter is jarringly different from their lofty hopes.
Far from returning home with the riches they imagine earning, many migrants end up living permanently
in the United States, enduring economic exploitation and the specter of deportation in a nation that seeks
their labor but defines them as criminals. The recent failure by the U.S. Senate to pass comprehensive
immigration reform ensures that millions of these immigrants will continue to hide in the shadows of
American society, prone to abuse and oppression. Already strong across the country before the failure of
the Kennedy-McCain proposal, anti-immigrant sentiment has only gained strength since the bills defeat.
In this polarized environment, individual migrants stories are a rare but critical element to the formation
of a humane national immigration policy. Since 2000, I have traveled throughout the United States and
Latin America in an effort to photograph the collective experience of this historic story and to bear witness
to a group of people who too often are silenced and ignored by their adopted society. During this time I
have witnessed a disturbing xenophobic shift throughout the United States. Right now its more important
than ever to continue to humanize this complex issue.

The Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship would afford me the time to travel
further inside this intimate and vital issue. Time is essential to this important
story because gaining the trust of people reside in Americas shadows requires
dedication, persistence and patience. Shadow Lives USA is comprised of an
ambitious, but achievable timetable with four individual photo stories to be
completed by February 2009.
1. Militarized Border documents life on each side of the U.S./Mexico border to illustrate the increasing
physical and psychological separation that has accompanied the unprecedented militaristic build-up during
the past decade. A quasi-military zone - complete with thousands of border patrol agents, electronic
motion sensors, detention centers and hundreds of miles of fences-has emerged. Due in large part to this
build-up, more than 4,000 migrants have perished attempting to cross the US/Mexico border since the mid
90s. Ironically, the build-up has broken the traditional circularity of Mexican immigration forcing many
migrants to send for family members and create permanent roots in the United States.

Jon Lowenstein - Alicia Patterson Grant Application

During the past three years I have photographed check points, official border crossings, Border Patrol
agents at work and life along both sides of the border. In February, I photographed the Border Patrol
Special Response Team (SRT) school and was privy to the intense military-style training used to
increase border security.

This story will examine how this increasing militarization affects the psychological and physical life of
residents on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. As the build up increases and extends into the interior
I will also document how this anti-immigrant security policy affects Latino communities within the
United States.
2. Coyotes - Since the border build-up, many coyotes, or human smugglers, have become part of highly
organized and powerful crime syndicates. This essay will examine how coyotes are small, but integral
cogs in the burgeoning illegal immigration system, that will continue to grow in the absence of a
coherent national immigration policy.
This story will focus on the smugglers live fast/die young ethos and examine the contradictory
attitudes many migrants hold toward the smugglers. Coyotes are simultaneously hated, feared, admired
and desperately needed by Mexicans and Central Americans who desire entry to the United States.
In 2003 I developed close relationships with coyotes who helped me to gain access to photographing
migrants crossing from Reynosa, Mexico into McAllen, Texas. Last summer I met more coyotes in the
border town of Nogales, Mexico. I plan to return to these places to further document the role of coyotes
in this risky process.
3. Hidden Domestics explores the lives of female domestic workers in the nations two largest citiesLos Angeles and New York. These women often become victims of unscrupulous employers all too
willing to exploit their undocumented status. Juana Nicolas, an undocumented immigrant and former
domestic turned advocate, will help me connect with these women.

I will follow women domestics both on the job and when they return home to their own families
to document the oppression they experience, hidden from the public and with no meaningful legal
recourse. This part of the project will uncover a hidden story and dramatically illustrate the blatant
contradiction between the market for immigrant labor and the migrants illegal status.
4. Latinos Remake Rural America
Latinos Remake Rural America illustrates the potential, pitfalls and cultural clashes that accompany
the reshaping of some of the nations most remote areas.Traditionally, Latino migrants have moved
to urban centers; Los Angeles and Chicago are home to the nations two largest Mexican populations.
More recently, though, migrants have chosen to live in rural towns to find work, avoid urban ills and
reside in areas that more closely resemble their home communities in Mexico. The infusion of this
new population has given new life to many of these moribund areas.But many migrants also confront
government raids and native residents racism and consistent hostility.

Jon Lowenstein - Alicia Patterson Grant Application

I will focus on Beardstown, Illinois, a town of 5,000 people in Central Illinois whose exploding
Latino community has grown from almost nothing ten years ago to close to half the local population
today. The majority of the migrants come to work in the Cargill Meat Solutions plant, but recently
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raided the Beardstown plant. Many families were separated
as parents and children were deported and some of the men and women arrested still languish in
prison.
I arrived in Beardstown the first evening after the raid and spent three weeks interviewing and
photographing people in the town. For weeks after the raid a tense pall fell over the small town.
Many of the Latino migrants stayed in their homes and some even left town for fear of further
persecution.
This story will examine the growing cultural clash occurring in small towns throughout the
United States as these traditionally white communities deal with the massive influx of foreignborn newcomers. It will also highlight the immigration systems failings and demonstrate how
undocumented migrants labor is desired, but their personal lives are considered irrelevant.

Jon Lowenstein - Alicia Patterson Grant Application

Autobiography prog 9-07.doc
W8BNMSWD
Autobi
Professional Autobiography
Jon Lowenstein

As I walked down the dirt path towards the cattle pond it hit me. It was entirely new,
acrid, sweet, almost rusty wet. It penetrated my nostrils and lodged in my memory. After that
it went nowhere, but hung in the humid desert evening like descending fog. I looked down
surprised to see the body covered with a clean white bag and I tried to breathe through my
mouth. To the left of the body was an outline in the earth where the body had been. I raised the
camera and pressed the shutter, once, twice, three times and waited. I took 8 pictures. It was
quiet except for the morbid joking of the Border Patrol agents behind the fence. We walked
back to the trucks and left. The local police would move the body. As we drove away to look
for another body I hoped we wouldnt find it.

Since that August evening Ive thought a lot about that man and the many others like
him who have died on the journey north. Who was he? What was his family like? What did he
dream? Did he have kids? Was he good at soccer? Did he think he could die on the trip? And
most of all, which is the question I still cant fathom: What is it like to die alone in the desert?
Photojournalism is a way simultaneously to enter my own and other peoples lives.
Photography forces me to watch, listen, wait, and observe. Most importantly, it challenges me
to understand the people I photograph. To make meaningful pictures I must always be in the
moment. As soon as I step outside the moment to reflect, I miss the picture. Therefore, I strive
to immerse myself, physically, mentally and emotionally in other peoples space.
Ive been photographing Latin American immigrants for seven years and have become
increasingly committed to advocating for their rights through my work. Its been a personal
journey in which Ive had to learn another culture, a different language and most of all what I
stand for as a man. That day in the desert solidified my resolve to continue telling immigrant
stories. At times, I want to shirk this responsibility, to back away from the rawness, the truth.
But I must face it because I am a witness. Photography, alone, will not change our world. But
it can make people examine their own public and personal spaces more closely, and take action
based on their reflections.
In response to this important issue I have been awarded various honors of recognition
including being recently awarded a 2007 Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography and
being named a finalist for the 2006 W. Eugene Smith Memorial fund, the 2004 Alicia Patterson
Foundation Fellowship and the 2005 Alexia Foundation Professional Grant. I also won the
2005 Cliff Edoms New America Award the 2003 NPPA/Nikon Sabbatical Grant, the Fuji
Community Awareness Award and the University of Missouris 58th Annual Pictures of the
Year Competition Magazine Photographer of the Year. Currently, the work is part of the Moving
Walls exhibit at Columbia Universitys School of Social Work. Prior to joining City 2000, I was
a staff photographer for Sun Publications, a suburban newspaper chain in the Chicago suburbs.

Jon Lowenstein - Alicia Patterson Grant Application

In the coming years, I will fight for social justice through continuing in-depth
journalistic projects. The Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship will offer me the freedom
and time necessary to complete this important body of work. Witnessing the daily reality
of life for immigrants living in the U.S. has emboldened my resolve to continue this
project and shed light on this sector of society. Photography can help. I hope that his work
adds to a national dialogue that will change this countrys policy towards Latin American
immigration.

Budget for APF 2007.doc

W8BNMSWD
Budget
Jon Lowenstein Photography
7321 S. Shore Dr. 11D
Chicago, IL 60649
(773) 220-0275
Budget:
Projected Fellowship Costs:
Film: 800 rolls @ $6
Processing-800 rolls @ 10
Proof Sheets-800 @ $8
Work Prints 500 @ 5
Travel (5 trips @ 500
Hotels/Housing (100 nights @ 75)
Gas/Mileage (3,000 @.50)
Books/Research/Misc. Equip
Audio Recorder

Personal Maintenance:
Housing @ 1500/mo.
Utilities @ 150/mo.
Phone (home/cell)
Car insurance @ 100/mo.
Health Insurance @ 250/mo
Food @ 200/mo.
Entertainment 250/mo.

4800
8000
6400
2500
2500
7500
1500
1000
800
$35,000
18000
1800
2400
1200
3000
2400
3000

$31,800

Total for entire year budget

Getty Grant for Editorial Photo

66,800
20,000

Final Net Budget

Normal

$46,800

APPENDICES

EVALUATING, REPORTING, AND FOLLOWING UP

fter you have received funding, you may be required

to write a quarterly or final report. Reporting and evaluating

your project are good ways to keep in touch with the funder and
further develop the relationship.
Most funders want to be part of the team and want to help you
complete your project. Keep them informed of what you are
doing. Send them photographs or invite them to exhibits. Send
postcards from trips.
Funders know that projects dont always unfold the way they
were projected. They have worked with lots of projects. If things
change or you hit problems, dont worry, but do let the funder
know. Sometimes telling a funder of a problem will gain you
additional support.
The sample report form can be used for a quarterly or final
report. In your final report you should include anything that
documents completion of your project, such as prints, slides, or
announcements of exhibits.
It is also good to include a personal thank-you note. Even if the
funder doesnt require a report, it is a good thing to let them
know you have finished the project, thank them, and let them see
something about it. Remember, you may want to go back to them
for future funding. Grant writing is all about relationships.

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130

APPENDICES

Example: Quarterly or Final Report Form

Project title:

Organization:

Photographer:

Reporting period:

Project goal:

Project objectives:

Progress made toward objectives:

Significant successes and accomplishments:

Lessons learned:

Suggestions for changes:

Anecdotes, pictures, quotes, or anything else to add:

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131