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Photography
Give your charity partner a photoshoot: the CSR gift that keeps working
A cheque helps for a year. Pictures a charity owns the right to use help for years. How CSR teams can gift a photoshoot to a charity partner, done properly.
A cheque matters. It pays for staff, rent and the work itself. But most charity partners need something else just as badly, and almost no company thinks to give it: pictures of their own work that they're free to use.
This post is for CSR, community investment and social impact teams. It explains why a donated photoshoot is one of the most useful things you can give a charity partner, and how to do it so it helps them rather than you.
Why good charities stay invisible
I've led a charity, the Naz and Matt Foundation, for more than 12 years. I know what it's like to have good work and nothing to show for it.
Small charities rarely have a comms team, let alone a photography budget. So they go into funding bids, partner meetings and annual reports with phone snaps, stock images, or nothing at all. The work is real. The evidence is thin. Funders and supporters can only back what they can see.
It isn't only charities. An organisation I spoke to this year described the pro bono work at the heart of their CSR, then said: "we just don't tell people about it."
The mistake most partnerships make
Most corporate partnerships produce one kind of picture: the company's.
The giant cheque. The volunteers in matching T-shirts. The logo on the banner. These pictures tell your CSR story. They do very little for the charity, and they rarely show the work the charity does when you're not there.
There's a quieter problem too. When a company pays for photographs, the company usually ends up holding the licence. The charity partner, the people in the pictures and the work being shown can end up with no right to use them at all.
The better gift
Fund a proper documentary shoot of your charity partner's work, and make sure the charity can use every picture.
That means:
Their work, not your visit. The shoot is about what the charity does on an ordinary day.
Their people leading. Staff, volunteers and, where it's safe and agreed, the people they support.
Their right to use it. The licence covers the charity as well as your company, agreed in writing before the shoot.
Their sign-off. The charity decides what goes out, especially where people are vulnerable.
Ask for: a licence that names the charity partner as well as your company, for all their own uses, with no time limit.
What I've seen it do
I photographed the volunteers of NishkamSWAT and their community ambulance, which brings free medical and dental care to homeless people in London. It was a pro bono project, done to help them become more visible.
What they got was a set of pictures of their own volunteers doing their own work, made with the people in them, that they can use in bids, on their website and with partners for as long as they like.
That's the point of the gift. A cheque helps for a year. Pictures they can use keep working long after the partnership ends.
What your company gets back
You might expect this to cost you visibility. It usually does the opposite.
Better pictures for your own reporting. Images of real work, agreed with the partner, are far stronger in an impact report, ESG report or board update than a cheque handover.
A partner who trusts you. Charities notice which partners take the story from them and which ones give it back.
Something honest to say. "We funded our partner to show their own work" is a better story than "we visited".
Ask for: a short list of the pictures your company would like to use too, agreed with the charity, so both sides know which images are shared.
How to do it properly
Ask the charity what they need. A funding bid next spring? A new website? Pictures of a service they've never been able to show? Brief the shoot around their need, not your calendar.
Plan consent with them. The charity knows who can be photographed, who can't, and who needs extra care. Agree it before the day.
Plan for people who can't be identified. Hands, spaces, objects and silhouettes can tell a story with dignity.
Agree the licence in writing. Name the charity, your company, the uses and the credit.
Let the charity sign off. Nothing goes out without their agreement.
Hand everything over. Edited, captioned and organised so they can find the right picture quickly.
Six questions to ask before you book a photographer for this
Have you photographed charity work before, and can we see it?
How do you handle consent with vulnerable people?
How will you photograph people who can't be identified?
Can the licence cover our charity partner as well as us?
Who signs off the pictures before they're used?
How quickly will the charity get the images, and in what form?
Where to start this week
Ask your main charity partner one question: "If you had a set of good photographs of your work, what would you use them for first?" Their answer is your brief.
I photograph community programmes and charity partnerships for CSR teams, with the charity's use agreed from the start. If you'd like to give your partner a shoot, start a project.
Questions people ask
Can our company use the photographs as well?
Yes, if it's agreed in the licence. Most partners are happy to share, as long as they know which images you'll use and where.
What if the people the charity supports can't be shown?
Then the shoot is planned around that. Hands, spaces, objects and silhouettes can show the work without identifying anyone.
Does this replace a financial donation?
No. It works best alongside one. The money pays for the work. The pictures help the charity raise the next round.
Matt Mahmood-Ogston is a London-based social impact storyteller and documentary photographer. He founded the Naz and Matt Foundation in 2014 and has led it for more than 12 years.
