Since about mid-September, I have been working to organize a local Help-Portrait event for Winston-Salem this year. Help-Portrait was launched in 2009 by celebrity photographer and humanitarian Jeremy Cowart. The idea behind it was simple: Find people in need, take their picture and print it off for them on site. It doesn’t sound like much, but as I’ve watched and learned over the years, a picture is an incredible thing to give someone. If you want to read more of why I wanted to put on this event, check out my blog, “Why Help-Portrait” on our youth site.
What I’d like to share today is what I learned as a first-time organizer. Organizing this event was very much a crash course for me. Even though there are several helpful tips on the Help-Portrait website, there are still a million things in between that they can’t account for and you can’t learn until you do it yourself. I’m sharing in the hopes of helping other first time organizers have a successful event. So here are my top lessons from being a first time organizer:
1. Planning is a game of ‘hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.’ Start early so you have plenty of time for that.
I started planning and talking with people in September, about 4 months before our event. I’d recommend getting started at least 6 months in advance to put on an event like we did. It’s not impossible to do an event in shorter time, especially if you have your own photo equipment and printing. But if you are like me, a hobby photographer, you’ll need to reach out to others, which can take time.
And it is “hurry up and wait.” I didn’t want to find a venue without first finding photographers. I didn’t want to promote it until we had the venue locked down. And I didn’t want to seek out donations or let media outlets know until we had promoted it to enough people. And in order to accomplish all that, it took a lot of talking and sharing and then waiting, as patiently as I could, for things to come together.
It took me about 2 months to get connected to enough photographers. It took another 3-4 weeks to set up a venue. Then I spent the last two weeks seeking promoting, seeking donations and trying to share with the media.
I would recommend giving each of those steps more time than I was able to give. If you ask around for venues earlier, say at least 3 months in advance, you will have a lot better luck pinning down the best one. If you give a month’s notice for media, donations and promotion, you will have a lot more success as well.
2. Help will turn up in the most surprising ways so share with as many people in as many circles as you can.
I look back on the ways I sought out volunteers and the ways in which volunteers actually ended up getting connected and there’s really no other way of describing it other than chance.
I tried initially talking to friends whom I thought might be up for it. Not much luck. I tried a couple photographer friends. Not much luck.
So how did I find volunteers? I just happened to show a Help-Portrait video to one of my youth. Turns out, her mother directs a photography school downtown with loads of connections. She also happened to have a photo club at school that was interested in helping out.
I just happened to share the idea with our church session, one of the leadership groups of our church. Turns out, one of our members runs a church directory business. He is literally in the business of taking pictures of large masses of people, just the right job description for our event.
How did I find our venue? Finding a place that has a large amount of open space, a reception area where we can serve food and availability in early December is a very tall order. I was on my last desperate attempts to get us a place. So I emailed a bunch of professors who are involved in churches as well, sharing the idea and asking for leads.
Turns out one of my professor goes to church with one of the staff members of a local social ministry. She offered me their entire space and were willing to promote it to all their clients. BUT, in the meeting she offered a connection to a church right down the street, with an even more fitting space – a wide-open room, connections to the community, and a willingness to help out. It was a God-send and exactly what we needed.
I can think of no other way to plan for such chance connections, other than to share with lots of people and in lots of different circles. Never write off any connection or offer of help. Pursue them and see where they lead.
3. The best way to find photographers is to look for schools and clubs.
If you’re like me and don’t have equipment or expertise, do a Google search for photo groups in your town. It’s like there’s some places like Sawtooth School of the Arts in your town, which offer classes and groups for photogs, or a photo club or something in town. This will give you a great pool of people who will be able to bring their expertise and their equipment and will be a great boost to helping your event. It is a lot easier than trying to track down individual photographers.
4. Need donations? Go local.
First of all, it’s a great way to show that this is an event for the community from the community. I love supporting and promoting local businesses because it’s just all around better!
More than that though, they are easier to work with and a lot more willing to help out. I thought corporate was the way to go, because many corporations now have community service requirements for each of their branches. But this turned out to be the most difficult route actually.
Many of them no longer deal directly with donations at their local store. Instead they hand you over to a 1-800 number, which you’ll be on hold for hours only then to be asked lots of questions and told it will take some time without any real promise of receiving their help.
So I turned to local business and was surprised and thrilled by their response. With less than a week to go, I knew I was pushing my luck. But luckily, all I had to do was speak to a manager, tell them about the tax-deduction and make arrangements for pick up. They all were back in touch with me in just a few days and were all willing to help out.
The only catch is these were all food donations. There’s no local store that I could ask for ink or paper donations and so corporate was the only option (no luck there, again). If you do need to get corporate donations, you’ll need at least a month’s notice to have any success.
5. Planning meetings are good. So is delegation.
If I were to do this over again, I would work harder at that. The best planning and idea sharing I did were in person. I wish we had met together more, all together in one room, so that we could brainstorm together and work through details.
Also, you CANNOT do this all on your own. Divide things up into areas, find some people to take the lead on them and let them work. I had a couple people connected to the photographers, coordinating printing and equipment. I had two people searching for hair and make-up help, working on hospitality, and doing some volunteer coordination. And then there was me, doing all the rest.
If I were doing it over, I would have at least one person to work specifically on donations, soliciting and picking them up. I would also try to get someone to work solely on getting media attention. And that’s just a couple things for starters.
6. Don’t bank on Facebook to connect with volunteers.
My mistake was thinking that social media would be a helpful tool in generating interest and getting volunteers. Way wrong. Facebook and the HP Community site will be great ways to share details in one place and share your experience on the day of.
But the best way to connect with volunteers and get people involved is still in person. A large percentage of our volunteer support (way more than half) didn’t connect with us through social media, and to this point, still are not connected to our event on Facebook or Twitter. And that’s ok! They were invested and wonderful without it.
Bottom line: Facebook is nice, but don’t really count on it as a major way to connect with people.
7. Find ways to connect with what’s most important about this event.
Giving away pictures. Meeting people you might not otherwise meet. Sharing stories. That’s what this is all about.
This day, like many other exciting and fulfilling events in my life, was a complete blur! I spent the day bouncing around from station to station, answering questions, trying to be helpful, trying to capture pictures and video, coordinating pick ups and supplies, updating our social media, etc., etc., etc. All of which made our event great.
But I wish I had shared more stories. I wish I got to meet more people and share with them while they got their pictures. I wish I could’ve been more present in the moment.
If I were doing it again, I would stick myself at one station for the whole day and have other leaders assigned for different areas so that I wasn’t handling all the questions.
I am exceedingly grateful that I was able to facilitate such a great day. Pictures were given away and stories were shared at along the way. Each of us came away with something powerful and something to be remembered from the day. Now we know what it’s about and we know what this event means. All I can say is thank you a million times over to everyone involved in this event this year and I can’t wait for the next one.
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