Animal Welfare Professionals

Over at HeARTs Speak we're currently taking applications for our fully funded Perfect Exposure Project workshops (that means: free for your shelter/rescue and your community partners!) through 3/31 and I wanted to share the opportunity here! 

The Perfect Exposure Project is a program anchored in collaboration, innovation, and creativity. The program empowers shelter/rescue staff and volunteers directly with skill-building workshops in the areas of photography, positive marketing, social media, and more. HeARTs Speak has raised funds for 5-6 individual workshops in 2018, which will be targeted toward 2-3 geographic areas. 

Animal welfare organizations are given hands-on training, as well as studio photography equipment, and a healthy dose of inspiration to help them positively and effectively promote the animals in their care. Great attention is given to make each workshop fit the needs and resources of the hosting organizations, with the goal of making each component of the training sustainable and effective for the long-term (For instance, past custom content has focused on intake photos, going home photos, and even a focus on helping fosters attain new skills to market the pets in their care, etc.) 

Learn more and apply for the limited 2018 slots: https://www.heartsspeak.org/perfect-exposure-project/

In order to continue to the collaborative, community-based nature of past workshops, applications are structured to require that 2-3 organizations within a given region apply together and to invite other area groups to participate. Our goal is to empower and resource not just one organization, but an entire community of shelters, rescues, and advocates. 

FAQs: https://www.heartsspeak.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2018-FAQs-PEP-applications.pdf

I am getting a group volunteers together with the goal of taking photographs of dogs for adoption, some of the volunteers are professionals or very serious amateurs.  What is the protocols regarding the professionals stamping the photos with their logo or company name. Are the photographs owned by the shelter or the photographers?  Same question applies to videos.

I will appreciate some guidance.  Thank you! 

Hi phack,

We are in the middle of having all our professional photographers sign the following document.   We do allow photos to have watermarks on them, for special events mostly.  When they are shooting the glamour shots of our cats in the rescue we ask that the watermark be left off and in some cases our logo put in place.  We are a small facility and feel this fits our needs at this time.  Cheers

Attachment(s)

Permission Form for Media Rights_Fearless Kitty Rescue.docx   14 KB 1 version

ChristineO, Thanks for the input and the document!

Christine this is really smart.  I feel the most important thing is to have a clear line of communication. For this reason an agreement like this that clearly lays out the expectations is a very good idea. When I photograph for shelters, I give them the clean photo and a photo with the HeARTs Speak adoption watermark (it has a clear CTA - Adopt Me! and the shelter's url and photographer's url) so the information about where to find the animal never gets separated from the photo) and let them choose which they'd like to use - Phack, everyone is different, but many are in it for the animals first and foremost so the most important thing is to communicate.  Cheers!

Hello phack, 

I have seen photo credit handled multiple ways. However, given the various social media platforms various "rules" about copy/text on photos, I have always preferred to have them as clean as possible. And that way, the focus stays on the pet. As an example of how various organizations handle this, in my previous nonprofit organization, the volunteer application indicated that any "work product" created as a result of volunteering at the organization belonged to the organization. 

The opportunity to have professional, semi professional and amazing amateur photographers volunteer their services is fantastic, especially for the pets. And, let's face it, cute and fuzzy is always great for one's portfolio. My solution has been to discuss this with the volunteer as they want the pets they photograph to get adopted too. And give them credit when using their photos on a website, marketing pieces, and/or social media as appropriate in the posts rather than with a watermark on the photo.

Thank Sharon, this is very helpful.

Hi Phack! From HeARTs Speak's perspective, this is totally up to the shelter but as Sharon mentioned, the cleaner and less cluttered the better! I think ultimately it's important to have your logo or url somewhere so that content can be traced back to your organization (especially if something you do goes viral!). But when you see HeARTs Speak photographer members using watermarks and overlays, none of that is mandatory and typically they share clean copies of every photo with the organization they are working with. I hope this helps!

On a seperate note, we have some online resources and tools that might help you as you bring together your group of volunteers! Check out all the free downloads on shelter photography as well as the designs and overlays to help with marketing campaigns! https://www.heartsspeak.org/edu/

Caitlin,

Thank you for the response and thank you for the link!

My pleasure @phack@hselpaso.org!