Episode 116: Add This To Your Licensing Agreement with a Nonprofit (Even If You're Donating Images)

Shownotes: JaymiH.com/116

(Digitally transcribed, please forgive any typos)

Jaymi Heimbuch:

[00:00:00] Jaymi: Hey there, and welcome to this quick tip episode. Now, if you've been listening for a while, then you know how I feel about paperwork. I love it. I love having agreements and contracts in place because I feel like it provides so much clarity to anyone that you are working alongside, whether you are licensing images to someone.

[00:00:22] Jaymi: Or you're collaborating on a project with someone. everyone knows what's going on. To me, paperwork is clarity, and clarity is kindness.

[00:00:32] Jaymi: So when it comes to donating your images to a non-profit, I definitely believe that you should still have a licensing agreement in place, even if you're donating and no money is exchanged. Having a licensing agreement in place with that non-profit that you're donating to provides clarity around what that non-profit can and can't do it.

[00:00:52] Jaymi: Those images and. It can provide clarity around the value of the images that you're [00:01:00] providing, the value of you as a photographer providing imagery to that nonprofit. Now, here's how it can provide that kind of clarity about your value. Now inside any licensing agreement are gonna be a few things. One is gonna be the dollar amount that would be exchanged for licensing those images.

[00:01:20] Jaymi: Another would be a list of the actual images that are included in the licensing agreement, so a list of the file names and often also a description of the image that each file is of. So when it comes to creating your licensing agreement with a non-profit that you wanna donate images to in the money exchange portion, you would simply have $0 because they're not actually providing any money to you.

[00:01:45] Jaymi: So $0 for money exchanged, but in the list of images that you're donating. Put the value of those images for that type of licensing. So if you were gonna go and license [00:02:00] these images to a paying client for the same terms laid out in that licensing agreement to the nonprofit, what would you charge? And go ahead and list that out alongside the images in that list, or usually it's like exhibit A or whatever it may be in your agreement. And the reason why that can be really helpful is then the nonprofit can see, hey, this is how much value they're actually giving to us by allowing us to license these images. So, for instance, let's say that you are donating a set of 10 images for a nonprofit to be able to use for their marketing purposes, like on their website, their social media, their newsletters, and let's say that if there were a paying client that wanted to license images from you for the same purpose you were gonna charge, I don't know, we're gonna make up a random number, $500 per image for that for a period of two years, Totally pulling random numbers outta the air for that. ] But let's just say that for today's quick tip [00:03:00] episode purpose. So normally you would charge $500 per image for a paying client to be able to use that image for two years for their marketing purposes.

[00:03:11] Jaymi: Well, by noting that in the exhibit, the nonprofit can see, Wow, if we were gonna actually pay for this, here's how much it would cost for us to do that. And so they get to see how much value you are actually giving to them. And they get a better understanding of how much to budget when it comes to actually hiring a photographer for maybe other collaborations. So let's say an opportunity comes up where they wanna have you as a photographer, maybe cover an event or do a whole shoot so that they can maybe rebrand their website. They're gonna understand, Oh, well we actually do have to budget for this. This is something that is of value and that costs money, and this is about what it might cost, and let's go ahead and start planning to budget that amount.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Jaymi: Now there's all kinds of things that might happen between you donating 10 images and them hiring you to, you know, do a shoe or create imagery for them. But at the same time, that licensing agreement, just by structuring it in that way, can do a lot of the heavy lifting of value and expectation with a nonprofit.

[00:04:21] Jaymi: So it's a really, really great idea to, one, make sure that you have a licensing agreement in place whenever you donate images to a non-profit. And two, to note how much you would normally charge for licensing. Images like that it's surprising kind of what a big role, just those little tweaks can make in mindsets and in smoothing the way for future collaborations with that same nonprofit that maybe would go above and beyond how much you're willing to volunteer for them, but you definitely want to get paid to help them with some sort of storytelling endeavor.

[00:04:57] Jaymi: So keep that in mind with your licensing [00:05:00] agreement, and if you're curious about other ways that you can be an even better volunteer by using these business mindset strategies, I have an episode for you. It's episode number 47, so the link is in the show notes, or you can go to jamie h.com/ 47, the number 47.

[00:05:20] Jaymi: So j A Y M. h.com/ 47, and there's an entire episode where I talk about seven business mindset strategies that help you be a more effective, more joyful, more respected, volunteer conservation photographer with your favorite non-profit organizations. So if you wanna dig deeper, head to that episode,

[00:05:43] Jaymi: otherwise, just keep this quick tip in mind. The next time you wanna donate images to a nonprofit, it'll go a long way in making everyone happier. Now, if you enjoy these quick tip episodes and you wanna make sure that you never miss a single one, just make sure that you [00:06:00] are subscribed to this podcast. So wherever you're listening right now, go ahead and hit pause and then.

[00:06:06] Jaymi: The subscribe bun to make sure that you're subscribed. I don't always let people know that a new quick tip episode is rolled out, so if you wanna get them as soon as they go live, just make sure that you're subscribed and they will always appear for you. Meanwhile, I hope that this has been a really helpful quick tip episode and I will talk to you again next week.