If money didn’t matter, I’d spend about a quarter of my professional time offering full-rate creative services to nonprofits and NGOs around the world.
And in many ways, I already have. Throughout my career, I’ve donated more hours to causes I care about than I’ve ever billed for — which, frankly, makes me one of the worst businesspeople I know. As you might imagine, that’s not sustainable.
I’m grateful to live a life where I’m not forced to take on work that doesn’t align with my values. Most often, I work with professional agencies, local governments, and associations. Basically I tend to work with clients who aren’t paying my invoices out of their own pockets.
When my manager and I map out the bookings we’re targeting, we talk a lot about who we’re actively seeking. And I’ve noticed myself quietly veering away from nonprofits and charities. It’s where my heart is – but the orgs I’d most love to support often don’t have the budget. And since my available time is not unlimited, I end up moving more towards commercial clients.
So the next impulse is: book the commercial clients, and donate time to the nonprofits, right? But in my experience, that’s where things start to get murky.
When the work is discounted or free, it’s often not treated as a priority.
In many of my nonprofit and charity collaborations, I’ve had the experience of having one or two internal champions who really get it and are deeply grateful. But sometimes the rest of the team doesn’t even know a photographer is showing up, so no one brings their A-game. I’ve even had a couple of occasions where that champion leaves, and the work we created never sees the light of day. A new board member steps in and brings their nephew who just got a camera. Needless to say, they don’t have the cohesive level of intentionality in the kinds of creative partners I’m looking for these days.
Everyone means well. But when a collaboration lacks weight, the impact is nowhere near what it could’ve been. And on a personal level, because there’s no budget, I’ve had instances where I end up overextending — giving even more time and energy to an already under-resourced situation. So all that kinda leaves a bad taste.
To be clear: this is absolutely not the case with every nonprofit. When clients seek me out, it tends not to matter if they’re commercial or nonprofit. Ones who have reached out directly tend to be those who’ve already decided on the value of bringing me in and have allocated the budget to do so. The dream clients have a purpose I can get behind and our invoices are covered so I’m not stressing about that months income.
But what’s been disappointing to notice, in myself, is that when the conversation comes up about me reaching out to offer services to nonprofits, I retreat.
What I’d love to do is donate real time and energy to the orgs doing the most important work — but not squeeze them in between rent-paying gigs. I don’t want to bring my leftovers.
And don’t even get me started on the toxic idea that Artists are only legitimate when we’re broke — or that nonprofit work is only “pure” if it’s unpaid. That kind of thinking doesn’t serve the creative, the organization or the communities we’re trying to uplift.
So this idea has been simmering for a while.
Last year, I found myself scrolling Instagram looking for organizations I could donate time to — shelters, mutual aid orgs, food sovereignty networks, anything community-based. One was a battered women’s shelter near where I lived in L.A. Another negotiated safe overnight parking spots for unhoused folks sleeping in their cars.
What I saw — over and over — were underfunded orgs doing essential work… being represented with stock photos, clip art, or now, generic AI-generated images. These are places where people need to be seen, not abstracted. And having some dude with a camera just pop into a shelter without intentional connection and care? It’s intrusive. It’s not it.
So I started to ask:
How can I show up with full creative attention for orgs that almost certainly can’t afford my full rate?
What if I raised the money first, then approached them with the work already paid for?
And what happens if they decline — or worse, they say yes, but I end up in another one of those draining situations with a single overextended champion while the rest of the team isn’t aligned?
That’s when the idea of activating my community clicked into place…
What If This Became a Community-Funded Part-Time Gig?
Rather than cold-pitching or waiting on grants, we build a community-powered list of deserving nonprofits. And we invite the people who believe in this model to fund it directly.
I’ll use Patreon to establish a base monthly salary; enough to offer my services to the organizations and movements we want to support.
If I’m paid my rate, that means my manager’s commission is covered and he’s able to dedicate his professional time to organizing logistics. My time is covered, which makes it easy to justify giving focused, high-quality attention to a client, even if they’re a tiny charity with the operating budget of a coffee stand.
The budget is transparent, the time has a price tag, and that brings real gravitas to the work. And we can treat the project with the same level of professional care we give to any high-end commercial booking.
The experiment is to use Patreon not just as a content support tip-jar, but as an actively engaged co-creation platorm.
The vision is to hit a monthly Patreon target that covers 1–2 of my official day rates, which would be enough to justify allocating real time every month to work with one nonprofit or community org.
That would mean serving around 10-12 orgs per year. One per month, or grouped into quarterly bursts depending on my other client load.
The ideal target is $5,000/month. At that level, this becomes a part-time professional track, about a quarter of my working hours allocated to nonprofit and cultural work. These would be full-rate commissions, with strategizing, prep, and post. All coordinated by my manager and delivered at the same quality as my commercial clients.
Patrons will nominate and vote on which organization we serve next.
If an org declines or delays, I’ll communicate that transparently and we move to the next one in the queue.
But I’m not waiting till we hit that monthly goal.
The moment I hit $2,500 in a single take-home cashout (not monthly), I’ll take that as the greenlight for one full-rate day for a nonprofit. Because I don’t care how that amount comes in. If I’ve hit that number, the energy exchange exists for me to focus on the client and I can treat it just like any other gig that month or quarter.
That amount could come from a dozen small backers — or a single person who wants to sponsor the day directly.
Whether this experiment is considered a success will come down to traction.
If I launch this and it fizzles, cool — we’ll learn something and pivot. But if there’s momentum, engagement, and a feeling that this model is resonating? We may move platforms. We may scale it. We may build something more robust and standalone.
Every act of support is a vote for an artist to continue working.
Artists don’t sell art. We’re just trying to fund our lives so we can make more art.
So all the creative math gymnastics aside, if you choose to donate to my Patreon, I really want you to do so feeling good about supporting the work I’m doing regardless of how this experiment turns out.