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Guides to Photo and Document Preservation and Sharing for Families and Community Historical Societies

Marketing Historical Society Images as a Fund Raising Activity

By R. Anderson - 5/2009

Community historical societies have many images in their collections that are not subject to copyright concerns.  There is an opportunity to share these images more broadly with the community and the potential to use the marketing of these images as a means of fundraising to support ongoing society preservation and sharing activities.

Very few societies market images through their websites, and only some market images as prints and gift items in a museum shop setting.  Technology and internet services available today have dramatically increased the ways in which images can be shared and marketed.

Even if a historical society does not have a museum store or website, it is still possible to share and market images.  This can be done by simply emailing or posting a third party image gallery link address. 

If a society already has a website, it is often easier and more productive to simply provide a few teaser images in the website and a link to a more extensive image gallery managed by a third party.  With evolving internet services and usage, it is now possible to easily and profitably share images with a broader audience. 

Anyone considering marketing images, or even displaying them on the internet, should be familiar with copyright considerations.  With a basic understanding of copyright issues, historical societies should be able to identify many images in their collections that are not subject to concern. If there are copyright concerns, it would  likely be easy to obtain necessary permissions when the benefit of using the image will be to the community and a historical society. See the article on  Copyright Considerations When Sharing Images. 

If your historical society would like to share images more broadly and market images as a fund raising activity, the society has a choice of three basic approaches.

 

Self Managed Image Marketing Program

A society can clearly share and market images by self managing all duplication, ordering, inventory, marketing, billing, and necessary delivery activities.  However, this internally managed approach requires a certain level of expertise, a relatively steep learning curve, and volunteer time and willingness.  These requirements will often limit the effort and the number of images that can be made available.  This in turn often limits the image sharing and fundraising results.  Front end expenses and slow moving inventory are often complications.

Direct Relationship With an Image Fulfillment Service

There are several services that will place images in an internet gallery, allow the image provider to price prints and gift items as the provider sees fit, and the service will then handle all order processing.  Proceeds are remitted to the image provider, less the discounted wholesale cost of the product and a commission to cover order processing services.  Events photographers (weddings, youth sports, etc.) and other professional photographers often post their images in such a gallery, and interested parties are then invited to the gallery and offered prints.  This approach allows the photographers to spend their time doing what they know best, while someone else handles the order processing and fulfillment details.

The challenge of such an arrangement for an organization such as a community historical society is an annual upfront service fee in the range of $100 - $200 depending upon the gallery space requirements and discounts made available for prints and image gift items.  Society volunteers must still establish the relationship with the provider, customize the gallery, and prepare the images for the gallery.  The upfront fee can easily push the breakeven sales amount beyond what a community historical society might expect and/or experience in sales.  To take a look at two such services, which LocalArchiver considers to be the best for community historical societies, see  Shutterfly Pro Gallery    and SmugMug Pro Account.