Nonprofits Using Flickr for Good
by Michael HoffmanThursday, March 13th, 2008
Allan Benamer over at the Non-Profit Tech Blog has a podcast with Tara Kirchner, the Senior Marketing Manager of Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo! If you don’t know about Flickr, it’s a popular photo sharing site that can be used by nonprofits. They just announced a program to give nonprofits some free “pro” accounts.
So what can nonprofits do with Flickr? Well, check out what our friends at the Humane Society of the United States are doing. The concept is simple: you choose a photo of a baby seal, create a caption for it, and upload it directly to their Flickr account (using Flickr’s interface that is built into the Humane Society’s site). They have a celebrity judge and a seals prize pack up for grabs for the best.
Why do this? It’s fun. It gives your supporters something to do other than give money. It helps educate people about an issue. It gives people a good feeling and they associate that feeling with your organization. It gives you search engine mojo - because all the Flickr goodness is indexed heavily. It brings in new people who first hear about you through a funny (viral) photo.
You can see the Humane Society Seal Photo caption contest here.
And all of the entries can be seen here.
Here’s one I liked right away:
