Another revenue source - Donations

[artsgirl]

I posted a tutorial a few minutes ago about how to monetize your photography by taking donations, but I realized people may be more likely to look for such information here rather than in the tutorials section. If you're interested, pop on over and take a look...

Taking Donations For Your Photography

By the way, I hope it's not against forum rules to cross-post like this (I didn't see anything indicating that it was.)

Good ideas.

I'd also like to add that donating your time/skills to non-profit organizations can be a very nice tax write-off, as well as promoting your business. For example, I photographed an event recently for the Amercian Cancer Society, and they gave me a "gift-in-kind" reciept (i.e. you can write this off as a donation) for the amount they normally would have paid for my services. Then I posted all the photos on Zenfolio with a "free to download" option and a small mark-up for prints. It's not a huge money-maker, but (like most of what I do) has a potential to lead to bigger things.

Just be sure to bring lots of business cards. The hotel manager snagged most of them before the event (to recommend my services), and I didn't have many to give to guests.