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Do You Donate Your Work For A Worthy Cause?


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I am frequently asked to donate my pottery to various charities. I was recently sent a letter on expensive paper, asking me to donate some work to our city gallery. I have now received a nice email from same director. I also get asked to give to the Folk Arts Council, which promotes local traditional dance. I also donate to the Manitoba Crafts Council.

I do not donate to the annual Women's Golf Tournament.

Where do you draw the line?

How much do you give? Do you see a benefit in promoting your work, or are you just a kind person?

TJR.

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empty bowls  yes!

city galerry good!

 

is it getting you name and work out there

is it decent press/advertsing

is it for a good cause

doe it look good on rsusme that your pieces are in this or that collection?

then yes!

 

but if your selling more than you can make then dont.

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I donate pots, and sometimes money. But these days very rarely, and only to organizations that I have a personal connection. I get regular requests for donations, but most of them get the delete key. It's not that I don't think they are worthy requests, I generally don't have extra pots around that I don't need for my next show. So I have to be selective.

 

No I don't think a donation has ever benefited my business or career. Any request that includes language like "you will benefit from the exposure" I can't take it seriously.

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OK this is a hot topic for me-I just gave a pot yesterday

I get asked via letters and phone calls e-mails for about 15-20 causes per year

I used to give to way to many now its just the ones I care about (my regulars) and a few others.Totaling about 6 now.

Most send nice notes as follow up on the work.

I now say I have reached my limit for the year -1st call 1st served.

The Zoo keepers of America just mailed me a letter asking about pots for fund raising for our local zoo.I reycled it -I am not a lock up the animals fan.

 

I read a read a great piece on the reasons for not doing this and will look for it-some reasons I recall are it dilutes your works value and makes auctioning at low value change ones perception of work.

 

One thing is constant the requests keep rolling in.

I feel like telling them ask a bank  for a donation they have the money-why bother an artist

 

TJR I'll send the greater ball mill association of North America your way for donations now that I know your the man for the spinning jar thing.

 

 

One last note-you only get the value of the material for a tax right off unless you give them a card and call it advertising as they print a list of stuff-then you get full value

Mark

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I donate money to my favorite charities.

 

I rarely donate pots because there is no upside to it.

I have never gotten 'exposure', follow up business or even thank you notes.

Charity auctions have degenerated to anonymous bargain shopping events.

 

When I do donate it is for a friend or for pottery fund raising.

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I only donate if it's a local cause that I have a connection to via a student or my kids, etc. I sometimes donate pots, but I often donate a class since that gets them in the door. Although I sometimes have regular students buy the class at the charity auction to get out of paying full price for that session. That bugs me a lot. The whole reason for donating was to get some new folks in the door. But that's a different rant.

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I will donate to places where I have a long term professional relationship or things I strongly believe in like the Yellowstone Art Museum, The Archie Bray Foundation, or CERF, etc. 

But when a charity tells me that donating to their cause will promote my work, I have never seen any professional benefit from it in 40+ years. I do help with Empty Bowls. It is a well organized event in the Rio Grande Valley.

 

Marcia

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I think as potters/ceramic artists, we could own the empty bowls project-either by making a crap load of bowls and having celebrities decorate them or

2. Have students actually make and decorate the bowls with slips/under glazes. Then you bisque them and glaze with a clear glaze. I actually did this one year. Way a lot of work.

 

On the donation thing- I give to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. They gave me a life time membership as I have a couple pieces in their collection. I saved 12 bucks on admission just yesterday.

I have donated to the Archie Bray Foundation, but the Canadian dollar conversion just killed me. A $100.00 U.S. gift works out to be $2.90 Canadian. Seemed a bit chintsy. Do you guys say chintsy?

TJR.

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I donate to E.B.  and my students make bowls for that, but other than that, exactly what Chris says.^^^ 

As for charity auctions, that just tells people that they can get my work for a small donation.  I think it devalues the artist.  As for the Women's Charity Golf  event, do you call them and ask then to donate a club membership to you?   Same think, I think.

 

The article I saw on this topic is on Carter Gillies Pottery, titled, "The exposure you get is that you are willing to work for free".  We have a hard enough time getting respect for what we do, after all, we just 'play in clay' all day, don't we.  Got to go, my feet are aching from playing all day, loading 3 kilns...

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I am also of the school of giving to charities that I have some sort of personal connection with. I will give time, money or pots to the ones I am close to. My personal benchmark question is "would I do this for free and anonymously?" If I can't for reasons of time, finances or inclination, I won't.

I recently finished a 30 mug custom order for a local distress centre. They paid wholesale to cover materials, so I essentially donated a considerable amount of design and working time, and I did so with joy in my heart. They will reorder, and did ask for hang tags with my info, which I hadn't intended to give because of the above benchmark. So I might profit somewhat eventually maybe, but that really wasn't an expectation I had at any point.

The silent auction that my sister's friend asked me to donate something to "because you're an artist and you must want the exposure" was politely told "No".

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Empty Bowls, yes. And if a cause I would like to support could benefit from a pottery donation, I'd be happy to provide, but not one that I have no connection with.

I also donate pieces for contest prizes for a game I used to be involved with, as a way to improve game-atmosphere standards. Hard to explain.

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Again, to echo many others here....I give a great deal of time/energy/clay/glaze to the Empty Bowl Fundraiser for a local community kitchen.  And I am newer to the business world than some so it hasn't been until the last year that I have been approached for donations.   I give to things that are near and dear to my heart.     However, I wonder how to tactfully decline donating to ?  Would "just say no" be appropriate with no reason given??   Or like Chris said, just donate money to favorite charities.  I just spent the day putting handles on mugs.   I just don't know if I would feel like giving away even one of those precious things! 

 

Roberta

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Donate to local fund raising for medical issues. When the charity drives a better car than I...red flag.

Once I had  folks from a nearby city seeking donations to send their children to Australia to experience a different culture. I noticed their car was a Lexus.

Worthy charities outside the area, I'll offer 50% off. Some understand, Most don't have a clue what it takes to make a living as an artist.

Wyndham

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you all must be tired of my going on and on about the empty bowl in winchester.  the charity is a battered women (and their children) shelter.  i am so fortunate never to have experienced their problems that i happily donate to them.   it is also my way of testing things that i might like to do once but not make a part of my inventory.  our entire guild donates and we all have a great time at the event, asking people why they chose a particular thing and seeing everyone else's work makes a delightful change.  450 bowls picked up and put down and then picked up again while people decide what they cannot live without. 

 

and it helps that our holiday sale is about 2 weeks later.

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I do the open bowls project every year, as it is sponsored by a JHS in the district I taught in. I also donate to any thing that benefits art ed in my area. I used to donate pieces as door prizes to my class of adult students.

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Never in all my years has any pottery gift (donation) come back as a sale due to promotion.Yes its mentioned ether in print or while being sold but all I get is a advertising right off.

One needs to draw a line early as this will get out of hand fast

Like TRJ said he does not supports the womens golf assosication and draws a line at the tee off-I find after 10 or so requests I get teed off myself.

I used to do the bowls are all empty - but now I let others make the bowls as this is such a widespread cause now they get more than they can use as everyone makes them around here-especially our local art center.

I have my own personal favorites-and I support those as they what I care about.I also volunteer at a few events every year.

Mark

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I've donated a few things, over the past couple years, all to local charity fundraisers.  They were either family acquaintances, or people in the school district I work for.  I donate to help the cause, not for exposure...well, not personal exposure.  I do it, for exposure for my department.  The Visual Arts, have a tough time standing out, because there are no big events, like performances.  The best we have is art shows, and not everyone can come to those.

After my last donation, I had a fellow faculty member come up, and say there was a lot of buzz about my donation.  So as long as people in the community know, that the Art Department is out there doing things to help, I figure my small donation is a win.

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I've donated a few things, over the past couple years, all to local charity fundraisers.  They were either family acquaintances, or people in the school district I work for.  I donate to help the cause, not for exposure...well, not personal exposure.  I do it, for exposure for my department.  The Visual Arts, have a tough time standing out, because there are no big events, like performances.  The best we have is art shows, and not everyone can come to those.

After my last donation, I had a fellow faculty member come up, and say there was a lot of buzz about my donation.  So as long as people in the community know, that the Art Department is out there doing things to help, I figure my small donation is a win.

Ben;

At my sons' school last year, they ran a Fine Art night. I hadn't attended before as I am usually  working at my own school. My boys' school is so small,[250 students on the French side], that they have the band concert in one half of the gym, and then they had an art show in the other half. They turned on the lights at intermission so you could see everything, and also before and after the concert. The total population of their school is 650, English and French immersion.

My school is 1300 pop. so this wouldn't work for us.

Just an idea to promote Visual Art.

TJR.

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Tom,

 

The school Art Show, that I do, goes along with our Spring Play.  The work is set up, before the show on Friday night, and stays up past intermission on Saturday night.  It gives the audience something to do, before the show, and intermission.  The show is mostly high school work, with whatever the Middle School teacher decides to bring.

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Tom,

 

The school Art Show, that I do, goes along with our Spring Play.  The work is set up, before the show on Friday night, and stays up past intermission on Saturday night.  It gives the audience something to do, before the show, and intermission.  The show is mostly high school work, with whatever the Middle School teacher decides to bring.

The Art Dept does a show for Parent Teacher interviews in the gym. That is twice a year. It helps when you are talking about a student to be able to show their work. We also have a divisional Art Show-all schools in the Div. at the local huge mall. We didn't get the space last year. We also lost our Art Consultant. Coincidence? We now have a Fine Art consultant for Music, Dance, Drama, and Visual Art.

Can we say "Token". She is a Drama person.

Tom.

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I donated for several years to auction fund raisers but quit when they started treating the artists badly.  They would send me a ticket to attend but if I wanted my husband to go with me that would cost me $50 dollars.   Wouldn't tell me how much my piece sold for,  just said it sold for close to the stated value.  The last one I donated to they threw a friends metal sculptures out on the side walk after it was over.  Like Chris I decided donating money was better it was at least tax deductible.  Denice

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