JB Reed and Nuru Project

After photographer JB Reed returned from a year in Kenya where he documented the lives of young people in a youth group in a Nairobi slum while on a Fulbright scholarship, he organized a gallery show in Boston to raise money for his subjects. The show generated more than $2,000 through print sales and donations. The exhibition also led to Reed's introduction to a like-minded friend of a friend.

Omri Bloch, a financial consultant and photography enthusiast who had recently taken a year off to backpack through 25 developing countries, came up with an idea to create an online print sales site to help raise money for impoverished communities. The plan was to have photographers who had been to troubled areas donate prints that socially conscious people would go online and buy. Money raised from sales could then be channeled directly back to the communities where the images were made.

Bloch e-mailed the idea to a few friends, one of whom introduced him to Reed. After connecting Bloch's idea and Reed's fundraising exhibition experience, they decided to launch Nuru Project in late 2007, enlisting the help of three of Bloch's college friends—Chris McAleenan, Daniel Murray and Matt Watson. They decided to organize exhibitions and print auctions using print donations from photographers and donate the money to non-governmental organizations.

Reed first tested the model after Kenya's disputed elections in early 2008. He organized an exhibit that included work from Jonas Bendiksen and other photographers documenting the turmoil, and raised nearly $7,000 for the Kenyan Red Cross and other organizations. Reed then applied that experience to Nuru Project.

For its first event last November, Nuru (a Swahili word meaning "light") partnered with 18 photographers, including James Whitlow Delano, Michael Williamson, Emilio Morenatti and Agnes Dherbeys, for an event benefiting Friends of the World Food Programme. The exhibition drew 200 people and raised more than $6,000. Nuru also got MV Labs to donate the prints.

Nuru Project's July 30 event in New York benefited the Acumen Fund, a non-profit organization that provides capital to "entrepreneurs…focused on offering critical services—water, health, housing, and energy—at affordable prices to people earning less than $4 a day." Contributing photographers included Steve McCurry, Susan Meiselas, Olivia Arthur, Per-Anders Pettersson, Teru Kuwayama, James Whitlow Delano and Marvi Lacar. Modernage Lab donated the prints and Young Professionals for Acumen Fund helped organize the show, which attracted 300 attendees and raised $24,000. The International Center for Photography was among the event sponsors.

In addition to raising donations, Nuru events are also showcases for established and lesser-known photographers. Says Reed: "We draw people out with the name Steve McCurry and then we show them there's this other photographer who is successful."

Nuru Project is planning to expand its operations next year. "Another way in which we feel like we can grow is to have simultaneous shows in multiple cities," says Reed.



Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele's Facing Climate Change

Lots of climate change projects document scientific research. "We were interested in framing this as a people issue," says photographer Benjamin Drummond who, with partner Sara Joy Steele, tells stories about individuals coping with environmental challenges. They have been invited to show "Facing Climate Change" before a wide range of audiences: They regularly talk to college students, they have made presentations at conferences of scientists and environmental lawyers, and they are preparing to show the work they did documenting prison inmates enrolled in green-job training. Says Drummond, "Presenting personal stories to illustrate a highly complex, highly scientific issue is a way to plug people into thinking about climate change as the major concern for our generation, our kids and our grandchildren."

The project began when Drummond and Steele funded their own trip to Iceland, Greenland and Norway to document three communities affected by climate shifts: fishermen on the North Atlantic, semi-nomadic reindeer herders, and a group of amateur glacier monitors. When the pair returned home to Seattle in 2007, they made prints that were exhibited in three Patagonia stores and at climate change conferences and teach-ins around the Northwest. Through a combination of word of mouth and their own efforts in reaching out to schools and other institutions, Steele and Drummond were soon receiving more and more invitations to show their work. Needing a more portable format than a traveling print show, they decided to combine Steele's audio interviews with Drummond's photos into a multimedia presentation. "We thought this was a fantastic way to give voice to our subjects," Drummond says. "It's hard to argue with someone who is sharing their immediate personal challenges, hopes and fears."

Though they focus on how the changing climate affects individuals, Drummond is quick to note, "That's not to say we're not fixated on getting the science right." They start by researching the latest scientific findings, "Then we look for subjects who illustrate the science."

They are currently producing stories closer to home. This summer, they will be embedded with wildfire fighters in Western states. Drummond explains, "The significant impact stories are here in the U.S. as much as they are elsewhere." They have raised funds from several sources. Supported by the Blue Earth Alliance, they solicit tax-deductible contributions. In recent months, environmental groups have hired them to create multimedia projects which will allow them to add new images to their "Facing Climate Change" archive. They just documented high school students enrolled in a training program with the National Parks Foundation and the Northern Cascades Institute, and plan to follow the students after they return to their communities to launch their own sustainability projects. Having photographed a jobs training program for prison inmates learning about sustainability issues, Steele and Drummond plan to return to show them photos of the program alongside images of Nordic reindeer herders.

Whenever he makes his presentation, Drummond says, he most enjoys the question-and-answer sessions. "The viewer is left to fill in the holes, and bring their own experience to the images they're viewing and the stories they are listening to."



Cristian Movila's "Unfinished Dreams"

Wrong turns can often be serendipitous, helping you discover something you never knew existed. For Romanian photojournalist Cristian Movila, getting lost in a Bucharest hospital led to a personal project and participation in a fundraising campaign for cancer-stricken children that raised nearly 3 million Euros for the hospital, its patients and their families.

In 2005 Movila visited a friend at Marie Curie hospital. By mistake he found himself in an oncology ward where children suffering from cancer were treated. Survival rates at the under-funded hospital hovered around 50 percent. Each room housed three to four children, many of them upset, and suffering from hair loss and other side effects of treatment.

"Some of them were crying, others were playing and some of them just stayed in bed because they were unable to move," Movila recalls. "About half of them were there with parents, either a mother or father or with their grandmother, who slept there with them in a salon chair. Others did not have anybody." Movila was moved to tears. He stayed for more than half an hour before he was overwhelmed and had to leave.

Within a few days, however, he was back, playing with children and talking with their parents in an effort to do what he could to help lift their spirits. Still a student, he returned almost every day for two months, bringing snacks and developing relationships with the children and their families.

Eventually his impulse to help led him to take up his camera. At first, he made playful snapshots while everyone got used to the camera. Then he began to work in earnest on the project that would become "Unfinished Dreams." Working almost every day at first, and then intermittently as assignments took him away from Bucharest, Movila spent the next two and a half years documenting the lives of cancer-stricken children at the hospital.

People who saw his work encouraged Movila to mount an exhibition in 2008 to raise awareness of conditions in the hospital. His friend Oana Igrisan, a communications director at a Bucharest PR firm, handled publicity and helped Movila meet donors like Italian energy company Enel, which has operations in Romania. Igrisan also helped Movila draw officials from nearly every foreign embassy in Bucharest to the exhibition at the Pogany Art Gallery at The Bucharest National Theater.

"When I saw the first person crying I felt that my mission was complete," Movila recalls. "When I was in the hospital I cried many times and I wanted the people who saw my pictures to feel that."

Movila's personal project quickly grew into a campaign to fight cancer and improve the hospital, with various corporate donors and partners involved. Movila became a spokesman for the effort, soliciting donations and even appearing on television for two weeks in daily 20-minute segments with children, parents and doctors.

Through the television appearances Movila was introduced to Ilie Nastase, the Romanian tennis champion, who along with his wife encouraged Movila to show his photographs at the Romanian embassy in Paris. Nastase launched the French edition of his autobiography at the exhibition, drawing many of Paris's elite, who used to watch Nastase compete at the French Open at Roland Garros. Nastase agreed to donate proceeds from the sale of his book to the hospital.

Movila now plans to create a book, and says he would like to use the photos in an outdoor campaign to further raise awareness for children's cancer in Romania.



Paula Allen and Stop Raping Our Greatest Resources

According to many estimates, the five-year conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed three million people. More difficult to assess, however, is the number of women and children who have been victims of sexual assault. That's largely because survivors have kept silent, out of fear or shame. That's slowly changing, says photographer/activist Paula Allen. In September 2008, Allen photographed two "breaking the silence" ceremonies where 20 rape survivors shared their stories, many for the first time, in front of gatherings of government officials, police, healthcare workers who have treated injured rape victims, and ordinary citizens. These efforts have support from UNICEF, representing the UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, and V-Day, the organization founded by playwright Eve Ensler devoted to ending violence against women and girls. In 2007, women in Bukavu, located in the eastern Congo where sexual assaults continue un-checked, marched through the streets to demand punishment for rapists and protection for citizens. They carried placards and wore T-shirts emblazoned with a photo taken for V-Day by Allen: It shows two Congolese girls, both victims of sexual assault, holding their hands high as they make the V sign.

"It was incredible that thousands of women, many of whom walked for hours and hours to get to the rally, came out," says Allen, who photographed the march. The marchers, Allen says, are hoping to get the attention of government, police, the UN peacekeepers, and the outside world. "There needs to be a system of accountability, and a system of justice. These women haven't had justice."

Allen first traveled to DRC in 2007, when Ensler and others from V-Day visited the Panzi hospital, which specializes in treating injuries sustained during sexual assault. V-Day worked with other NGOs in the region to find out what the women needed. At the women's request, V-Day began building a home for former patients who had no other place to go—either because their villages weren't safe, or because their homes had been destroyed in fighting. In spring 2008, Allen returned to Bukavu to photograph the groundbreaking for the home, which Allen says will be "a safe haven that will provide a refuge where rape victims can receive job skills and psychological training, and feel safe and fulfill their potential." She has returned to DRC several more times, and will return next year for the opening of the safe haven.

V-Day uses Allen's images on its Web site, in the slide shows provided for "teach ins" about the Congo crisis, on notecards sold to raise money, and elsewhere. "I make the images available to anyone who wants to use them—a college student, a girl who wants to do fundraising at her high school," says Allen. The photo she made of two girls making the V sign—they were two girls she met as they awaited treatment at the Panzi hospital—has become the brand identity for V-Day's new campaign, titled "Stop Raping our Greatest Resources." Allen explains, "The world has pillaged the Congo because of its minerals, but the real pillage is against the women. The women are the country's greatest resource, because without them, the country would stop."



Robert Kent's Compassionate Eye Foundation

Fundraising is a perpetual and costly challenge for aid organizations. But photographer Robert Kent has come up with a funding model built upon a gift that keeps on giving: commercial stock photography.

Kent's Compassionate Eye Foundation has been soliciting stock photographers since 2005 to donate images to a special collection managed and distributed by his agency, Getty Images. Since then, more than 60 photographers have organized shoots with guidance from Getty editors, using volunteer help from hundreds of assistants, stylists and other crew. They have given CEF nearly 2,000 images so far, and the licensing proceeds, which are used to educate impoverished kids all over the world, have surpassed $350,000.

"This is not a check-writing foundation. You help by doing what you love," Kent says.

He was motivated to start CEF by the abundance in his own life, and his desire to help impoverished children around the world get the basic education they need to live better lives. On a stock shoot in South Africa several years ago, he decided to visit a school run by some fellow Canadians in a Johannesburg township. He was stunned by the poverty, he says. "There didn't seem to be a chance for those kids."

He found himself questioning the contribution that his photography was making to the world. Kent says he arrived at a "fork-in-the-road moment" where he was considering becoming a full-time fundraiser for charity. Suddenly the idea to use stock photography to raise money hit him. "I decided to work with what I have," he says.

Spending his own money at first, Kent built a school for a Mayan community in Guatemala after scouting other parts of the world for communities in need. The deciding factor, he explains, was a relief organization already working in Guatemala that he could trust and partner with.

The school Kent paid for (at a cost of $10,000) gives the children options in life beyond menial work for the local coffee plantations. A completed school project also showed potential CEF contributors and partners that Kent could deliver.

In 2005, he got others involved. First he contacted his "ten best photo buddies," and proposed a "Summer Solstice" shoot for June 2005 to start building a stock archive for CEF. The photographers rounded up volunteer crews, and met in Vancouver for a day of shooting. "You could feel the spark. Everyone was giving from the heart," Kent says.

With a track record and new images by other photographers in hand, Kent approached Getty Images for their help with distribution. "We were blown away by what he had done with the group of people he had gathered together," says Peggy Willett, Getty's Director of Community and Industry Relations. "He had a strong organization with a good board of directors and projects in mind."

Getty agreed not only to distribute the images for CEF, but to give the foundation 51 percent of each sale (Getty keeps 49 percent, compared to 70 percent or more that it keeps for the sale of non CEF images). Getty employees have also volunteered their time to give CEF support with image production, marketing, and legal assistance.

Kent says the help put him under more pressure to deliver. "It's one thing to have an idea, another to be sitting on all that money, and have to spend it wisely," he says.

Kent has taken care to select good partners. He enlisted Peggie Pelosi, a social responsibility strategist for corporations, to help CEF extend its mission beyond Guatemala (Getty had suggested a broader horizon because its business is worldwide, Willett says). CEF is now working with Free The Children, a Canadian aid organization that has built hundreds of schools in poor countries.

Compassionate Eye is providing scholarships so the most promising students can continue beyond the basic education provided by CEF-funded schools. The foundation is also providing scholarships to trade schools.

Kent's ambition now is to expand his fundraising model to other creative industries, such as the music industry. "I just know we're going to have someone like Sting or Madonna donate royalties from a hit song," Kent says. "We've tapped into a concept that could end a lot of challenges on the planet."



Stephen Shames and LEAD Uganda

War and AIDS have drained Uganda in recent years. The future of the country now lies in the hands of its children, many of whom are orphaned, poverty stricken, and without access to the education they'll need to keep Uganda functioning in the next generation.

Photojournalist Stephen Shames has dedicated himself to direct intervention through LEAD Uganda, a non-profit foundation he founded in 2004. In partnership with a local organization called Concern for the Future, LEAD Uganda identifies orphans, former child soldiers, and others with potential to be future leaders. It then gives them support to attend the best schools, so they can get into top colleges and graduate with the skills they need to help lift Uganda.

"It started after I was at a funeral of a woman who died of AIDS and left five kids orphaned," Shames says. "I wanted to help the family in some way, so we put [the children] into a local school. When we went back later we saw that the instruction was at a really low level. It was better than nothing, but the children were going to be stuck in poverty in that village for the rest of their lives."

It was a reminder, says Shames, that throwing money at problems is easy, but not always effective.

Over the course of his long career, Shames has learned from various projects and mentors how to make a difference in people's lives, especially children. Working on a child poverty project in the 1980s called "Outside the Dream," Shames observed how children's rights activist Marian Wright Edelman used his photography to draw attention to a problem—and support to an organization trying to solve it.

"She used 'Outside the Dream' to brand the Children's Defense Fund as the premier child advocacy organization," Shames says. "She created an action-oriented exhibit and sent a copy of the book to every member of Congress."

His follow up project in the Nineties, called "Pursuing the Dream," explored programs around the country that actually helped children escape the cycle of poverty.

"That made me realize that you need to empower people so they can solve their own problems, and not be bureaucratic" by imposing top-down solutions, Shames says.

He also realized that photographers have a leg up in helping find solutions because of their research and their proximity to the people who need help. "A policy maker once said to me, 'You know people better because you've been in their homes.' I knew what the people were thinking, what life was like, what helped them and what didn't."

Looking for a better way to help Ugandan orphans, Shames remembered a program in New York called A Better Chance. It provides promising but economically disadvantaged youth with good private educations so they can assume leadership.

LEAD Uganda copied that model. Shames's organization provides tuition, as well as the money for the food, clothing, shelter, and medical care that the kids need to succeed in school. To date, LEAD Uganda has raised $600,000, and is helping more than 70 children.

Shames has mounted exhibits and used his images to attract press coverage from People magazine and The New York Times, among others. The coverage draws donations and builds LEAD Uganda's credibility, Shames says. He has also raised some money by selling prints, and he expects to release a book about the project this fall. (Documentary projects about LEAD Uganda by Errol Daniels and Charlotte Southern have also helped spread the word.)

Shames has also built partnerships with other groups, especially churches. Shames says photographer Ken Light taught him the value of partnering.

"The secret is to find advocacy organizations to work with so you can become part of a whole team. Not only do you get resources, but [partner organizations] can use your pictures to advance a solution."

Shames has built LEAD Uganda into a five-person operation. "My career for the past few years has been running the organization," he says. Now he is in the process of hiring his replacement so he can return to his photography.

"One of things I realized was, it wasn't enough to just [take] pictures," he says. "You have to point people toward things that work. You have to show solutions."



Riccardo Gangale and The Rescuers Project

Italian-born, Kenya-based photojournalist Riccardo Gangale, who currently works for the Associated Press in the Great Lakes region in Africa, has always been interested in documenting social issues in different parts of the world. Recently, he took part in a peace-building project aimed at supporting healing and reconciliation in countries once torn apart by conflict. In Rwanda, Gangale donated his time and talent to photograph ordinary Hutus who, during the country's 1994 genocide, risked their lives to save Tutsi neighbors who were targeted for slaughter. The Rwandan exhibition is the first in a series called The Rescuers Project, an effort organized by the non-profit Proof: Media for Social Justice, a foundation committed to raising awareness of the issues faced by populations in post-conflict societies and encouraging social change through the use of photography.

Proof was founded by Leora Kahn, a curator, photo editor, human rights activist and currently a fellow at Yale University in the Genocide Studies Program. She says she found Gangale through the photojournalists' bulletin board Lightstalkers.org and when she asked him to work for no compensation on The Rescuers Project, he was more than willing to spend a year working with Kahn not only to locate Hutus who risked their lives to save others, but to get them to share their stories in words and images. The exhibition features 30 environmental portraits of everyday people who acted heroically—including a farmer and her three daughters, a storekeeper, a Pentecostal minister, a truck driver and a nun. "All the people I portraited are amazing persons and heroes," Gangale states. "The things they did during Rwanda's 1994 genocide are extraordinary."

In a country where Hutus and Tutsis continue to live side by side 15 years after the Hutus murdered half a million Tutsis, both Kahn and Gangale see The Rescuers Project as a peacebuilding tool aimed at opening up dialogue between the country's youth. Proof's partner, The Karuna Center, worked with educators in Kigali to develop a high school curriculum that is accompanying the exhibit. Quotes from each hero rescuer are used as a narrative accompanying the images, says Kahn, to teach students looking at the exhibitions why people carried out these heroic acts, what motivated them and also what they were thinking when they did the rescuing. "The exhibit is traveling to high schools across Rwanda," says Kahn, "and students are using it as a springboard for discussion as well as to come to understand that heroic behavior is in the grasp of ordinary people and not some impossible ideal."

The exhibition opened in Kigali, Rwanda, this past February and is currently traveling Rwanda under the direction of the Ministry of Education and the Commission to Prevent Genocide. "Over the last 20 years countries around the world have been torn apart by ethnic, religious or political violence," says Kahn. "In each instance, however, there are also remarkable stories of ordinary heroes who risked their lives to save members of enemy groups." Gangale says he strongly supports the goals of The Rescuers Project, which include heightening awareness of such courageous acts in the face of communal violence, understanding what inspires compassionate action, promoting reconciliation and preventing future cycles of violence by sharing and promoting positive stories.

"Beyond its own social awareness campaign consisting of photo exhibits, books, printed literature, lectures, and public panel discussions, Proof was created to support public institutions, including international NGOs, whose mission is to raise public awareness of social injustice around the world," Kahn explains. Proof secured funds for The Rescuers Project through grants from various private and public funders including Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Holocaust Museum of Houston, and Aegis Trust in England. Proof also partnered with local NGOs and government agencies in Rwanda.

The Rescuers Project will continue in Bosnia, Guatemala and Cambodia, where Kahn will team up with a local photographer in each country.



James Nachtwey's Extremely Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Project

James Nachtwey's photo story about extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), which was launched on October 3, 2008, with support from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) community, reaffirmed the power of documentary photography at a time when photojournalists find it increasingly difficult to gain support and exposure for their work.

With a coordinated, simultaneous release of his images around the world, Nachtwey, his partners at TED, and the large network of sponsors and supporters TED had built for the effort, created a moment of awareness for XDR-TB that drew commitments of support from both American presidential candidates during the late stages of their campaigns. Since the launch of his project, Nachtwey has become a spokesperson for the fight against tuberculosis, showing his photographs and speaking at gatherings of policymakers and scientists who have the greatest direct effect on the lives of those suffering from the disease.

Nachtwey first became aware of TB as a major global health issue while working on a story about AIDS in Africa for TIME magazine in 1999 (TB is a major cause of death among those suffering from AIDS). As he continued documenting global health issues over the coming years he repeatedly encountered the disease. In 2007, he received the TED Prize, which included a $100,000 grant and support from TED in granting a "wish" to the prize recipient. Nachtwey elected to dedicate the money and his TED wish to publicizing XDR-TB, a strain of tuberculosis that results from misdiagnosis, maltreatment or non-treatment of less virulent strains of the disease.

"This is a very large population of people mainly in the developing world who were suffering from a disease that's curable and preventable," says Nachtwey. "I wanted to create a public awareness campaign on their behalf."

Nachtwey spent 18 months traveling to India, Thailand, Cambodia, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Siberia to create a photography project about XDR-TB, while TED mobilized its resources to fulfill Nachtwey's wish to break the story "in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age." By establishing a network of sponsors and contributors, TED was able to provide Nachtwey a platform for his work that included large-scale outdoor digital projections in 30 cities on seven continents, a symposium in New York, and a Web site where the public could view a multimedia slideshow of his images and then take action: donating money to a network of organizations fighting TB, signing letters to policymakers and sharing Nachtwey's story with others.

"They saw the value of the theme, but I think they were also very excited about trying to establish new ways of making a statement," says Nachtwey of his supporters at TED.

The multi-channel rollout also helped Nachtwey with his share of the effort, which was to reach out to his traditional media contacts to get the story published. "There was a buzz being created through other means that I think made it attractive to editors to run the story," he says.

Joanne Carter, the executive director of Results, "a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization that has worked to fight TB," was contacted by TED before the story was released. "I would argue that [the release] was a direct trigger for both presidential campaigns to make a statement" about fighting tuberculosis worldwide, says Carter. "That was to me a really direct example at a very high level of what photos and what using them in this way can help make happen in the world."

In June of this year, Results helped organize a presentation that Nachtwey made in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and representative Eliot Engel from New York, who have both been leaders in legislation on tuberculosis in the past, joined Nachtwey in speaking at the event.

Later in the summer the House of Representatives committed $50 million more to the effort to fight tuberculosis than it had originally budgeted, and Carter says that this year funding for TB has reached its highest level. Though she says it's difficult to attribute that increase in funding to Nachtwey's presentation on the Hill, she says that proponents of TB efforts were reinvigorated. "James's photos are one of the most important tools that we have," she says.

Nachtwey was also invited to present his work at the Pacific Health Summit; at an event hosted by the Gates Foundation; at a gathering of the World Health Organization, and at other events. Speaking in front of the preeminent minds in science was an interesting new role, says Nachtwey. "I think I provided a link between people on the ground level and people who are working on their behalf in laboratories and universities and think tanks, and I think it serves to reinforce what they're doing and reinforce their commitment, and I think they received some inspiration from it," he says.



Jonathan Torgovnik's Foundation Rwanda

Three years after a magazine photo assignment inspired Jonathan Torgovnik to help children in Rwanda, the charity he founded continues to grow.

Since 2006, Foundation Rwanda has been raising money to pay for secondary schooling for children born to mothers who were raped during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. So far the organization has raised almost $500,000 and supports 150 families.

This year, Foundation Rwanda became an unlikely beneficiary of the advertising downturn. Several media companies donated unsold ad inventory to the foundation for public service announcements, which have built awareness and attracted donations. Corporate support has also helped get the message out, Torgovnik says. JWT Atlanta produced a commercial pro bono. Hulu, the NBC and FOX-backed online video site, donated free ad space, as did magazines including Newsweek and Black Enterprise. Getty Images gave the foundation an office in New York.

Foundation Rwanda began after Torgovnik went to Rwanda on an assignment and met an HIV-positive woman who was raped during the genocide and had a child. There were about 20,000 children born under similar circumstances in Rwanda, Torgovnik learned. He returned several times to shoot photos of the mothers and their children and conduct interviews.

Torgovnik, along with Foundation Rwanda co-founder Jules Shell, traveled to Rwanda again this summer to visit the families who benefit from the foundation's work. "It's amazing to see how their lives can change," Torgovnik says. "It gives them such a positive attitude on life."

Earlier this year Aperture published Torgovnik's book, Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape. A MediaStorm multimedia presentation of the work was recently nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy. Right now, Torgovnik's pictures from Rwanda are traveling to several universities in an exhibition backed by the Open Society Institute (OSI).

"This project changed my life in many ways, in some ways I can't articulate yet," Torgovnik says. "It's emotionally draining, but at the same time it gives you this sense of energy, really…It gives you the power to take action."



Benjamin Edwards and Gary Christenson's Emote360

When photographers Benjamin Edwards and Gary Christenson decided to fill what they saw as a need for better marketing and publicity among charitable organizations a couple of years ago, they founded their own non-profit, Emote360, to provide photography, art direction, video, Web design and other creative services to NGOs around the world.

"There are a lot of organizations out in the world doing amazing work, helping people at the grass roots level," Edwards explains. "But these organizations typically do not have the funds to acquire, nor the knowledge to use, new and social media to educate current and potential donors about their causes." Edwards says that without a good way to tell their story, the organizations can't attract new donors. Emote360 partners with these organizations and helps them create awareness-raising material. Says Edwards, "Photography is a perfect and natural way to help these organizations express their heart to their social network, and hopefully grow it."

Edwards and Christenson provide services to various NGOs pro bono. Emote360, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has no salaried staff but relies on a core group of four artists, including a videographer, who work on projects.

In the last two years, Edwards, Christenson and their team have made a trip to Central America, four trips to different countries in Africa, one to Eastern Europe and one to India. Typically, they will document the work that an NGO performs in the field with HD video, photography and audio. In June, for example, they produced a video for World Relief NEXT to help build awareness on the ongoing crisis of random killings, rape and other atrocities that continue in the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo. Edwards traveled with an Emote360 producer to the DRC where he captured video and made stills, and then learned the program Motion to put the two together. "We do our job well so that this organization can focus on what it does well, which is build awareness on atrocities going on in the world and raise donations for its cause," he says.

Occasionally they will bring additional photographers or other artists on board to contribute their time and talent. Last year wedding photographer and software developer Kevin Kubota, who sits on Emote360's board, traveled with Edwards to Rwanda to visit an orphanage. In addition to offering his services, he helped raise donations from other photographers so the orphanage could purchase basic necessities and provide schooling for the children.

Other recent projects by Emote360 include a documentary trip to India for Harvest India, a 16-page print booklet for World Relief NEXT photographed by Edwards and designed by Christenson, and logo designs (which appear in printed materials and on T-shirts) for Kutumaini, a nonprofit international advocacy group based in the Pacific Northwest aimed at empowering youth to advocate for the educational needs of children in Africa.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

These charities are seeking photographer volunteers. For photographers interested in donating time and talent to good causes, there are many opportunities, but selectivity varies among organizations. © greg barrett / heartgallerynyc.org Danny, who awaits adoption, was photographed by Greg Barrett for the New York chapter of the Heart Gallery. Danny is an excellent athlete and his dream is to become an NFL player. The nationwide Heart Gallery of America recruits volunteer photographers to capture the spirit and personalities of children who need adoptive homes. Volunteer criteria varies by chapter (listed at heartgalleryofamerica.org). © martin schoeller Do1Thing helps kids who age out of foster care at 18 and then often end up homeless. The project recruits leading commercial photographers like Martin Schoeller, who took the photos above. Do1Thing was the title of the 2009 project of the New Jersey chapter of Heart Gallery, which is particularly selective. The goal of the project is to raise awareness and provide help for teens who have aged out of the foster care system and become homeless. "We want great photography," says chapter co-founder Najlah Feanny Hicks. "We want to give the kids as much exposure as we can, so we recruit the best photographers." Among the photographers and writers who participated in the Do1Thing project were 32 Pulitzer Prize winners. Do1Thing has turned into an ongoing project with a life of its own, so Heart Gallery will consider posting additional stories about individual kids in need if a photographer takes the initiative to produce the story and submit it. If you're interested in helping with future projects, send an e-mail to najlah@najlahfeanny.com. Heart Gallery of New Jersey will contact the photographers it wants to work with in 2010, she says. More details can be found at Do1Thing.org. © kevin cooke / flashes of hope Flashes of Hope uses volunteer photographers to shoot portraits of children who have life-threatening illnesses. Above: An image by Kevin Cooke. Flashes of Hope assigns volunteer photographers to shoot portraits of children with life threatening illnesses. Because the kids are sometimes disfigured, Flashes of Hope prefers established commercial photographers over wedding and portrait photographers, says photo manager Natalie Kontur. Commercial shooters, she explains, "tend to be better prepared for any situation they might encounter at the hospital." Most Flashes of Hope volunteers are ASMP members because the organization reached out to ASMP chapters for volunteers when it expanded nationwide several years ago. "We let in ASMP members, even if they mainly do food," Kontur says. But other professional photographers are admitted on the basis of their credentials, including published work, membership in APA and other organizations, and the quality of portfolio work that they present. Details at flashesofhope.org/volunteer/photographer. © courtesy of sandy puc Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep provides bereaved parents with keepsake portraits of their deceased infants. "To be sure that a family will not be disappointed, we have to take all precautions that our photographers are able to create professional level images," the organization says. It has a committee of photographers that grades portfolios of would-be volunteers on lighting, posing, creativity and other criteria. Applicants must score 35 points out of a possible 100 in order to qualify. Once accepted, photographers have to agree to a code of conduct and pay an annual administrative fee of $25. Details are at nowilaymedowntosleep.org

FURTHER INFORMATION

To learn more or to donate to the organizations mentioned in this story: Nuru Project: nuruproject.org Facing Climate Change: facingclimatechange.org V-Day: vday.org UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict: stoprapenow.org Compassionate Eye Foundation: compassionateeye.org LEAD Uganda: stephenshames.org leaduganda.org Proof: Media for Social Justice: proofmsj.org XDRTB: xdrtb.org Foundation Rwanda: foundationrwanda.org Emote360: emote360.org