Photography Fundraiser

Fundraising With Portraits

A profitable and easy fundraiser for any group is photography fundraising. Putting together a portrait fundraiser is actually quite simple. Here's some tips on how to do your own or enhance one conducted by an outside company.

Get The Picture is a name I coined for portrait event fundraisers. The idea here is to offer family portraits, glamour shots, vintage photos, and other "dressy" pictures.

You'll need a central location with plenty of room for costume changes, picture-taking backdrops, and a waiting area. The best times are usually Saturdays. Pre-sell the event with flyers and "reserved session" tickets.

You'll want to get photo commitments up front from roughly 250 people to make this really worth your while.

Your sales pitch should "Focus on the Fun:"

Or tug at the heart:

Your group can coordinate with a local photographer or partner with a national photography chain. Many offer deals where your supporters get a full-sized family portrait for $10 and your group gets that payment, plus additional performance bonuses.

Action Shots

Another great picture fundraising idea that works especially well for sports teams is selling candid shots of a playoff game or other high traffic event.  Don’t forget to get shots of the spectators too!

Ask someone with the team with camera equipment and a love of photography to take action photos during the game, award ceremony, or even season kick-off practice. Sell the photos to parents or participants for a fee that goes to the team funds.

Remember that your photographer may have expenses that will have to be reimbursed, but the cost should be nominal.

Use a collection of the pictures to create a team collage photo.

For any photo fundraiser, you can add to your take if you offer photo buttons, photo key chains, photo mugs, and so on. While it certainly makes the organization of the fundraiser more complicated, you can also add to the bottom line by offering a variety of photo options.

Having these fundraising items made can be done locally, or in the digital age, upload your digital pictures to a wide variety of companies that offer this service. 

Always get pre-paid orders before purchasing any of these items since they are usually non-returnable unless they are defective.

Combine your portrait fundraiser with another fundraising event and leverage the occasion. Whether your fundraising event is a Spring Carnival or a Casino Night, make sure that selling candid photos is part of your fundraising picture.

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