Creative Cogitation

I have been read­ing a Linked-In thread (lurk­ing really) about art mar­ket­ing; it headed off on this tan­gent that I found near and dear to my heart:  Char­i­ties that solicit art dona­tions.  This topic brings up a very unpleas­ant memory.

I par­tic­i­pated in a  juried art show/art mar­ket.  They required a jury fee, booth fee, and a dona­tion of art­work to the silent auc­tion.  They asked for the value of the art­work donated and required it be sim­i­lar to what I would have on dis­play for sale in my booth. Because they asked the artwork’s value I assumed they would use the infor­ma­tion. It was my first time par­tic­i­pat­ing in such an event so I for­give myself my ignorance.

I was unaware they did not set a min­i­mum price, had I known I would have pur­chased by big beau­ti­ful piece myself, or just donated some­thing that I needed to clean out of my closet.  By the time I knew what was going on the auc­tion was over; they sold a 18x24 inch mat­ted and framed orig­i­nal paint­ing for $15.00.  The value of mate­ri­als alone was close to $100 and at the time I rou­tinely sold pieces in that size for $400.  On top if it all, the orga­ni­za­tion did not want to give me the name of the per­son who pur­chased my art at that bar­gain base­ment price.

I didn’t sell much of any­thing at the art mar­ket either.  Why would some­body pay full price when they could bid on the equiv­a­lent silently and pick it up for a song? I was offended on sev­eral lev­els: first they severely deval­ued my art­work for me and my col­lec­tors by sell­ing it at such a cheap price, sec­ondly they com­peted unfairly with me, a pay­ing ven­dor.  Ever since then I will not par­tic­i­pate in a char­i­ta­ble event if I am not allowed to set a min­i­mum bid, unfor­tu­nately a large num­ber of char­i­ties will not allow an artist to do this.

So what’s the problem?

• When an artist donates their own art, they are only allowed to write off the cost of mate­ri­als for tax pur­poses.  The tax­man gives you, the artist,  no value for your time. And if your mate­ri­als exceed $500 you will have to get extra doc­u­men­ta­tion for your records from the char­ity to write off an amount greater than $500.  There is a severe inequity in the way art dona­tions from artists are treated from other types of dona­tions.  But most char­i­ties seem com­pletely obliv­i­ous to this fact.
• Some say an artist gets expo­sure from char­i­ties, but in my expe­ri­ence, unless the char­ity lists the artists in  the brochure and in their mar­ket­ing, some­thing that rarely hap­pens, the artist don’t get any mar­ket­ing value for their dona­tion.  Go ahead look at the spam email for the next black tie art auc­tion — do you see the con­tribut­ing artists’ names anywhere?
• Many char­i­ties will not give you a por­tion of the pro­ceeds from the sale, so you are out your any income you might have derived from the sale of the art­work, but also time and mate­ri­als as well.  You really are giv­ing it all away.  Maybe you are bet­ter of just writ­ing a check for $20 instead? Its prob­a­bly a cheaper way to get a warm fuzzy if you feel you need one.
• Finally if the char­ity severely under­cuts your stan­dard pric­ing they are devalu­ing your art’s value for you and your col­lec­tors.  You must defend your rep­u­ta­tion. You must be allowed to set a min­i­mum price such that your art does not sell well below mar­ket value.

So how does this play out in the real world? When a char­ity does not allow a min­i­mum price and does not share pro­ceeds, some artists will sup­ply some­thing com­pletely rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the best that they have to offer, but other par­tic­i­pants may chose to clean out their closet instead. This means the char­ity winds up with a mix of good work and kicked-in-the-corner ama­teurism, which will drive down auc­tion prices.  Sec­ond the col­lec­tors that show for a bar­gain base­ment auc­tion are not going to be fork­ing over big bucks to the char­ity any­way. Allow­ing the artists to set a min­i­mum price raises the bar. Face it, ama­teur work and black tie affairs are not a good match; when a char­ity sets a stan­dard such that patrons know they will see­ing qual­ity art­work, the char­ity will develop rep­u­ta­tion as a place to go to for great art­work, which is win/win for the artist and the charity.

Resist the urge to clean out your closet.  Remem­ber you have a rep­u­ta­tion to build and maintain.

There is a sea­son when I am lit­er­ally bom­barded by requests to donate art.  Obvi­ously you can’t give it all away for free, no mat­ter how much you believe in a given charity’s cause.  Assum­ing you do decide to donate your art you should be very thought­ful about it-chose wor­thy causes that will play win/win with you.  If you donate 3 paint­ings a year and pro­duce 50 — you are giv­ing away 6% of your out­put and what­ever income that rep­re­sents as well as the mate­ri­als and time atten­dant to the pro­duc­tion, can you afford to give that much away?  You should never donate money or goods when you can’t afford to-you do not want to become a char­ity yourself.

Back to this forum thread I was read­ing on linked in… I ran across this canned response for char­i­ties seek­ing art and I found it to be per­fect.  An artist named Drew Bro­phy who paints surf­boards came up with it and I think its a per­fect response for char­i­ties who want artists to donate art.

“<Artist’s Name> CHARITABLE DONATION GUIDELINES

Thank you for the oppor­tu­nity to donate art to your orga­ni­za­tion.  <Artist’s Name> would be hon­ored to have his/her art­work and his/her name asso­ci­ated with yours.

Due to the extremely heavy vol­ume of requests from many impor­tant char­i­ties, we’ve devel­oped guide­lines that enable us to donate art­work at less than retail cost.

These require­ments also help us reduce losses since cur­rent U.S.  tax laws are unfa­vor­able to artist dona­tions.  (There is lit­tle to no write-off for donated artwork.)

Please con­sider that by offer­ing these terms for all artist dona­tions, your orga­ni­za­tion will: Attract top qual­ity, high value art­work and over time will become known as the go-to-organization for unique and valu­able art.

Our dona­tion guide­lines are:

• The orga­ni­za­tion agrees to split the pro­ceeds from the sale or auc­tion 50/50 (50% to <Artist’s Name> and 50% to the orga­ni­za­tion). (You can require less of a per­cent­age, but in gen­eral you should require some­thing of the sale’s price be paid to you)
• We ask for pay­ment within 5 busi­ness days of the sale.
• The name, address, phone and e-mail of the buyer will be pro­vided to <Artist’s Name> for his/her “collector’s club” records.
• A min­i­mum or a reserve price will be set and will be des­ig­nated by <Artist’s Name>.  (This is required to honor the value of the art­work for our exist­ing col­lec­tors and our part­ner galleries.)
• In the event the art­work does not sell, it will be returned by the orga­ni­za­tion to <Artist’s Name>‘s stu­dio City, State within 9 busi­ness days.

If these guide­lines are agree­able to you, please sign below and return this form via e-mail to <artists email address> We agree to the above terms:

Sig­na­ture __________________________________
Name, Title______________________ Date _______ ”

Together artists and char­i­ties can cre­ate a sce­nario that is win/win/win for the artist, the char­ity and the artist’s collectors.

What do you think?  Do you have a char­ity art dona­tion hor­ror story?  Do you know of a char­ity that “does it right?”  Speak up and be heard.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

The art work in this blog is fed­er­ally copy­righted. All repro­duc­tion and pub­lish­ing copy­rights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imi­tated, derived OR oth­er­wise used in any form with­out the explicit writ­ten per­mis­sion of the artist.