Flickr Donation Program

The Flickr photo sharing service has teamed up with TechSoup Stock to offer premium "pro" accounts to individuals within eligible organizations. The pro accounts are available in packages of either two or five accounts. Organizations must assign these accounts to individuals over 18 years of age, and the accounts will remain assigned to those individuals even if they leave the organization. For details on eligibility requirements, see the Flickr Restrictions.

Flickr is a Web site for photo storage, sharing, and organization, designed to make photo management an easy, natural, and collaborative process. Flickr stores over two billion photos taken by members all over the world. Communication tools let users get comments, notes, and tags on their photos, post them to any blog, share them, and more. Members can also share videos up to 90 seconds long. See Flickr's FAQ for much more information.

Because Flickr is a Yahoo! company, each donation recipient must have a Yahoo! account, either an existing one or a new one. A new Yahoo! account is easily obtainable via the Flickr home page with the Create Your Account button. This Yahoo! account is used to sign in to Flickr and is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Use.

Uses for Outreach and Community Building:

Flickr is a new way for organizations to tell their story. With a Flickr account, individuals can showcase and chronicle their organization's work through their own photography. For example, by creating a group photo pool and encouraging discussions, Flickr members can build awareness of an organization's work. Members can also provide a link to their organization's Web site in their Flickr profiles. Conversely, the organization's Web site can stream Flickr photos, such as the photos below from the TechSoup group pool.

Uses Within Organizations:

Flickr members can store all their photographs of their organization's work in one place if they have the legal right to do so. Account holders can upload photos to Flickr from anywhere in the world. The photos can be organized into sets and collections, and they can be tagged for easy searching. Another tool that organizations can use internally is a Flickr group. In a private group, only group members and those who have been invited can view the group page. Groups can also be completely public or public by invitation only.

Examples:

Here are two examples of nonprofits that have used Flickr successfully:

• Interplast has received more than 725,000 views of its photos of free reconstructive surgery for children in underserved regions of 16 countries.
• Idealist uses photos to further its mission of connecting people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives.

Permissions:

Individuals must post only their own images or the images of someone who has given them permission to post them, which often includes giving appropriate credit to the original photographer. Photos from publications or downloaded from elsewhere on the Web are not allowed.

Flickr members can give several different levels of permission for others to use their work including All Rights Reserved and Creative Commons licenses.

If desired, photos do not have to be public. They can be visible only to the member or visible to other members designated as friends or family. Photos can also be shared with nonmembers via a "guest pass." The member can also designate who is allowed to comment on the photos or tag them.

Flickr International:

Not in the United States? International partner nongovernmental organizations offer Flickr donations to individuals in eligible organizations in the following countries:

• Australia
• Hong Kong
• United Kingdom

Streamed Photos from the TechSoup Group Pool

More photos in TechSoup