Donating Photos to a Non-Profit Organization
Advance Note: It seems like the right thing to do, donate your lifelong collection of photos to a local college, university or museum, sit back, and wait for the accolades to start pouring in. While the non-profit frequently is eager to accept your donation,
Twenty-five years ago a museum offered to store a significant artistic/historical collection of photographs of mine. The museum is a small but significant private facility, and there was a social relationship between myself and the museum director. No paperwork was offered or asked for. I recently requested the collection back, and the new director of the museum indicated in a letter that the collection cannot be found, although several other interim museum directors remember the photos in the archives.
Any suggestions for legal assistance?
Steve Ames
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An attorney would no doubt be able to help you if you can gather witnesses, diaries, written quotes from museum employees, and other documentation such as correspondence, or photos of your photos, etc. that record your situation. As in all disputes, firm evidence is issue number one. Hearsay won't work in a court of law.But your experience brings up something important as we move into the digital age.
Photographers with an important collection of photographs, either acquired or developed by themselves over the years, no longer have to first expect to just donate their historical collection to a museum, university, or similar non-profit organization.
The new practice in our industry will be to place such a collection as an annuity, with a family member, a colleague, or an employee, as custodian of the files. The collection can begin working right away for the photographer by utilizing an on-line database such as the PhotoSourceBANK http://www.photosource.com/bank where photo researchers go to locate specific
Your experience with the museum is not uncommon. Non-profit organizations have been known to readily accept photographic collections, only to store them away in a basement closet. A generation later, a worker discovers the carton of photos, all damaged by humidity and neglect, trashes them, and makes room for the cycle to repeat itself. Unless you can get a firm (in writing) commitment from an organization to protect your photo collection in storage, avoid the arrangement. Instead, market them yourself or arrange for a colleague to do it and split the profits.
THE VALUE
Can a donation to a non-profit organization be used as a write-off? The IRS looks at artwork (which includes photos, both vintage and contemporary) as pieces of replaceable paper. Only if you have sold a particular photo for a certain price and can document the sale with a receipt, will the IRS consider the intrinsic value of the pictures. Otherwise, they place very little value (limited to the cost to reprint the image) on a photo. A museum or university might have a development officer able to place a value to your photo collection (an educated guess), but whether that value could serve as a tax write-off might be challenged by the IRS.Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA E-mail: info@photosource.com Fax: 1 715 248 7394 Web site: www.photosource.com
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