Photography

Photography is the product/service that Our Living Yearbook uses to put the “Fun” in fundraising.

There are two major components of OLYB. The first is the integration of proprietary security software with the leading consumer photo-hosting site. This integration provides unsurpassed security for hosting photos of children at school, which is a “non-negotiable” component of this product/service. With on-line security assured, and photo access limited to parents and families of a school, parents or teachers can take photos that can be made available to other parents. These photos offer glimpses of daily school life to parents who are working and the purchase of the donated photos raises much needed development money for the school. Development using Our Living Yearbook represents the “next advance” in fund-raising because the funds raised come from the delivery of a valuable, personal service to families instead of another “sale” such as magazines, candy, flowers, food, t-shirts, etc. The second photographic component of the Our Living Yearbook business model is the “re-engineering” of the annual photo day so that most of the profit from the annual school portraits goes to support the school rather than supporting photography service companies.

The annual photo day is “re-engineered” with two main features.

1) Making the school the “owner” of the photos (which allows the school to use the photos when and how they want), and

2) replacing the old “envelope ordering” process with state of the art, on-line hosting and ordering. The annual portraits hosted on-line remain protected behind our proprietary log-in security software.

The Our Living Yearbook business model endorses the use of local, professional photographers instead of a national photography companies. Instead of the photography company “owning” the photos, the school “owns” them. Local, professional photographers are paid a fee to take and edit the photos, and to deliver the photos to the school in a timely manner. The portraits are then posted on-line for parents to view and order. 20 years ago, technology was not available to make secure, on-line hosting a possibility. Today, on-line hosting is preferred by most parents, and the secure firewall that we put in front of the photos makes the convenience of on-line hosting possible.

During 5 years of development, Our Living Yearbook confirmed through market research that independent, local photographers are willing and pleased to participate in this “re-engineered” process for annual school portrait photography. Local, professional photographers make a living with studio portraiture and wedding photography, so building a relationship with schools and their families is of extreme marketing value to photographers. Testimonials of endorsement from independent, local photographers are available on this site.