Creative workers are, for some reason, the one class of workers that lots of people think it’s totally cool to solicit volunteer work from. Here’s a thread about when and how to offer volunteer work as a creative person.

First Rule: If anyone but you initiates, immediate NO.

Here are the conditions under which you might consider volunteer creative work:

  1. You dictate the terms of engagement
  2. You control the creative work itself
  3. You believe in the people and/or the cause

Before I elaborate… more on solicitations of volunteer creative work.

When was the last time you saw “I’m going to have a competition to see which cleaning company can clean my house the most thoroughly. Winner gets recognized as winning.”

“Hey, you guys got mops, right?”

But people do this to creative workers all the time.

There’s an assumption that creative work isn’t really work, that it’s just fun and you’re lucky to be doing it.

While it may be fun and we may be lucky to be doing it, it’s work, and as a matter of fact, it’s usually really time- and focus-intensive work.

Making matters worse, the time and attention needed to complete a creative task is always somewhat unclear (unless you’re a caricature artist at a carnival with a definite start and end time, or comparable).

This is why the first rule is so important: You dictate the terms.

“1. You dictate the terms” means you decide exactly how much time you’re going to spend on the volunteer work, when, how, and what you need from them. All of it.

And because you are the creative person being asked for free work, you MUST absolutely control the creative choices.

“2. You control the creative work” is NOT OPTIONAL. If they want to tell you how to best do your job, they’re welcome to pay you. A bit of irony here: Keeping creative ownership will get better results for them anyway (you know it). And you want results, because of the last rule—

“3. You believe in the people and/or the cause.” This is how you start. Find the coolest, most bad-ass nonprofit in town (or in the world) that needs their story told better (this is most of them). Find what inspires YOU and go to them and say “Here’s what I want to do for you.”

This is what I did 10 years back when I moved to Wilmington, Delaware with no clients, no contacts, no prospects. I sought out the coolest nonprofit in town. I called them. After their initial shock, they said “Well… actually we need a new website, and a video sounds nice too.”

Now, not only was I suddenly connected to some great, interesting people with whom I’ve made longterm friendships, but it turns out they were already connected to other cool, interesting people.

I found myself working on a website with the coolest kids in town, House Industries.

I made videos I was proud of, with full creative control, about a workforce development nonprofit whose model is the most successful in the nation, and now I’m on the board (and yes, the relationships I built there have also led to lots of paid work).

So, to sum up: Creative volunteer work CAN be a really good thing to do, but make sure 1. You are the one who sets the clear terms of the commitment, 2. You control the creative (COMPLETELY), and 3. You’re helping great people and/or a great cause.

Anything else is exploitation.

And giant, unlimitedly-capitalized brands (like Doritos) who hold “contests” to solicit people to make free ads for them are reprehensible scum, and this is not debatable.