Painting for NPO's

I'm all for helping out in the community when I can, and I have a hard time saying no when asked to do something, but I've come to the conclusion I have to have a stopping point somewhere. I've already done 2 non profit gigs this year donating my time and supplies. One was a Teddy Bear Picnic this summer in the park, and the Relay for Life just recently. Now I've been approached by the Catholic school in my area concerning a fund raiser coming up in a couple weeks. The organizer contacted me because I painted her kids in the park, and her kids loved it. She said she would understand if I couldn't do it and would be willing to negotiate a price. I thought about maybe doing it if they would allow me to set out a tip jar to help cover the cost of paints, but have never done that before. I need some feedback please, and any ideas you may have or how anybody has handled situations like this in the past. Thanks! All comments welcomed!

from my website:

Fundraising Events
I would love to help you with your fundraising efforts! While I am unable to donate my time and materials for free (there are just too many fantastic causes that I want to support), I have worked out two different options for charity events:
~ Pay Per Face (raising money for you): I will appear at your event to do face painting while charging my standard "pay per face" rates to the patrons of the event. At the end of the event 50% of the collected money benefits your group/charity and the rest covers my costs and materials.
~ Discounted Hourly (free for patrons): I can offer you a discounted hourly rate since it is a fundraiser. This would mean that my payment would come out of your budget, but you could choose to sell tickets for whatever price you choose to regain some of that cost.

Hope that helps give you some ideas

Thanks, this does give me options!

Fundraising Events
I would love to help you with your fundraising efforts! While I am unable to donate my time and materials for free (there are just too many fantastic causes that I want to support), I have worked out two different options for charity events:
~ Pay Per Face (raising money for you): I will appear at your event to do face painting while charging my standard "pay per face" rates to the patrons of the event. At the end of the event 50% of the collected money benefits your group/charity and the rest covers my costs and materials.
~ Discounted Hourly (free for patrons): I can offer you a discounted hourly rate since it is a fundraiser. This would mean that my payment would come out of your budget, but you could choose to sell tickets for whatever price you choose to regain some of that cost.

Hope that helps give you some ideas [/quote]

I agree with Perry about the discounted hourly rate. Most of the time they'll be happy to know that they're getting a *special* discount. At the very least, state that you need $XX to help cover the cost of your supplies. That way if the event is a flop, you'll at least not be losing money on your supplies.

I have a non-profit discount that I offer at my discretion... which has actually not been offered in the last year. Now I offer any non-profit my special of 4 hours of painting for the price of 3 1/4 hours. Most take it.

The only organization that still gets my old discount of 60% of my regular rate is the SuperCities Walk for MS (my sister has MS) - but I've been painting at the event for, um... I think 7 years now so I just leave it the way it was (although I DID increase my rate to them when my regular rate increased.)

I painted for the farmer's market a couple of times (several managers ago!) - they paid my non-profit rate (the old one!) and I was allowed to put out a tip jar. As people thought I was painting for tips they ALL put in something and generally I ended up earning what I would have at full price.

BUT if you work ONLY for tips at an event and intend to split the proceeds.... DON'T! IMO it doesn't work very well - the one time I did it, it was total disaster and complete waste of my time.

Possible arrangements you could make:

You are paid your full rate, they charge people for painting.
You are paid your full rate, Tip jar with suggested minimum is put out, they get it all.
You are paid a discounted rate, and put out a tip jar which is split with the event.
You are paid a discounted rate, put out a tip jar that you keep, and they sell tickets.
You work PPF and agree to give them 10-15% of your PROFIT (not your NET!!) 50% is WAY too much IMO - but it is entirely up to you.

Remember ... YOU are not an NPO!! And try to get some sort of tangible return for your efforts if you do decide to "donate"... I have an article about it on my resources page called "When is Free Not Free" - the link is in my signature.

If they are "willing to negotiate a price" then it sounds like they plan to pay you. So I'd quote them a price (discounted if you want, I don't always discount schools especially since there are LOTS of kids that need to be painted and it's a lot of work).

I just changed my pricing around & will no longer be doing PPF where 1/2 the $ goes to the org & 1/2 to me. It's now more like 15%. I'm finding the amount of work is way too much & I'm losing too much $ from turned down full price jobs.

I still paint for a major discount for my church & 2 orgs that are close to my heart.
I wish I could fall in love w/ all charities & paint for nothing for them, but in reality, it would put me out of business & then, who'd paint for them?

Well, I emailed them back using a couple of your suggestions. Have not gotten a response as of yet. Why is it people think we should paint for free? I don't get that! I do hope I hear something back soon, but not holding my breath, and will NOT break down and do it for free!

Well, they came back and said what I was asking for would not work. They wanted me to paint for $1.00 per face....my final offer to them was a flat fee of which would be less than I do 2 birthday parties for, and this is for 4 hours! I feel like I'm the bad guy in this

I sure wish I would have read this post before I agreed to paint faces for free at a fund raising event and put a tip jar out. BIG MISTAKE. I was painting full face designs and everyone was loving it. Parents came with 3 and 4 kids. I was busy all day. When it came time to count out the tip jar....I was blown away!!!!!! There were just a bunch of ones and MAYBE one $10 bill. I could not believe it. I will not work for tips again at any fund raising event unless I specifically give a dollar amount donation. I love to support the cause but people take advantage of you and you end up burning out.

You are NOT the bad guy. You are a business person with expenses... and generally $1 per face DOES NOT COVER EXPENSES!

You have done your share of charity events, do NOT feel guilty. Turn them down if they are not going to accept your very generous offer.

You are in no way obligated to TRY to even accommodate them.

No, you're not being mean. They are probably doing the same thing with many other face painters. I know they're a not for profit & you want to think they're nice, but they are trying to take advantage of you.

When they do this to me & try to call the shots I just reply, "Sorry, I can not work for so little. My product cost, insurance, advertising, etc. is too high to give my services away for free. I would be putting myself out of a job. Thank you for considering me & I'm still willing to work with you if you ever need me."

I have almost put myself out of business w/ too many people like that.

Thanks for all the responses, tomorrow will tell.......I can really blame this on one little girl I painted once. When she looked in the mirrior, she said "OH, I love you!!" and gave me a kiss on the cheek. From then on I didn't care if I got paid or not....(well, not really, but she stole my heart!)

I did a fund raiser recently for the local animal shelter. There was a Fashion Show put on in the Local Mall, and there were a lot of businesses that donated. My dd was in the Fashion Show, so I had to be there anyways.
So I set up at 12 pm and painted till the Fashion Show at 4 pm. It was suppose to be half of the painting profits, but I painted very little and had little to show except $17. in face money and $5. in tips. Yes, you heard me right, it was a terrible long afternoon, with three faces painted.
I ended up giving all the money $22. to them because I felt so bad. At least I know it's going to a good cause.
I think it must of been the weather, it was a beautiful day out.

My experience working for tips for a fundraiser is remarkably similar... I painted for 9 hours straight with no breaks at all, grand total of $82.67 in the jar... for NINE HOURS WORK!! And I was painting steady so it wasn't like there weren't enough people.

The deal was 50/50 split... I gave them $40.

That was years ago and I've never done "free for tips" since.

well they came back with the response of not needing my services....now I feel like a complete heel!! I'm wondering if I should have just taken my Starblend paints (dry paints) and my black for detail and done it anyway if they would have allowed me to do it for tips.....something better than nothing? I mean at least I could hand out business cards, possibly book some parties?? I would hate for word to go around I was not willing to help out at all.... I FEEL SO BAD!!

don't feel bad. You can't pay for your paints on tips and you can't help anyone at all if you can't keep painting. By charging to cover your expenses is the only way you can offer anything at all. This is a business, not a charity itself. When you are busy and making a lot of profits, you can elect to do one or two events for free, but tips alone never cover expenses.

Don't waste your time feeling bad. It is the church's loss not your own. You can't give your services away for free everytime someone asks you to, you know? We teach people how to treat us and a lot of the time we let guilt convince us to teach them to treat us badly. I did one free event for a group in my city last year and in appreciation, they let everyone in their network know that I'd donated my time and products. My reward was bombardment with calls about my donating my services. Surely those people knew that if I gave my services away free to everyone I wouldn't be able to stay in business, but the general consensus was ... "it never hurts to ask". Now everyone gets charged...the charities I care deeply about will at least cover my materials cost.

You have to protect yourself against this type of emotional reaction. You will suffocate under the weight of lackluster appreciation otherwise.

i just want to say that just b/c they are a non-profit, doesnt mean that they do not have an expense account. It just means that the money they receive gets put into their respective accounts and the business/church/organization doesnt make extra money. Example: If the org is receiving $20,000 from a grant, then they propose $5,000 is for salary, $5,000 utilities, $5,000 supplies, $5,000 other expenses, etc...If the church wanted to, they could ask the congregation to put $$ in an envelope to help pay for the face painter, etc...I've worked for several NPOs and most have a budge and I give them a 20% discount, which they then make-up for by having a tip jar that says"all proceeds go to xxx".

oh no - DON"T FEEL BAD!!! I recently had a very well know NPO ask me to donate my services - I stupidly agreed without even asking them to cover my products or my travel. A week before I found out they had gone to book a friend of mine - paying her full rate.... then I agreed to do it for free - like an idiot.
They could afford it but were trying to get out of it. Very sad.
Needless to say I wrote them an email saying they were welcome to hire the other painter as they obviously had the funds in their budget!
I don't feel bad - I would have if I found out afterward they could have paid me and wouldn't.
Pick your charities that mean something to you... offer your services to them and tell everyone else you already have you allocated charities, but you can offer a slightly discounted rate in return for promotion opportunities.
Once again - Don't feel bad because they don't value your service!!!
We know how invaluable we really are!.... smiles are priceless!
Besides next month you will have them knocking on your door again and you get to go through this all over again ! *sigh

Thank you all for your comments and input. I have no doubt they could afford to pay something if they wanted to. They do a fundraiser every year where they sell tickets for $100.00 each for a chance to win $100,000,00, so I know they have funds. I said I wouldn't back down and do it for nothing, and I won't. I have some potential prospects I'll be contacting tomorrow......once again, thanks to all!

I too offer a discount, and only free for organizations I really support, like animal rescue groups, and usually off season. $1 per face is way too cheap, that's like $15 per hour LOL. Ask them if they'll let you send your kids to their school $1 each per day and see what they say.

Do not feel bad. I have had several groups ask me to work for free. I just don't do it. $1 a face is like working for free. It will not cover cost. I usually offer my discount rate or fundraiser rate which is like pslambooks rate. I give them 10 to 15% after I take out cost of supplies. I give a % of profits. I recently thought of offering some freebies to a couple of daycares or something for advertising. I thought it might help me to generate some new business since I want to go full time with this. I really am trying to book my calender for next year up as much as I can. But, I thought of approaching the schools and churches with my fundraiser prices instead. Our town offers a cool thing called nightmare on Gay street, I was asked to paint and I gave a discounted rate. She could not afford even the discounted rate so, I offered to set up and charge the customer instead of them...it was already advertised as free events so...she told me that next year she would try to get money in the budget for me to paint and do balloons. We will just have to see if they do.

I want to encourage you because this is your business and you have to make solid decisions that are best for your business. People (including churches) will want free, but you just can't succeed and thrive on everything being free. Some will walk away and some will stay...You made a good choice for your business today. Yay for you!

Sorry for the hokey rhyme... but it is true!