[Leica] Leica donation to students

[leicagalpal at earthlink.net (Kit McChesney)]

Ted--

I think that if a foundation (nonprofit) were formed to specifically address
issues about photography/photo history education, and Leica were its primary
donor and sponsor, and provided services to the foundation, the tax issues
would probably be of no concern. Every major US corporation has foundations
that do just this. When I worked in telecom, the company I worked for
(USWest/Qwest, in Denver) had a foundation. They did charitable work in the
community (well, once the company became Qwest they stopped doing it), and
also donated computers that had been used by the employees, refurbished, to
schools and community organizations. They weren't all that outdated, but
machines that have to function on networks tend to go obsolete more quickly
because of software compatibility issues, etc., so it wasn't worth the
company's time to sell them, but to donate them, yet, it received a tax
benefit from that. 

Imagine what an organization like that, properly run, could do. Let's call
it Leica Educational Foundation, or LEF, for fun. What would happen if LEF
created a program that would allow universities/colleges to bring well-known
photogs to their schools for a week of intensive seminars? I developed and
organized a program like this in 94/95 for the University of Colorado Dept
of Fine Arts, where a series of top-notch art historians were invited to
visit over the course of one semester. Approx every other week, a new
historian, usually one who had recently published a ground-breaking book,
would visit for the public lecture, seminars, and direct meetings with
students. On the off-weeks, a professor at the school was the designated
instructor for the course, and led the students in the study and discussion
of the upcoming visitor's work. The program was a great success, a win-win
for everyone. The university is given the chance to enhance its offerings,
the scholar got exposure, the faculty member gets credit for organizing and
running the program. Everyone wins. If LEF could do this, Leica itself could
pull just about any photog into the program they'd want and provide
advertising for it, as well as a traveling show of the photog's work, or a
series of artists' works (kind of a traveling Leica Gallery) to be shown
during the semester of the visits; the hotshot tenure-seeking faculty member
on site could get kudos for organizing and writing grants (the money to pay
the visitor could come primarily from the school itself via grants, which
are in abundance at most schools if one knows how to get grant money--and
believe me, academics are VERY good at this kind of thing); students provide
all the transportation and visitor liaison 'services' for the visitor (they
get to take him/her to dinner, to sightsee, to the coffee shop to talk, etc,
maybe the visitor is housed in the home of a faculty member or someone in
the community who just wants to be involved?), and then the series is called
the Leica Educational Foundation Photographer Series, or something like
that? The public is invited to a lecture in the locale of the school, the
local newspaper gets a chance to interview a famous photographer ... I think
this could be a great idea, and it is more than feasible, because I've done
it. And it has far-reaching effects, too. Imagine how many schools would
love to see a lineup of speakers once a year with big, or even medium-sized,
names. We recently had James Nachtwey here at CU for the Conference of World
Affairs. Why couldn't an LEF do something similar? 

If they want someone to run it, I know a few people who would be interested!
;-)

Kit 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+leicagalpal=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+leicagalpal=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Ted Grant
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 7:58 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: [Leica] Leica donation to students

B. D.,
I think Kit's concept of a camera donated for nothing more than a tax
receipt is wonderful.

I mean Leica get "free cameras" to refurbish and in most cases it wouldn't
be more than a quick check over, wiped down and ready to hand out to some on
the way kid showing potential talent.

The student is hooked and becomes a new life long Leica customer and all for
next to nothing than giving them a free camera or for a few dollars. Now the
IRS may have other ideas about the tax credit, but surely it's an idea worth
trying if it means they're building a market future, than the damn silliness
of the hand pictures by so called "great photographers!" And worse, the bull
shit espoused by some the owners of the hands.

But when you go back over the past twenty years or so of promotion, a small
company or not, they've had some of the most dumb assed advertising in the
world. And I don't have any doubt it's part of the Germanic mind set of
still living in the '20's and '30's and not moving with the times.

As I said in a previous post one merely needs to do a presentation to a
photographic school and there are no Leica's! OK maybe some kind of pre-M
body that only fuels the idea a Leica is an ancient camera for old people!

Worse? They don't have any idea about how valuable a tool the camera can be
in their photography. Canon and Nikon have sucked there brains out with
promotion and press button gizmos that do everything. But the one thing no
camera can do, put the most important element to the operation
...............the ability to"SEE!"

But this topic and concept wont go anywhere but our screens, because in
Solms the top people wont listen seriously as they "KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS!"

By the same token maybe there are rules and tax regulations blocking this
kind of idea. But surely it's so imaginative and simple without costing a
great deal of money to make it work, one would think Leica would jump on the
idea immediately and get the ball rolling.

Oh well we're mere mortals so what do we know about marketing. :-(
ted


_______________________________________________
Leica Users Group.
See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information