Photo from 2011 Grant Recipient MICA’s Center for Design Practice work for Real Food Farm.
For over 10 years Sappi Fine Paper North America has sponsored a call for entries for their Ideas that Matter grant program. According to the website, “Ideas that Matter has funded over 500 nonprofit projects, contributing $12 million worldwide to causes that enhance our lives, our communities and our planet. Sappi believes that the creative ideas of designers can have an impact beyond the aesthetic and that those ideas can be a powerful force for social good.”
Image from Scott Santoro’s project for the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault won an Ideas that Matter grant in 2007.
A few general rules outline the guidelines for entry. Grant funds must be used within six months of receipt of award. Any designer, design student, design instructor or design group can apply for the grants, and at least a portion of the communications project has to be printed in some way. These guidelines are easy to adhere to and are relatively generous, however, one caveat caught my attention. The awarded funds (a generous $5,000 to $50,000 per project) can be used to pay for printing, mailing, photography, illustration and other out-of-pocket costs, but cannot be used to compensate the designer for his or her time, computer hardware or overhead.
Now this isn’t unusual as far as “charity” design initiatives go—designers volunteer their time and efforts to help those in need every day. But in this case why should a photographer or printer get paid for their work and a designer not? Is the act itself of doing good, enough? The prospect of having a snazzy, thought-provoking portfolio piece as a form of payment for time spent preparing the proposal, gathering all the information, managing the project and doing the actual design work doesn’t seem quite fair. Any RFP in the design business includes compensation for work accomplished (whether adequate to cover actual costs or not) as part of the mix. I have to wonder if there are some type of labor or tax laws preventing this coverage in Sappi’s case. Maybe a stipulation could define a certain percentage of the grant to be used for a designer’s compensation or overhead costs. The rising cost of computer hardware and software alone are real factors in a designer’s operating budget.
Regardless, Sappi’s Ideas that Matter is a pivotal program and a well-recognized act of corporate social responsibility. Congratulations to the 2012 grant recipients:
Maria Moon
Designmatters at Art Center College of Design
The Los Angeles School District
Michael Osborne & Katy McCauley
Joey’s Corner
Wellspring
Celia Poirier
University of Connecticut
Windham Harm Reduction Coalition, Inc
Tim Ferguson Sauder
Return Design
Kestrel Educational Adventures
Marc Moscato
The Dill Pickle Club
The Dill Pickle Club
Robert Sedlack & Andrea Pellegrino
Sedlack Design Associates & Pellegrino Collaborative
University of Notre Dame, Kgosi Neighborhood Foundation and Pellegrino Collaborative
Douglas Barrett & Matt Leavell
University of Alabama at Birmingham and Alabama Innovation Engine
Cahaba River Society
Tony Ong
Fantagraphics Books
826Seattle
David Rager
David Rager Studio
The Ecology Center
Anna Rubbo, Megan Bullock, and Matthias Neumann
Global Studio, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia University
Global Studio
The IDEO.org team
IDEO.org
IDEO.org
Kenneth Botts
Visual Marketing Associates, Inc.
The Wright Family Foundation of The Dayton Foundation
Esther Chak & Mary-Jo Valentino
Imaginary Office
New Urban Arts
