For 6 years I’ve been teaming up with Prepare + Prosper to create one of my favorite campaigns of the entire year, the #GiveToGeeks calendar to support their Give to the Max Day fundraising efforts.
Every year over 500 volunteers help P+P with tax prep for over 10,000 community members and the calendar that we create celebrates the hobbies/passions/side-hustles/inner geek of Prepare + Prosper’s volunteers, staff and customers.
Over the years we have created so many fun images highlighting everything under the sun, from Star Wars and Star Trek (always) to Harry Potter fanatics to people with their hilarious pets to shoe/yarn/makeup/gaming addictions to hidden musical talents to ultimate sports fans.
The year I started photographing this calendar for P+P they had come off of a pretty hilarious Cats Doing Taxes video that they used as a campaign to fuel Give To The Max Day, raising $32,000. Over the last 5 years they’ve built huge momentum with this calendar and have raised over $100,000 each year for the last few years, raising over half a million dollars in just this one campaign that takes place on one day out of the year.
Stacy and I joked this year that we have the same brain now because we instantly gravitate towards the same images. We secretly pick our favorites and this year we picked almost the exact same ones for every session that we did, which is a total testament to working with people for an extended period of time and really getting to know what they want + need as an organization so together you can create images that connect with people in the exact right way.
Here’s a look back at some of the classic photos from this fun campaign, where these guys walked into the studio a little apprehensive and unsure, as we all are when a camera is pointed at us, and before long they were literally jumping up and down and screaming as loud as they could. Thanks so much to everyone that’s been a part of this campaign, and thanks to Prepare + Prosper for trusting me with the imagery for your fundraising efforts; it’s a highlight every single year.
