We can’t tell you how excited we are to see Help-Portrait roll around, because this is our 5th year! This is a huge milestone for our community, which spans 67 countries now!

We know you’ve been planning, fundraising and organizing in anticipation for Dec. 7. Thank you for your level of dedication, teamwork and compassion. Once the doors swing open, hearts will as well. We can’t wait to hear the stories that come from these events in just a little more than a week.

As Help-Portrait 2013 begins in just a few short days, we wanted to give you a few reminders.

EVENT REPORTING

Most importantly, don’t forget to track and report your numbers. We’re looking for the number of photographers, volunteers and portraits given. At the end of the event, head over to http://helpportrait.wpengine.com/report/ and fill in the details. This allows us to share the global impact of Help-Portrait with the public, media and potential sponsors. This helps us engage more photographers so that next year, we can do even more.

MEDIA LOVE

    • We’d love to get #HelpPortrait to trend globally on Twitter Saturday so be sure to use that hashtag.
    • We’ve seen that many of you have already gotten wonderful media coverage in your local papers and from local news stations. We’d love to see and keep a record of these links. Send us the details using this form Help-Portrait Press so we can share it with community.
    • OKDOTHIS, a new photo- and idea-sharing app from HP founder Jeremy Cowart, is going to be a great way to share Help-Portrait. There’s already a slew of photo ideas and prompts, called “DOs,” on the @helpportrait profile page for behind the scenes pictures at our events, how to take better pictures, ways to interact with the subjects — and more are being added daily. The goal is to create community of ideas through the DOs that OKDOTHIS provides. Take and share the photos you create, and post your own ideas for DOs! It’s easy, fun, idea-inspiring and adds a new level of social media sharing for our events this year.
    • Create a CNN iReport for your Help-Portrait location! We’ve got a step-by-step tutorial on our blog. At your local event, capture a compelling brief video or photo(s) or so of what’s happening. Give an overview of your event and interview an organizer or participant about what the day has meant to them (don’t forget to get release forms signed).

SHARING PHOTOS

Lastly, we can’t wait to see your photos this year. Whether you upload on your personal blog, local Help-Portrait site, Facebook, Flickr or other means, please make sure to include the Help-Portrait watermark, get the proper release forms signed, and include “Help_Portrait” in the file titles so we can see the photos when doing a Google Image Search.

We’re anticipating great things this year. Let’s go!

-Kyle & the Help-Portrait team