Donating Art for Charity

Me with my artwork "Three Moon Gazing Hares" at an art show earlier this year in which 30 percent of the proceeds of this sale went to charity.

If you are an artist for any length of time, or even just a short length of time, and your work can be found on the internet, then you will generally be hit up by a charity art auction at least once in your art career, if not multiple times a year (or even multiple times in one month - particularly during the spring and the winter months when many of these charities auctions take place). I don't like to participate in charity art auctions for many reasons, some of which I explain below in this example letter I sent out to another begging charity letter I got earlier today. (And for those of you who feel flattered that you were asked to participate, don't. They send out hundreds or thousands of emails to artists, many of whom they never heard of before, but they happened to pop up in a google search for whatever term they were looking for - whether it's "dog art" or "Pennsylvania artists".

Now, I *have* donated art in the past (I've donated to various animal organizations as well as to the American Heart Assocation), but generally these are prints, and I make a rule to only donate to local events where I know the organization involved and can see how things are being run. I've also donated money in art shows where a percentage of my painting's sale went to the charity. The charity won out and so did the artist (see picture above of one of my paintings that sold at just such an event).

I've also made offers to charities that hit me up for donations in order to split the costs or to work with them in such a way that my work is neither devalued or I can at least recoop expenses. In almost all cases, my offer was not even responded to. Why? Because these charities do not care about the artist. They just want free stuff to give away. And usually there is some artist out there who is willing to do that, no knowing how they are hurting their own profession

Below is an example letter that I sent to a recent request.

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Hi XXXXXX
Thanks for your email but as a rule I do not donate originals to art shows or benefits as it devalues my work, as well as means that I am expected to work for free on my artwork (which takes up many hours of my time and is my 'day job').

(As an example of how many artists feel on the subject of donating art to charity, here is a good article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mat-gleason/charity-art-auctions-_b_872953.html )

I do wish you luck on your charity event though and I know it's for a good cause. I suggest asking for money donations instead of donations of art.

Or better yet, I would be willing to send you a piece if A) 50 percent of the proceeds went back to me to help pay for my very real costs to make the artwork and b) there was a set minimum price for the artwork on sale or auction so as to not devalue my work currently hanging in galleries and also in a museum. If you would consider something like that, then I would consider making a special artwork just for the show.

In future you may want to consider doing that approach, as many artists, when asked to donate work, look to send older and not their best works, because they don't want to give away their best works for free. As such, charity art benefits generally get the dregs of an artist's studio.

Thanks for reading my reply with an open mind and if you do consider the above alternate option for the event, then I would be happy to discuss it further with you and make a custom piece for your event.
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For the artists reading my blog, how do you feel about charity art auctions and shows? I would personally rather donate money than donate an artwork. And if I don't have the money, then I'd prefer to sell the artwork myself, and donate a portion of the proceeds to the cause. That way I could still retain some money to cover my costs and I could get the tax write off for donating money. (the IRS doesn't accept art donations from an artist as a tax write off to charity. They DO consider it a write off IF someone buys the work from me for X amount and then donates the art to the charity. That person would get a tax write off for X amount. Not fair is it?).

I would work with the charity if they also worked with me, and didn't just send out a wide net looking for free stuff from any artist.

What are your thoughts?