Frequently Asked Funder Questions

You have asked for X amount but we only have Y available to give you will you still come?

• Yes, if it is enough to cover our facilitation fees and transport costs.  It just means that we may have to visit less libraries and may just have to focus on the lowest decile section of your region.  The more money we raise, the more stops possible and the more youth able to be reached.   A rule of thumb break down is that to truly just cover our costs in a region it is just shy of 10,000.00.   We often cobble this together between COGS, local Creative Communities, and Council Funding.   We chose the parts of the region we stop based on which Creative Communities give us funding and where the highest need is within that community for enrichment.   And we usually choose which regions to apply for Creative Communities based on which COGS regions funded us.   We need at least $4000.00 in combined funding before we can safely visit a region.
• However, we try to make a big bang for the buck and invite as many Intermediate schools and High Schools as possible to attend with a contingent of students to the Local Click Happy Live programs held at the library.  We then challenge the students who came to teach what they learned to at least two other students who couldn't come and then challenge them to do the same.

Why should we fund you if you are not already working in our community? (mostly relevant for COGS funders)

Absolutely fair question.  We have done nothing to prove ourselves with kids in your community yet.  And you have heaps of charities oversubscribing your funds as it is.  Our honest answer to that question is this.  Give us a chance to prove ourselves.  If we do not provide value well in excess of what you pay us, then our founder will pay you back out of her own facilitation fees.   We can guarantee this because we know the value of our program.   We also know that it not only provides value to the youth directly impacted by it, but that over the year, their work will pay forward to the other charities in the community.  The scholarship students are all tasked with creating a visual story for a local non-profit that aligns with their values.  We are teaching them impact marketing, and visual storytelling and their testing ground is the charities in your community. Your money invested with us gets amplified.  This is why Mandi isn't worried about having to cut you a personal check.

“The definition of ‘insanity' is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. –Albert Einstein   Not bringing in fresh blood and new ideas has the risk of leaving you with similar systemic problems that you started with.  No we are not saying we will come in and instantly all your youth will become compassionate, respectful, focused, non-tech addicted angels.  But what we are saying is that that we bring fresh eyes to the problem and a new kite of tools to share.  We are an innovative, soulful, award-winning different thing that will augment the amazing work of the local charities that you are currently investing in.   So go on.  Give us a crack.

How many of our students will receive scholarships to the advanced program?

We try to be fair about how we divy up the scholarships based on support received from the regions. Say for example we have space for 100 students in the National Click Happy Visual Poets program and 6% of our Click Happy funding comes from your region then we will provide 6 scholarships to your regions students to do the advanced levels of leadership training.    This means that 6 local charities will receive a gift of free marketing collateral that tells the story of their organizations mission provided by the Click Happy student.

So the more funding we receive the more of your youth become eligible for scholarships.  And the more charities can be served by Click Happy artists.  As the program builds in your community it will be the students who have already gone through the program that will make up the scholarship board that decides who gets the scholarships in their communities.

Does the world really need more photographers?

It needs visionaries that can see the world differently than it is currently experienced.  It needs people who are well practised at turning ideas into physical reality.  It needs doers who are grounded in ethics and who have an open mind.  It needs unblocked compassionate creatives.   Photography is a brilliant bonus and it is a transferable skill that works in many different career paths.  But photography is just the tool that is used to get to the real guts of what we are teaching.  Which really is how to be self-reflective and learn to identify our blocks to success and take action to remove them.   But could you imaging trying to get a tween to go to a class called "Becoming Self-reflective?"  It would never happen, which is why when we started the first program at Manurewa intermediate and Upper Hutt, the youth quickly told us what was cool and would be engaging for them and photography was the key to many of their hearts...so we start there and build a relationship with them and find out what their dreams are and teach them techniques for how to achieve them.   And if they plan on being a world-class photographer then absolutely we will show them the path.  But Taylor today told me he wanted to be a quantum physicist and I showed him the same technique for how to get there, definite purpose, clarity of vision, emotional engagement, grit, and a pinch of serendipity.  It's what you focus on (did ya get the pun?)