The Benefits of Creative Pro Bono Work

Have you ever felt like you just love a startups idea so much that you feel like you want in your own small way to be a part of it? To give freely, some of yourself so that the idea can get a leg up to grow?

Well if so, you are one person who truly has a giving heart. Bless you!

They say, ‘Sharing is caring.’ Indeed, there is perhaps no better virtue than to care for another. Sharing your own skills with the rest of humanity is a way to show you deeply care and can go a long way, particularly during these challenging times we live in.

So a few years back, a great TV show was airing on one of Kenya’s local channels and I happen to have been following the weekly episodes — diligently.

What struck me at the end of the series (a live grand finale that I happened to have attended) was one of the contestants had a brilliant idea.

In fact this contestant’s business pitch was so good, people thought he would be the grand winner at the finale show! Well, this didn’t really work out that way for him, however, he still made it to become the second runners up.

Notwithstanding, I felt his business idea stood out from the rest, so much so that I was ready to offer my skills to help him market his services beautifully and effectively.

So a few months later, out of the blue, I gave him a call to meet with him. After congratulating him on his win and fame, I asked if he was interested in me helping him out on a one-off pro bono basis to assist him develop marketing communication for his services in order for him to attract and expand his customer base.

Of course he was surprised and was really delighted to get help that would spur on his startup. To give you context to what his creative needs were; besides a pretty decent logo and a simpleton Microsoft Word generated brochure design, he had nothing else.

So I helped him develop other applications (proper brochures, banners, short profile, branded merchandise) for his business and as they say, the rest is history! He went on to establish his business venture with a little more marketing pizzazz! And I received a long endearing thank you email.

This is just but one example showing how emotionally satisfying doing pro bono work can be. Doing pro bono work has many other benefits.

Here are some key ones to think about before you say ‘No’ or move on to another interesting post.

1. Strive to help where you can and do some free work for someone in need. Particularly if it’s within your skills set. Do it well. You never know when a ‘real’ client will come knocking with ‘real’ work because the beneficiary of your good ‘free’ work was the refferal.
2. It’s just empathy. Do some good in these hard times. You just might be the person who made the difference and enable someone’s business take off!
3. You learn something about someone’s brand. The knowledge can come in handy one day. Also, it’s an opportunity for you to develop your craft.
4. This could be the start of a long term relationship with the client/brand. You also stand a good chance at getting future business.
5. You will be remembered. Kindness never goes unnoticed.
6. That’s one strike added to your creative portfolio work. Here’s something I did pro bono.
7. Just pay it forward. As they say, when you do good, the universe conspires to help you too.

I try to do one or two pro bono pieces of work a year. If you haven’t tried it, I’d highly recommend you try it out. Perhaps one day you may come back to this post and thank me for the tips!