Marnie Webb's recent blog item, "Wonder what flickr has to do with nonprofits?" has inspired me to explore the Creative Commons section of flickr's online image archive.

Kris  posted a comment on Marnie's blog saying, "I’ve been pointing non-profits toward the Creative Commons section of Flickr for free (w/attribution) stock photography. For those who post news on a regular basis, they love this."

Those who are unfamiliar with these resources need not despair.  Here's a quick rundown:
Flickr is a free online photo management and sharing tool.  You need to create a free account, and then you can browse, download, or upload images from the Flickr web site. In a manner similar to del.icio.us, Flickr allows users to tag photos in ways that make them easier to organize, retrieve, and share.  For examples, check out the nonprofit Flickr tag.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit project that offers "an alternative to a full copyright."  Creators of original material can choose on a case-by-case basis which rights to they wish to reserve.  For example, my blog is published under an Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs Creative Commons License.  (You can see the CC logo in the righthand column.)

The beauty of the Creative Commons section of Flickr is that nonprofit organizations that are looking for appealing images to adorn their blogs, web sites, slides, or brochures can now go shopping for appropriate images that they can use without charge.  All they have to do is respect the clearly stated policy about attribution, commercial use, derivative works, and future licensing. Fortunately, this is all explained in something close to human (as opposed to legal) language.

If your organization has considered creating its own publications or engaging in a little citizen journalism - but has hesitated because it didn't know where to find or how to pay for high-quality stock images - this is definitely a resource to explore.

And who knows?  Maybe you'll end up taking some digital photos, and uploading them to share with other nonprofit members of the Flickr community!