For the sake of transparency:
In all movements against oppression, there are people who attack those close to them. Whether it be a result of lateral violence, jealousy, righteous anger that should be directed at systems, or lack of resources to support mental health and well being–Photographers Without Borders (PWB) is a repeated target of this phenomenon.
We are presenting here some basic facts, particularly to refute the AI Overviews presented on Google based on a misinformed reddit thread and on job review sites where we believe the same individual(s) with personal vendettas are posting from different accounts and pretending to work for the organization. Let’s be clear: Spreading misinformation and making baseless attacks is toxic, harmful, colonial behaviour. Decolonization is messy, uncharted work but we are here for it. Our channels of communication are open to any conversations, and we are committed to harm reduction and repair. We also encourage our community to stop enabling abuse and harassment by sharing this page or the information on it where necessary. Always feel free to e-mail us at info@photographerswithoutborders.org with any concerns.
Work Environment & Unpaid Labor: First of all, we are an award-winning organization based on our work environment, which is in strong contrast to the claims being made online. We would like to clarify that PWB has not had volunteers on staff in critical roles for several years and as a result.
The founder of PWB started the organization from nothing–no trust fund, no startup funds, no parental support. Therefore, we initially relied on volunteers to run the organization to get it going. This is absolutely normal for any charity or non-profit, and many well-funded non-profit initiatives much larger than ours are completely dependent on volunteers who work long hours for no pay. There are costs and benefits to running an organization with volunteers, and one of the major costs is high turnover and in some cases unrealistic expectations. We are aware of one disgruntled volunteer from almost a decade ago in particular who has since made it their mission to spread hatred and misinformation about the organization and its leadership. They have also intentionally sought out and spread misinformation to recruit past staff, employees, and volunteers to their unjust cause. We know this thanks to several folks who have made us aware of this, but unfortunately we have no control over their behaviour.
As an organization for that now centres decolonization and collective liberation, we do not believe in the extractive non-profit models that so many charities operate under. This is not to diminish the work of organizations that maintain volunteers and unpaid labour, but it is simply to say we are trying to do better because we are on a mission to decolonize as much as one can in a capitalist system. Since 2020, our Executive Director has made it a priority to shift away from a volunteer model, which has created more fundraising demands, but has been ultimately worthwhile as it brings us closer into alignment with our vision and values.
Financial Concerns: All of our financial records are very clear on our website and other charity vetting websites, yet there has been concern online about costs for membership, Expeditions and workshops. Some of our work is funded by our membership fees, workshops and Expeditions, and this is transparent.
Membership Fees. We are a small non-profit organization and fundraising is normal for any charity or non-profit. It is also completely normal for any organization, whether they are for-profit or non-profit, to have membership fees. In our case, we provide a great deal of value in exchange for membership fees, which feed our ecosystem in a circular environment where membership fees are what make our monthly Micro-Grants and honorary memberships possible, and support some of our overhead. For those with financial needs, honorary membership is available by application on our signup page.
Workshops. Our workshops have incredible success rates and provide valuable tuition that we are significantly undercharging for, especially when compared with other organizations who host workshops of this nature. In addition, we provide a limited number of scholarships to our virtual workshop programs for anyone with financial needs, made possible for those with privilege who can pay for tuition.
Expeditions. Expeditions are curated opportunities for professional photographers who want to give back to meaningful causes with their photography. For Expeditions we carefully select the organizations we work with and build relationships with them over many years because the relationship has to be generative for them, for PWB, and for the photographers serving the causes we work with. We are all conditioned by colonialism (which is why we created our Ethical Storytelling Certification), and so we wish to address some of the colonial tendencies of entitlement that some people have had in the past. Let’s be clear: Nobody is entitled to travel for free to other countries to document communities they have no experience with, and today there are local photographers who can and should be paid for that work (we encourage those photographers in our community who are place-based to apply for funding through Micro-Grants and our Revolutionary Storyteller Program). With Expeditions, we facilitate an exchange for those with privilege and talent who want to share their privilege and talent with causes that can actually benefit–and our programs have produced real tangible benefits for the communities and photographers we work with. Let’s be clear: Anyone can develop relationships with causes on their own and make this happen on their own, but not everyone feels comfortable doing so or has the connections to do so and that’s why they choose to do Expeditions with us instead. Not only do we significantly undercharge for Expeditions of this kind (while other more well-known non-profits charge exorbitant amounts for them), but we offer fundraising opportunities for those who want to offset their costs. The misinformation circulating online (albeit most of it from several years ago) doesn’t just disrespect and undermine our work and the work of our community partners, but the work of hundreds of photographers who have donated their time to causes that matter.
Image Rights: Since inception, anyone working or volunteering with Photographers Without Borders has always retained copyright and ownership of their work. In some cases PWB asks for a license to share and distribute the work, which is standard across similar organizations, but in these cases the photographer still always retains copyright and ownership of their work. Agreement terms are shared up front and folks can choose whether or not to participate.
Post-Oct 7: We made our anti-genocide stance very clear after October 7, 2023, and we have since attracted a number of trolls who have attacked us from all angles, making fake posts on job sites, fake news articles about us, and spreading more misinformation. We do not have the capacity to respond to every post or claim, and thank our community for helping us out.