How We Operate

A key aspect of our philosophy is that we incur the minimum overheads, costs and administrative expenses, so that your generous donations can be used to maximum effect. For example currently none of the staff of the foundation receive a salary.

One of the ways that we keep costs down is to run the Foundation as a virtual organization. Don’t Worry! We do exist – we are not completely virtual! We have a small headquarters office in Santa Monica, California, but by using the latest technology, including Voice over IP (VOIP), photography collaboration software from Photoshelter that  allows our judges to do their work whether on assignment or in the comfort of their studio, using the cloud to host the website and all our documents or our use of social networking tools, it means that the we can operate globally with minimum overheads.

The Board

The Board, determines the strategic direction and policy for the Foundation. The Board also sets the fund raising targets, the grant amounts, approves the appointment of any new advisory council members and  is legally accountable to the US Government for the effective running of a Not for Profit organization. Day to day running of the foundation is done by two executive Board Members, the two co-founders, Marco Ryan and Loren Roberts.

The Advisory Council

The Advisory Council consists of 8 world renown photographers and specialists from both the photographic industry and the NGO field. Together they provide the Board with guidance on on all photographic and professional development ideas and perform a critical role as the judges for the competitions which help to determine the winners of the grants and scholarships. In addition they provide the professional input to the mentoring programme that Focus For Humanity funds with the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers (IGVP).