Last week we received two comments requesting that pro-bono job listings be removed from our job board “unless they are amended to offer a fair compensation”.

This sparked quite a bit of discussion within the CUDO board, and today we’d like to give you the board’s take on pro bono work, and explain why we feel strongly that pro-bono postings should stay. First though, we’d like to say how much we appreciate the feedback. We feel privileged that people are passionate enough about design and CUDO to get involved—even when that means offering respectful criticism.

For your reference, the comments themselves*:

On March 2, James said:

Respectfully,

This is the second ad requesting designers to work for free. I’m very disappointed that an organization that claims to promote quality design in Champaign-Urbana would perpetuate the idea that design is so worthless as to not require compensation.

While I recognize that both ads were for non-profit organizations, even these organizations have budgets. Do non-profits get free rent? Are their phone bills comped? Does no one receive a salary? Are their legal papers prepared pro-bono? Does the News-Gazette print ads for them without any compensation? Would a printer donate their time, paper, ink, and staff to a non-profit? Any of these service-providers might offer a lower rate for a non-profit, but I doubt any would work for free just because the job is for a non-profit.

Moreover, by posting these ads requesting free work The CUDO encourages others to expect work for free (or extremely cheep) as well. I thought The CUDO was an organization to help designers, not hinder them. I am very disappointed and would like to see these ads removed unless they are amended to offer a fair compensation.

March 4, Mo responded, saying:

Bravo, James. Took the words right out of my mouth.

First off, let’s define pro bono (from Wikipedia):

[Pro Bono] is generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms. Pro bono service, unlike traditional volunteerism, uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them.

Lawyers in the United States are recommended under American Bar Association (ABA) ethical rules to contribute at least fifty hours of pro bono service per year.

CUDO is still very young and there are some complex issues that our Board has been discussing for quite some time. One of these issues is the idea of uncompensated design work, especially as it pertains to “spec work”. It’s a tricky subject that we’re trying to navigate, but have come to no final decision on CUDO’s official statement. (Even AIGA recognizes the difficulty of the issue and recently spent time re-investigating their stance: ref. www.aiga.org/content.cfm/news-090527)

What we can say for certain is that CUDO firmly supports philanthropy. That’s why last summer we hosted “CUDO Gives“, for which twenty CUDO members gave up their Saturday to create an identity, brochures, and a website for the local Wesley Evening Food Pantry. As designers we were in the unique position to volunteer a specialized service to a worthy cause. Two local printers (OSP and Weiskamp Screen Printing) donated 100% of the printing for the materials we designed. Unfortunately it just isn’t true that all non-profits have the budget for proper design work.

Take CUDO, for example. We’re essentially a non-profit. We’re not legally recognized as one at the moment because we haven’t had the budget to file for the status. Every cent we earn from memberships and fundraisers goes right back into the organization. None of us running CUDO get paid for what we do, and we all have full-time day jobs in addition to being involved. The only reason we exist, at the moment, is because of the donations of time, skills, services, and funds of those who deem our organization a worthwhile cause. In other words, people working pro bono.

As the job board goes, we’re still trying to navigate what is and isn’t appropriate to post. While we want to filter out jobs that are clearly low-balling designers and devaluing the community, we also want to provide as much opportunity for our members as possible.

That said, we’d like to open this topic up to discussion! We really appreciate your input, and we will use it as CUDO grows and we define and refine our position on these issues.

– The CUDO Board

* These comments were originally added directly to a job board post. The fact that we had comments enabled on the job board was an oversight on our part, as it was part of the default WordPress template we use. We’ve since closed comments on the job board, but still encourage you to contact us is you have any comments or concerns about what we post.

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