Organization’s name: Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP)
Headquarters: Grand Isle, VT, United States
The Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) is dedicated to keeping Lake Champlain and the area around it beautiful and healthy. They work on making sure the water is clean, the plants and animals are thriving, and that people can enjoy the lake safely and responsibly.
The LCBP was created back in the 1990s to get everyone around the lake - from New York, Vermont, Quebec, and even the governments of the United States and Canada - working together to look after it. The team at LCBP does different things like studying the lake to understand it better, teaching people how to take care of it, and doing projects to fix any problems like pollution or harmful plants and animals that shouldn't be there.
Today we talked to Ryan Mitchell, Communications and Publications Coordinator at LCBP about how the organization is using Pics.io digital asset management (DAM) software for nonprofits to manage multiple digital files.
- Can you tell me more about your organization?
The Lake Champlain Basin Program coordinates work to improve water quality in Lake Champlain, which is within three states: the states of Vermont and New York in the United States and the province of Quebec in Canada. Our organization brings together everybody who's working on those water issues to coordinate work and funding in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.
"Pics.io is a great and cost-effective digital asset management solution."
- And what are you responsible for?
My title is Communications and Publications Coordinator. I oversee our 7 websites and manage and coordinate print publications that we use for outreach to the public and to policymakers. We have a number of very specific outreach initiatives that have dedicated websites for them.
- What problem did you solve with the DAM system? What was the challenge you faced?
We originally moved to Pics.io. We had another DAM that was on our on-premises server. They stopped supporting it and went to more of an enterprise solution, which was very expensive. So we were looking for a way to move our photo collection from our server onto something cloud-based and Pics.io seemed like a great and cost-effective way to do that.
In terms of our workflow, it allows us to search by keyword. In such a way, we can get our hands on photos quickly. At this point, we have 11,000 or 12,000 photos in Pics.io, going back probably 30 years. A lot of them are not very good. We don't use them very often, but a number of them are. PIcs.io helps us to find that needle in the haystack when looking for a photo for a specific publication.
"I do find the websites and the inboxes to be really useful for sharing photos with people who don't have access to the catalog outside the organization."
- What does your current workflow look like now that you've implemented Pics.io?
It depends on the project by whether we're designing something in Adobe Creative Suite for print, or we're looking for photos for new web pages or new photo galleries or to promote new events or initiatives.
As we search the catalog for a photo to go with that, we also manage a number of grants where we provide money to other organizations to do work that meets their goals as well as ours. But we often promote those events in our print publications, our newsletters, our website, and social media. Social media is a big one. We're constantly bringing in photos from those projects into the catalog and then using them as we need for different communications channels.
- What kind of files do you manage through Pics.io?
Mostly photos. Probably 99.5% photos. We are starting to use DAM for some videos.
- Which departments work with Pics.io?
The communications department are the main people. There are about 3 of us who are actively working in DAM, managing it, adding photos, and using keywords. A few other people sometimes add keywords to photos. Sometimes we'll also send a link out to other people who do have an account so that they can see photos and download photos as they need to.
- Do you use Pics.io websites and how many?
Right now we have 5 or 6 of them and usually, we use those to share photos with people outside the organization for them to either just view or sometimes download as well. For example, we'll have an event that we take pictures of and then we can send those photos to our partners via a website. That's a really easy way to make those photos available to them.
- What are the advantages of the DAM system for you?
Definitely the keywording. The keywording is big, as well as the ability to organize photos and find them quickly.
I do find the websites and the inboxes to be really useful for sharing photos with people who don't have access to the catalog outside the organization. So, my favorite features in Pics.io are quick search and quick sharing.
- Thank you so much for the interview!
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