The following are samples of proposals, reports, correspondence, and other fundraising tools created by Brian and used in his professional practice:
- An appeal letter to renew Annual Fund donors. (click here)
- A LOI sent to a major Southern Californian foundation. (click here)
- A proposal sent to a major Southern Californian foundation. (click here)
- An update sent to a major donor on our activities. (click here)
- An introductory sent to a prospective donor. (click here)
In addition to the professional writing samples provided above, Brian is a published writer. As a political observer, he wrote a rotating column for his hometown newspaper, The Signal. In 2009-2011, Brian worked with a number of photographers and wrote profiles published in magazines owned by Werner Publishing. A sample of those profiles can be found below:
“Ron Haviv: The Impotence of Authority”
Digital Photo Pro, October 4, 2011
by Brian Davis
Imagine a big-city mayor, the chief executive of a city of more than 1.5 million people, giving an historic speech in front of no one. No one to hear his rhetoric or cheer his charges, only a single photographer at his back and his closest confidantes crowded together in a suite. The mayor is José Reyes Ferriz, the photographer is Ron Haviv, and the city is one of the most dangerous places in the world: Ciudad Juárez.
Ciudad Juárez sits along the desert border of Mexico and the United States. It’s one of the largest border-metropolitan areas in the world, straddling two countries and two economies. It’s a major point of entry into the United States for trade spurred by NAFTA. But the real story of Juárez is how another trade—drug trafficking—has taken a city by siege and inspired fear and anxiety in communities on both sides of the long border.
“People in Color”
Outdoor Photographer, October 4, 2011
by Brian Davis
In the last decade, with the nation enthralled in two wars, combat photojournalism and photojournalists have woven their way into the day-to-day fabric of all of our lives. Today, the most common images from around the world come from photographers whose lenses are focused on cultures at war.
Nevada Wier, too, has worked her away around the globe, but in pursuit of another kind of image. “I’m addicted to travel.” She pauses and retells how, as she picked up a camera, she had to make a choice, “I considered being a current-events photographer, but I wanted to seek broader themes. I’m more drawn to what’s beautiful in the world.”
Wier is a self-taught photographer, an Outward Bound instructor and the product of a liberal (very liberal) arts education.
Mix these elements with a name like Nevada, and she was almost destined to be an acclaimed travel photographer. She’s spent some three decades establishing a unique eye and a gift for taking us, as viewers, all over the world. Today, she’s acclaimed for her images from India, which go against popular perception and are rich with artistry and vision. But an artist isn’t an engineer, working from a plan to strict specifications.
“Don Bartletti: Movements of Sand”
Digital Photo Pro, June 22, 2010
by Brian Davis
Don Bartletti has seen a world unimagined by most of us, but too real to thousands of migrants, border-dwellers and working-class people who have been the subjects of his photography. He has traveled seemingly everywhere to tell the story of people who inevitably will stumble through his backyard of San Diego, Calif. Since the earliest days of his career, Bartletti has been fascinated by migration, conflict and the people who are the story: the movement of culture on the backs of people desperate for hope.
Growing up in a border community, Bartletti couldn’t avoid the story so he sought to tell it better than anyone else. The issue of immigration and the turmoil of the border communities are never simple, but behind the camera, Bartletti is able to avoid the rhetorical traps and political agendas.
“I’ve seen the whole dynamic of immigration change,” he says, “from when I was in high school in the ’60s, when there were four families with Latino names, to today where there are entire communities of Latino families.” Bartletti has been telling this story, of migration, in some way since he started his career in 1972.
“Migration is what creates cultures,” Bartletti shares when I meet him for the first time, a meeting initiated because of his 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Enrique’s Journey.” The feature followed a young boy from Honduras along the perilous trip through Mexico in a desperate attempt to reunite with his mother who had found work in North Carolina. Bartletti is drawn to migration because “the blending of different languages, customs, desires, skin colors forms what we are today,” he says. “The change in Southern California has been unbelievable over the past 30 years.”
What if he was from Boston, removed by thousands of miles and dozens of states from the hot zone of San Diego? “Then I might have been 10 or 20 years behind, but I would come to this story,” he answers. “Migration is a worldwide fact of humanity.”
“Jodi Cobb: Master of Resonating Image”
Digital Photo Pro, November 16, 2010
by Brian Davis
It was everywhere. My email inbox got five or six copies, and the story was plastered all over Facebook and Twitter. Time Magazine ran the original story in the end of August, in the heat of summer and just as American college students returned to school: “Heavy drinkers live longer than teetotalers.” The accompanying photo showed two shirtless men carrying nine beers among them. And in the smallest print on the screen was the credit: Jodi Cobb, National Geographic Creative.
That photo, the new “face” of binge drinking, was only a small part of the greatest story ever told: love. In a February 2006 feature for National Geographic, Jodi Cobb explored the scientific stages of love—Attraction and Lust, Romantic Obsession and Long-Term Attachment—and compiled a photo essay, “The Thing Called Love.”
The essay took her all over the world to capture those effusive and fleeting moments of “love,” including to the beaches and beer-fueled parties of Cancún during Spring Break. That’s when she took the photo, a photo that didn’t run with the rest in the essay. And just a few days after the tossed-aside shot made its rounds on the Internet, I spoke with Cobb about her career, National Geographic and the photo essay.