We recently connected with Delaney Canfield and have shared our conversation below.

Delaney , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Often times when I tell people we are a nonprofit photo and video studio, people are confused. It’s not a common business model, and people do not typically associate “nonprofit” with the production world. The reason Shape Cleveland is a nonprofit is because our goal in everything we do is education. Everything we do is rooted in educating our student interns about the worlds of film and photography. We pride ourselves in providing hands-on opportunities, something that can be hard to come by as a young person looking to enter this industry. The nonprofit aspect is not the production, but rather the opportunities for these interns to learn through real work and work with professional grade equipment.

At the same time, we ensure this never compromises the quality of our work, which is why we always have a staff member who is trained in film or photography on set to assist. We never want our clients to be nervous that the quality of our work will be in jeopardy in order to fulfill our mission, especially since our model is not common in the film and photography industries. However, we have found it incredibly successful and clients are often enthusiastic to be able to support our mission while also getting a quality product.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I received my bachelors in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership from Cleveland State University in 2019. However, that was not always the plan. I started college as a film major and was ready to get a degree then go forth with my dream of being the next Greta Gerwig. At the same time, I started working as a freelancer in Cleveland and worked various jobs as a production assistant. The more I worked, the more I realized I didnt necessarily need a degree in film to be working in the industry, since I was already starting to do just that. After much consideration I decided to keep working jobs in film, but switched my major to nonprofit administration. I was heavily involved in volunteer work around Cleveland and quickly began to learn the ins and outs of the nonprofit world.

In the midst of all this, I connected with my now business partner Patrick Fenner. Patrick teaches a career technical program with a focus on film and photography, A series of events unfolded that involve lots of business ideas, building a brand, and realizing the 2 of us work incredibly well together, and as I rounded out my last year of undergrad, the idea of Shape Cleveland was not just an idea, but a nonprofit ready to flourish.

In the midst of this, I decided to stay at Cleveland State for a 5th year to get a Masters in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership, and at the same time a global pandemic hit. This was definitely not in the business plan for Shape, and like everyone else we had to adapt, but we came out the other side and now have a wonderful team, a growing office, and numerous clients who are thrilled by Shape’s mission and the work that we do.

The majority of our clients come to us for what we like to call “About Us” videos which help the client convey who they are and what they do to their audience. Sometimes this is a nonprofit looking for donations, other times it’s a small business trying to showcase what they do. Either way, this type of video allows us to tell a story about the client, which is what we do best! At heart Shape is an organization of storytellers looking to help others share their successes, their goals, and everything in between through film or photography.

We love taking on new clients and new challenges. In the midst of the pandemic we began offering live streaming services, which was a challenge at first but now sometime we offer consistently to anyone interested. We have also added drone photography, photo booths, and audio amplification services to our already wide array of offerings. No task is too big or too small for our team and we love that we get to work with clients with different needs that allow us to try new things and create new offerings! It creates a great environment for our team to learn and grow ever day.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Shape started as an idea, and I never could have dreamed it would be my full time job right out of college. I loved being a part of an idea and seeing it grow, but I was in my early 20’s and never thought I would be founding a nonprofit and hiring a team of people. In my head, I was unqualified and too young to be leading a business. One of the hardest challenges as Shape grew and I realized what it was going to be was overcoming that imposter syndrome and realizing that the people around me as this idea grew would not be inviting me in if they did not trust me. As Shape grew and I neared graduation of college, the biggest step in turning this from a side-hustle to a full time job was trusting myself, trusting my business partner, and realizing that failure was ok.

We’ve had a lot of milestones since 2017 when we began, but our most pivotal step early on was collaborating with the Cleveland Flea to be their nonprofit bar sponsor for their monthly event. This allowed us to meet so many people in the community and spread the word about Shape, while also providing an early revenue stream. We met so many of our early clients at this event and it truly helped us get our footing and take off as a new nonprofit.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

It never ceases to amaze me how powerful word of mouth is. So many of our clients still to this day have come through. word of mouth referral from another client. It showcases how powerful a good impression can be, not just in our work but in how we interact with clients. We understand a lot of our clients do not have experience in film and photography and may not understand the ins and outs, so we always strive to make the creative process collaborative. This allows us to create the product they need and desire, while also making things engaging and giving flexibility in what the final product may look like. For example, a client may come to us saying they want a 5 minute video, interviewing 5 different people, to talk about a new program within their organization. After discussing details with them, we may feel a shorter video with less interviews may be more effective in getting the message across, or perhaps a series of short videos is a better route to convey the right information to their audience. This collaboration is important to us, and we feel it has helped our clients have the most positive experience, that encourages them to refer us to friends, family, and others, thus growing our clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shapecleveland.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shapecleveland/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shapecleveland/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSxIAHDmXkYC054Qc0SJEwg/videos