Remember that class photo from second grade that went missing -- the one in which you are smiling, without any front teeth? Wouldn't you like to have another copy of it?
Peter Nordberg is betting that you would, that you may even pay for it -- and that your old school could even make a little money from the transaction. That's the idea behind a fledgling Web service he started, Class Photo Fund.
Mr. Nordberg, the co-founder of a business accelerator in New York, developed the service with his wife, Michelle Luhan Nordberg, after debating fund-raising projects for their child's public school. (He got the money for the start-up with an early distribution from his Roth I.R.A.) The couple were looking for an alternative to the usual standbys of bake sales and candy sales. "There were no new ideas," he recalled.
But schools, and their graduates, have lots of old yearbooks and photographs that former graduates might want copies of -- if only they could be digitized, and made easily available.
Class Photo Fund is based on a crowdsourcing model. People must post photos, so others can buy them. The start-up is not to be confused with Classmate.com, a site that sells access to school yearbooks and photos via subscription and has been criticized for misleading marketing.
Class Photo Fund works like this: You snap a photograph of old group pictures with a phone or digital camera -- or scan them -- and upload them to Class Photo Fund. The service currently functions as an app within Facebook. You must log onto Facebook to use it. (A mobile app is in development.) You also add identifying details, like "Ridgemont High, Class of 1975, varsity basketball team."
Then, when nostalgic members of the team go online and search for their school by state, city or name, they can buy and download available images. The cost is $2.50, with $1 going to the person who uploaded the picture, $1 going to the school, and 50 cents going to Class Photo Fund. (All kindergarten through 12th grade schools are eligible, whether public or private; the site has 104,000 schools in its database, as potential participants.)
The image you buy can be automatically loaded into an album on your Facebook page, so you can create your own collection, or downloaded to your computer's hard drive. (Photos aren't added to your Facebook album unless you grant permission, Mr. Nordberg said.)
Most such school photos were taken as work for hire, he said, and are generally considered to be in the public domain -- that is, not subject to copyright. Still, the site's terms and conditions caution users to "be careful" when posting images.
You also need a valid PayPal account so the site can pay you when someone buys a photo.
The site is focusing on group photos, since they have the most income potential. If there are 20 students in a class, that's potentially $20 in revenue for the school. (Mr. Nordberg said the service only accepts photos of people who are now at least 19 years old.)
The goal, he said, is to offer an incentive for schools themselves to participate, since they are the repositories of yearbooks and old photos. Most don't have the time, or employees, to upload all those old photos. But if, say, members of the student council or a local booster club spent a weekend uploading images as a fund-raising project, instead of offering a car wash, the school could possibly earn some significant money.
Schools don't have to register to receive their share of the money, he said, but ultimately doing so will make it easier to pay them. In the meantime, he said, the plan is for schools to receive paper checks periodically. Mr. Nordberg's initial marketing efforts include an advertisement on the Web site of the National PTA.
What about schools that may have closed? Mr. Nordberg says that issue hasn't arisen yet -- the service has been operational for just 10 weeks -- but the funds would probably go to the school district.
Eventually, he said, the service may include links to other photo sites, so users can create and buy hardcover photo books as mementos.
