Tattooing for Charity

One recent tattoo story you might have missed involves something I hadn’t seen before on a large scale – people getting inked to help a charity.  Of course, some individuals have had tattoos to raise money in the past, but a charity tattoo convention sounded new to me!

Basically, the people of Ventura County CA held a three day tattoo convention at the local fairground, to raise money for a charity supporting kids with special needs.  The convention had people not only showing off their existing ink but also getting new tattoos, some going for large designs like sleeves that would ordinarily have taken several sessions, getting it all out of the way while they could during the course of the convention long weekend.

The event, called “Ink for a Cause”, gave a proportion of any proceeds made, including the money spent on new tattoos, to special needs charity the Best Day Foundation, which works to improve the lives and confidence of kids with special needs by helping them to participate in outdoor activities like water sports, snow sports and hiking.  Tattoo conventions are nothing new or out of the ordinary, but having such a prominent relationship with a charity ensured that this event not only made money, but made the news.

The idea of raising money through a convention or event is obviously not a new one, and moves like this which show the tattoo enthusiast community as being generous and socially responsible can only help our image, so maybe this will become a trend.  Could we end up seeing the age of the “tattoo-a-thon”?

If you think about it, getting tattooed is an ideal thing to do for charity.  It is painful, it is permanent, it means something and it can capture the imagination.  Why not consider getting people to sponsor you for enduring the sessions it will take to get that huge design you’ve been hoping for as you would if you were running a marathon?  Alternatively, you can go down the potentially more scary route of “if I can raise X amount I will get X tattooed on my X”, though to really raise funds the X’s in question are going to need to be pretty interesting!

Whatever people can do to do some good is always appreciated, and charities always enjoy receiving money that was raised in a novel or interesting way that makes a good story for their press releases.  If you run a tattoo shop, why not consider putting on some sort of event where some of the proceeds go to a local good cause.  Put your own spin on it and the publicity and extra custom could be worth just as much to you as the money is to the charity you choose.

By thinking outside of the box like the people of Ventura County, there is a lot that the tattoo enthusiast community can do to raise money and awareness for just about any worthy cause, so maybe more of us should start thinking about what there is that we can do.