Hi Sarah! If you’ve already promised to work for free, it will be really tricky to then charge. However, it sounds like if you’re meeting next week, you haven’t discussed the scope of work. What I’d recommend is doing a very (I repeat, VERY) small project for free and then discussing other opportunities to work together at your regular rate. Perhaps, if they already have a welcome email series, for example, you can offer to write some subject line options for free that they can test and see what performs best. Set clear boundaries now so you reduce any resentment down the line 🙂

Thanks for responding, we are really glad you found the post helpful!

Wow, your article and the other readers’ comments will save me time and money. I volunteered free editing and proofreading to a medium-sized non-profit. I explained my qualifications, showed how I was connected with — and passionate about — their organization/cause, and sent them a sample of (needed) work on two mission-critical website pages. This is a little-known rare disease research foundation — I don’t expect they have an abundance of offers for free professional proofreading.

I got no response.

As another reader said, it isn’t actually free for the director — there’s her time and the risk of working with an unknown who’s naive enough to beg to work for free and makes a poor pitch. Because I really, really wanted to help long-term. What I don’t want to do going forward is work they don’t actually value or use. (Because if I don’t value my own work, why would the client?)

Your approach is certainly the sensible one.

Many thanks!

Hi Dustin,

Absolutely – these are great points. “Free” to a business owner is likely to convey that someone doesn’t really know what they’re doing and there will be *more* work for the business owner in terms of guidance and feedback.

Thanks for commenting!
Nicki

Great article! Had a feeling that you’re going to mention free, but also ‘free’ in terms of zero monetary cost to you. This definitely resonates with me to some degree. Based on some other personal experience with freelance skills I’ve offered, there’s definitely more disadvantages to offer to ‘work for free’ besides devaluing your skills and confidence, because it’s never free. To the business owner:

– You’re still taking their time.
– You’re still taking effort from them to work with you.
– There’s a degree of risk to take you on, especially if you’re starting out.
– To the business owner with a billion other priorities, you offering to work for free becomes “just another thing to do later”.

If you’re offering to write copy for free, but if the business problem that your copy is aiming to solve isn’t perceived as “a free solution” to them, they won’t take you on.

Hopefully other people checking this out can see the true cost of trying to offer such services for “free”.

Hi Leona,

Yup – it’s very rare for free work to end well. 🙂 Good for you for learning the lesson and vowing never to do it again! 🙂

Thanks for commenting!
Nicki

Hi Amy,

Great question. What I’d much rather have you do, if the nonprofit *truly* can’t afford you, is to work for a lower rate than your standard one. The fact is that people just value things more if they have to pay for them. That way, you’re getting a piece (or several) for your portfolio and they’re getting a top quality copywriter at a very fortunate rate. If they absolutely can’t pay *anything*, it’s up to you to weigh whether it’s worth spending that time doing that work for free when you *could* be spending that time prospecting for high-paying clients or, better, writing for high paying clients. Does that make sense?

Thanks for commenting!
Nicki

I saw the comment regarding doing free work for non-profits, but I have a slightly different question. I read somewhere that doing some volunteer work for a non-profit, which included letting the client know what you could do for them, was a great way to build your profile.

If you were wanting to also help a non-profit and build your portfolio, is this okay with limits?