David Garrison, Chair of PROOF’s board, talks about what PROOF means to him and how he thinks PROOF can impact meaningful change.
WELCOME to our new site. PROOF intends to so move you with authentic images and compelling stories that you act with fresh resolve and think with renewed empathy.
A UNIFYING VISION
Our vision for this organization centers on observing, sharing, and inspiring: using visual media to share stories of Great Works in the face of great suffering. Our initiatives directly engage the communities most in need of inspiration. And we are focused on tangible outcomes from our activities. We aspire to visual Satyagraha.
Civil, non-violent resistance is often associated with group actions. It is a signal of the resolve we see in the public rallies led by great leaders of recent generations. These are powerful and important actions. But the idea of Satyagraha is as much a personal one as a societal one. It works on any scale. Much as we raise social consciousness through marches and protests, in taking individual action, we signal to the world and our selves something of our mind and spirit.
“With senses freed, the wise man should act, longing to bring about the welfare and coherence of the world. Therefore, perform unceasingly the works that must be done, for the man detached who labors on to the highest must win through.”
- Satyagraha
THE NEED PROOF FILLS
This is the power of PROOF: our means is the images we use to tell real stories that motivate us as individuals and as nations; moving stories that look beyond current conflicts and cause us to share further; histories that force us to reflect on our relationship to the world around us.
We’re not naïve enough to think we can stop the violence that occurs in the world. Rather, we’re bold enough to think that, through the power of visual images and the stories they convey, individuals and nations will act sooner, faster, and with more strength to positively transform people’s lives.
This is the need we answer: to bring awareness, dialogue, and positive action to the depths of conflict through images and stories of great soul and great beauty. This is also the way we look to touch your hearts and the hearts of those in conflicts. We believe that, through photography, dialogue, and great acts, we can change the way people think and relate in this complex and difficult world.
MY BELIEF IN PROOF
PROOF is evolving, and growing things is something I love to do. I joined PROOF’s team a few years ago to help grow an idea. By day, I’m part of the senior team at Edelman Consulting, the management strategy arm of the world’s leading Communications agency. There, I develop teams and knowledge to grow and realize our clients’ ideas. Here, I develop our team’s strategy to realize a collective dream of peace, respect, and empathy.
PROOF inspires me for three reasons. First, the group’s mission has potential, not just in its existing form, but in what it promises to be to the world. PROOF’s role is observer, moderator, facilitator, educator, and catalyst. Individually, these activities are difficult to do consistently and across different types of conflicts. Addressing these collectively requires something that connects them; a narrative, if you will. This is the gap that PROOF fills.
Second, the team inspires me. From the talent of some of the most renowned photojournalists and photographers in the world to the dedication of the staff and the board itself, the team that we’ve assembled is unique in its perspective, its drive, and its ability to combine resources in new ways that impact societies around the world.
Finally, PROOF’s impact is both global and local. Many organizations see the world through a single lens that revolves around the places they are present. When there, a group’s impact is intense and real. When they leave, the memory of that impact gradually fades. It is rare that it remains. In contrast, PROOF’s activities center on engaging communities, fostering storytelling, and developing a society’s leaders, expanding the momentum PROOF builds – not by installing continued programs, but by changing the way societies engage with themselves. That is a great power of visual imagery: that through it we see our world differently.
As Chair of PROOF’s board, I’m proud to point to the impact we’ve had in the past year. Not just the activities we’ve done – although the exhibits and lectures and community initiatives are incredible – but the lives we’ve changed and the conversations we’ve started. When leaders like Hillary Clinton point to PROOF as an example of the tangible impact organizations can have in the world through images, stories and local programs, I am proud of the work this group does. By the same token, when we give a single Rescuer a way to share their story and begin to rebuild a sense of community, I’m proud of the impact we have.
WHAT WE ASK
Explore this site. Enjoy the images. Absorb our mission. Come to an event. Donate. Regardless of how you got here or what you do next, support this shared story.
