Open Door Preschools:
Fifty years of photos, digitized and organized in six weeks for a 50th anniversary
Open Door Preschools has spent 50 years building an inclusive early childhood community across three Austin campuses. Over those decades they've touched thousands of families, and accumulated boxes of loose prints, photo albums, and slide reels.
As they planned their 50th anniversary celebration, leadership knew that telling the story of those five decades would take more than words. It would take the photos, digitized, organized, and ready to use by April.
We digitized and organized 50 years of photos in six weeks.
The Challenge:
Open Door's photos spanned 50 years and several formats: loose prints, photo albums, and boxes of slide reels. Kati, the staff member tasked with the project, first planned to scan them herself, but a consumer scanner couldn't keep up with that volume and variety.
Next she tried a retail photo service. At the counter, the employee hesitated, then shared a warning: a previous customer's originals had been shipped out of state for processing and never came back. Kati gathered her photos and left. What she needed was a local company that would keep the originals in-house and deliver an archive she could actually use.
The Solution:
A Google search led Kati to Memory Forward, and her first call reached Laura, the company's founder. In about 30 minutes, Laura asked the right questions, drew on years of experience with projects like this, and laid out a clear plan. Kati didn't need to manage anything. She just needed to say yes.
Memory Forward took custody of every print, album, and slide reel and kept them in-house from intake to delivery. Every item was digitized, organized by year in a shared online folder the Open Door team could reach, and labeled so staff could find photos by year, event, or era. The original prints came back organized by year in a labeled filing system.
The project came in above Open Door's original budget, but once they saw what they'd have at the end, an archive they could draw on for the anniversary, future fundraising, and grant applications, it was an easy decision. Everything was complete by the end of January.
The Results:
With a searchable, shareable archive in hand, Open Door launched a weekly #ThrowbackThursday campaign in the months leading up to the April anniversary, inviting former students, families, and teachers to tag friends and share their own memories.
The response was immediate. Former teachers were recognized. Parents reconnected with families they hadn't spoken to in years. A community scattered across decades of alumni began to reassemble online, one photo at a time.
"We want people to use their photos more than anything. The work we've done is going to directly benefit our institutional clients when there's an anniversary, a retirement, or even a funding or grant pitch." — Cassandra, Memory Forward
"When working with organizations that have been around for decades, we know the impact of these photos will reach far and wide, across generations. Stories will be shared and happy memories brought to mind for potentially thousands of people." — Laura, Memory Forward
An Archive Built to Be Used:
Most photo digitization companies aren't equipped for organizations: the volume, the mixed formats, and the varied goals call for a different process. Memory Forward plans every organizational project around how the archive will actually be used, so the structure and labeling make the collection genuinely usable from day one. The result is an institutional asset, ready when an anniversary arrives, a grant proposal needs supporting materials, or a long-tenured employee retires.
How long does it take to digitize an organization's photo collection?
It depends on the volume and variety of formats, but a project like Open Door's, spanning 50 years of loose prints, albums, and slide reels, was completed in about six weeks.
Is it safe to send original photos to a digitization service?
Retail and mail-in services often ship originals to third-party fulfillment centers, which carries real risk of loss or damage. Memory Forward handles all materials in-house and returns originals organized alongside the digital archive.
What formats can be digitized?
Loose prints, photo albums, scrapbooks, negatives, 35mm slides, slide reels, 8mm film, newspaper clippings, and artwork; video formats including VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, Hi8, Video8, and MiniDV; antique formats such as tintypes and daguerreotypes; and three-dimensional objects like trophies, plaques, and medals.
What kinds of organizations benefit from professional photo digitization?
Any organization with a history worth preserving: nonprofits, schools and universities, museums, houses of worship, government agencies, heritage societies, summer camps, healthcare organizations, clubs, civic groups, and businesses of every size. If your photos are sitting in boxes or albums, there's almost certainly an archive worth building.
What do organizations use digitized photo archives for?
Anniversary and milestone campaigns, donor and grant communications, capital campaigns and galas, reunions, retirement tributes, website history pages, lobby displays, social media, commemorative books, and long-term institutional archiving. In nearly every case the photos already exist; they just need to be organized and accessible.