A Texas accounting firm and its clients are discovering that a wall calendar with beautiful photographs, designed to market the firm's name and promote client loyalty, can change the lives of earthquake victims in Haiti.

Not only is Houston-based Gainer Donnelly & Desroches fortunate that one of its partners, Sam Gainer, is a photographer whose photographs have graced the walls of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, but this year the firm, which publishes an annual wall calendar for its clients, featuring Gainer's photos, auctioned off 40x40 prints of some of the calendar photos, matched the amounts collected at the auction, and sent $7,500 to the American Red Cross for the Haiti earthquake relief effort.

"At GD&D, charitable giving has been integral  to our culture for decades.  We are fortunate to be able to donate 1 percent of our gross revenue to charities annually, through our Employee Directed Charitable Giving program," said GD&D Partner David Donnelly. "These donations typically go to local charities, but we are also fortunate enough to be able to donate for other catastrophes, such as the Tsunami, Darfur, and most recently, the earthquake in Haiti."

GD&D has been producing its wall calendar for seven years. Each year the firm underwrites a calendar launch party. The calendars aren't sold - they are given to clients and others. The annual calendar is eagerly anticipated. "Our clients we have a cult following with this calendar," said Stacy Soefer, director of marketing and communications at GD&D. "These people start calling in November."

This year, the launch party was held at the Houston Zoo, where the celebration included not just the launch of the calendar but the accounting firm's participation in the launch of the zoo's new upcoming African Forest Project. The theme of the calendar is "Timeless Africa" - again designed to complement the new area of the zoo.

You can see the images of the 2010 calendar on the GD&D Web site.