GENERAL INFORMATION
Foundation Center - FAQs for Artists
A resource provided by the Foundation Center, "...established in 1956 and today supported by close to 550 foundations, the Foundation Center is a national nonprofit service organization recognized as the nation’s leading authority on organized philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust."
A resource service for grant seekers in film and media provided by the Foundation Center.
"A resource devoted to helping media arts organizations adapt to the complex and changing funding environment by looking at success stories from peer organizations and by accessing sample fundraising plans commissioned by NAMAC"
Provides the results of a multi-year study by the strategic communications consulting firm Active Voice into the relationship between filmmakers and funders.
FUNDING SOURCES
Grantmakers in Film+Electronic Media (GFEM) Database
"The GFEM Media Database is a site where funders can come to learn about media projects they may wish to support. One of our goals is to shorten the time needed for worthy projects to raise funds, providing a benefit to producers/organizations, the field, and, ultimately, society as a whole."
"NYFA Source is the most extensive national directory of awards, services, and publications for artists. Listings include over 4,200 arts organizations, 2,900 award programs, 4,200 service programs, and 900 publications for individual artists across the country."
"The California Documentary Project supports film, video, radio, and new media projects that document the California experience and explore issues of significance to Californians."
Cinereach: Reach Film FellowshipOffering the Loni Ding Award in Social Issue Documentary and the James T. Yee Fellowship for emerging filmmakers and other funding opportunities.
"The Reach Film Fellowship is a specialized program for emerging filmmakers who are making artful, socially relevant short films.
Cinereach is a not-for-profit film production company and foundation that champions vital stories, artfully told. Created and led by young philanthropists, entrepreneurs and filmmakers, Cinereach empowers fiction and nonfiction filmmakers from all over the world through Grants & Awards, The Reach Film Fellowship, an internal department, and through partnerships with the Sundance Institute and other organizations."
Independent Television Service (ITVS) Funding Initiatives"The Fledgling Fund promotes social justice by leveraging the power of media to inform and to inspire action. It supports the creation and dissemination of innovative film and media projects that explore an translate the human cost of entrenched poverty and inequity, and the human spirit that can transform it."
"ITVS funds, distributes and promotes new programs primarily for public television. We work with independent producers to create and present programs that take creative risks, advance issues and represent points of view not usually seen on public or commercial television."
"Supports U.S.-based independent documentary filmmakers for the production and distribution of social-issue documentary films intended for a broad audience."
Latino Media Resource Guide - Funding OpportunitiesFord Foundation five-year $50 million grant fund supporting documentary films that "show courageous people confronting difficult issues and actively pursuing a more just, secure and sustainable world." Individual and institutional grants are available.
Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary FilmPublished by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP).
National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) Producers Resource Guide"The Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film supports the completion of original documentaries that explore the Jewish experience in all its complexity."
Includes information on the Digital Open Call "an online content grant competition" and the NBPC Discretionary Fund program.
National Endowment for the Humanities: America's Media Makers Development Grants"The Challenge America Fast-Track category offers support primarily to small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations -- those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability."
Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT) Producer Handbook"The Division of Public Programs supports the development of humanities content and interactivity that excite, inform, and stir thoughtful reflection upon culture, identity, and history in creative and new ways."
Pacific Islanders in Communications Media FundA list of helpful fundraising links as well as information on NAPT's Producer Opportunity and Public Television Fund.
Pacific Pioneer Fund"... Support[ing] the development of national public broadcast programming that enhances public recognition of and appreciation for Pacific Islander history, culture, and society."
Pare Lorentz Documentary FundSupports emerging documentary filmmakers living and working in California, Oregon and Washington.
"Provide[s] production grants totaling $75,000 to be used in the creation of original, independent documentary films that illuminate pressing issues in the United States."
PBS Funding Resources Guide from POV"Named to honor singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson, the Fund supports media activism and grassroots organizing by funding the pre-production and distribution of social issue film and video projects and the production and distribution of radio projects, made by local, state, national or international organizations and individual media producers."
"Funding and broadcasting opportunities available to independent producers at PBS."
"SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time."
"...[T]he Documentary Film Fund will support riveting documentaries distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters and innovative visual approach. A total of $100,000 will be disbursed annually to documentary filmmakers nationwide."
Sundance Documentary Fund"An online film finance marketplace to bring together qualified producers, financiers, and film investment opportunities." Currently in Beta.
"The Fund reviews between 1,400 and 2,000 proposals annually, choosing 35-50 for support each year. In funding such work, the Documentary Fund encourages the diverse exchange of ideas that is crucial to fostering an open society, raising public consciousness about human rights abuses and restrictions of civil liberties, and fostering an ongoing dialogue about these and other pressing social issues."
Tribeca Film Institute New Media Fund"Created to further the development of character-driven documentaries. The Fund will arrange one-on-one meetings with key HBO Documentary Film executives, in addition to providing financial support, supervision and guidance from TFI and HBO, to select filmmakers developing artistically significant and engaging feature-length documentaries that emphasize character."
WomenArts: Funding Resources"...[S]upport[ing] social issue nonfiction storytellers expand the scope of their engagement with audiences. Designed to fund ambitious projects that expand the ideas of what is possible and available to documentary filmmakers and storytellers via the web and other digital media as well as other kinds of unique or cross-platform projects."
"WomenArts (incorporated as The Fund for Women Artists) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) arts service organization dedicated to helping women artists get the resources they need to do their creative work. Created in 1994 by Martha Richards, the organization has raised over $4 million and created a website that provides free networking, fundraising and advocacy services to over 500,000 visitors a year."
CROWDSOURCED FUNDING
IndieGoGo
"IndieGoGo offers anyone with an idea - creative, cause-related, or entrepreneurial - the tools to effectively build a campaign and raise money."Invested.in
"An interactive platform enabling users to leverage their social capital to raise financial capital."Kickstarter
"Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands."
"RocketHub is a launchpad and community for independent artists and entrepreneurs... We empower Creatives with the credibility & infrastructure necessary to successfully leverage the financial power of your community." See also RocketHub's Crowdfunding Bootcamp.
MISCELLANEOUS RESOURCES
The Fiscal Sponsor Directory
International Documentary Association Fiscal Sponsorship Program"A tool created by the San Francisco Study Center to help connect community projects with fiscal sponsors... (Fiscal sponsorship is) an arrangement between a 501(c)(3) public charity and a project (that does not have that tax status) in which, typically, the charity receives and expends funds to advance the charitable work of the project while retaining discretion and control over the funds.”
"Fiscal sponsorship is a legal and financial arrangement which allows a 501(c )(3) tax-exempt nonprofit corporation, such as the International Documentary Association (IDA) to provide it's nonprofit status along with financial oversight to a project by an individual or organization that does not have nonprofit status. IDA can provide this service to a variety of projects if they meet the fiscal sponsorship admissions criteria and their project is in line with our mission statement."Grant Craft: Practical Wisdom for Grantmakers
Comprehensive resource and reference for organizations interested in grantmaking and philanthropy. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation.
