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Highlights from 2009 Media Grantmaking — The State (and Future) of the Field

A Funder Conversation: Media Grantmaking — The State (and Future) of the Field
 

MEETING HIGHLIGHTS – JUNE 23 & 24, 2009, AT OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
[2010 Meeting Highlights will be posted shortly]


Rapid changes in the financial landscape – as well as shifts in the media and technology sectors and the upheaval in journalism – require funders to stay on top of emerging trends and opportunities in order to have significant impact moving forward. In such a moment of flux, it is especially necessary to have a robust understanding of who is funding what, in what ways, and where the gaps exist. This two-day “conversation” was designed to help the philanthropic community draw on the strength and wisdom of their colleagues to be able to serve our missions more effectively.

On June 23 and 24, 2009, over 50 funders convened at Open Society Institute in New York to discuss the state and future of media grant making. Participants represented a full spectrum of funders from across experience levels, regions, interest areas and grantmaking capacity. They included private, family and community foundations, government funders, donor advised funds, and non-profit re-granting organizations. There were benefactors present as well as philanthropic staff; all worked in or wanted to gain knowledge of the three sectors of media grant making—content, infrastructure and policy.

  • Media content refers to information, knowledge and artistic material conveyed through all types of media, including film and video, television, radio, print publications, and online channels.
  • Media infrastructure comprises not only the physical bricks & mortar installations, equipment and technology that enable media outlets to operate, but also the capacity of individuals (e.g., journalists, scholars, artists), institutions (e.g., journalism schools and community-based media arts and technology centers), associations and networks to produce, distribute and communicate media content.
  • Media policy broadly refers to the regulations, legislation, judicial oversight and institutional practices that shape our information and communications systems, including control and organization of culture industries, news and journalism, advertising, Internet and telephone services.


TUESDAY, JUNE 23

SESSION: Thinking Differently in Order to Fund Differently

As philanthropy and media experience rapid change, how can funders think, act and fund differently to harness that change and lead?

Presenter:

  • Bruce Ferguson, Director, F.A.R. (Future Arts Research), Arizona State University

(View a similar talk made at the 2008 Grantmakers in the Arts Annual Conference at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvKHh0HmdM8)

“In the new media environment, we are always looking and being looked at; we are moving from audience to participant; we are the curators of our own content.”

“Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 23:18)”

This quote concluded Bruce’s presentation and was on the screen throughout the subsequent conversation.

Conversation highlights:

Participants discussed the new media environment, how consumption of information has changed, the impact these changes are having on the work of media makers, artists and communicators and how foundations might shift their approach to better support this reality. Some reflections:

  • Foundations aren’t good at taking risks but the current environment offers an opportunity to re-prioritize our values
  • A focus on sustainability and resources makes it difficult for foundations to support innovation however, we have a responsibility to do so
  • The set of platforms that constitute ‘media’ will continue to evolve rapidly; forcing content producers to move quickly from medium to medium and requiring flexibility and adaptability on the part of grant makers
  • Media offers new forms of writing our culture
  • The language of ‘social justice,’ as used by foundations to describe grant making priorities, may not adequately reflect the complex reality of modern societal needs—access, openness and activism
  • Foundations need to re-consider programmatic or issue boundaries and develop a new vocabulary for this approach, while also understanding and appreciating the value of deep expertise in one area
  • Media and technology literacy will grow in importance. A helpful model was cited: Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Moving Image: Film, Television and Animation, which may be found on the New York City Department of Education website later this summer (http://schools.nyc.gov/default.htm). See also the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, which is partially funded through an innovative program by the state’s Department of Health (http://nmmlp.org)


SESSION: State of the Funding Landscape for Media - Policy, Content, Infrastructure

What is the current reality for media funding and what are the opportunities for increased impact in the near-term? How can a comprehensive framework encompassing media policy, content, and infrastructure strengthen the philanthropic sector’s efforts?

Participants received an interim report on GFEM’s new Media Funding Tracker, a far-reaching survey detailing the state of media funding and from a comprehensive J-Lab study on community media funding. (http://www.kcnn.org/toolkit)

Presenters:

  • Mary Albon, Research Associate, Intelligent Television, authors of GFEM Funding Tracker
  • Jan Schaffer, J-Lab, author of New Media Makers: a Toolkit for Innovators in Community Media and Grant Making


Conversation highlights:

Participants discussed preliminary research findings and methodology for GFEM’s new Media Funding Tracker and requested clarification on GFEM’s infrastructure/content/policy framework. As with the transformation of the media field itself, none of the words we commonly used in referring to “media” mean what they used to. For example, there needs to be an awareness among health funders that they are, in fact, media funders if they support “eHealth” or “mHealth” media initiatives. A further question then arises: should grants to create an eHealth or mHealth program that uses video clips online be classified as both media content and media infrastructure? Where is the point of overlap? [Leading Foundations to Form mHealth Alliance http://www.prweb.com/releases/mHealth/developing_country/prweb2088924.htm] Some additional reflections:

Participants discussed J-lab’s study on community media funding. Some reflections:

  • “Community Media” and “Citizen Journalism” are distinctly different enterprises.
  • With the lay-offs and closings at so many local newspapers, professional journalists are starting web-based initiatives to cover local stories and fill an important niche.
  • Non-profit journalism offers great opportunities for funders at the local level.
  • Health of the fourth estate is fundamental to democracy. We need to tease out what the generalizations are in the toolkit’s case studies.
  • The business model of journalism is broken—not journalism itself. The public doesn’t distinguish between news and information the way journalists do.


SESSION: State of the Field, A Discussion

What are funders experiencing as existing challenges, opportunities, and trends in media philanthropy? What and how are colleagues funding and considering as their approaches for sustaining this work for 2010 and 2011?

Presenters:

  • Media Content: Alyce Myatt, Executive Director, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media
  • Media Infrastructure: Vince Stehle, Program Officer, Surdna Foundation
  • Media Policy: Helen Brunner, Director, Media Democracy Fund


Conversation highlights:

  • An awareness by funders and their grantees of the interconnectedness of media content, infrastructure and policy is essential.
  • Family foundations and individual donors are driving philanthropy in the content arena but they have not been a part of the traditional discussion; large foundations are now playing a smaller role.
  • There are more funders but the grants are significantly smaller requiring a documentary filmmaker to aggregate 5, 6, or more grants to make up for one grant ($250,000+) that was once available from one large, institutional funder.
  • Content creators and funders are challenged to bridge the gap between ‘old’ and ‘new’ models of distribution.
  • A new “public media” sector is evolving outside of traditional PBS and NPR, i.e.:
    • Nonprofit journalism that includes video and audio
    • Ethnic media that is largely for-profit and serving a clearly defined community/market
    • The participatory culture or “Open Video” movement (http://openvideoconference.org)
  • Mobile phone and Internet platforms are growing in use for distribution presenting opportunities and challenges in all three areas of media. The Internet is also serving as a relay platform for mobile-to-mobile communications, i.e. Twitter.
  • There needs to be better continuity in the discussion – bring the technologists into the room.
  • Enormous opportunities for all three areas are being offered by the unprecedented $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding now rolling out (http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/bbstimulus-2009 see also http://gfem.org/node/551) and the federal Community Radio Act (http://prometheusradio.org/content/view/842/1/ and http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1147/show)


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24

SESSION: State of the Field – Practitioner Presentations and Group Discussion

What challenges and opportunities are practitioners seeing from their ground-level view of work in media policy, content, and infrastructure? Audio from these presentations is included below.

Presenters:

Katy Chevigny, ArtsEngine

Deepa Fernandes, People's Production House

Jan Schaffer, J-Lab

Laura Flanders, Grit TV

Katrin Verclas, MobileActive

Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge

Mary Smith, National Endowment for the Arts


Conversation highlights:

Participants engaged in conversation with a select group of dynamic leaders representing media content, infrastructure and policy sectors. One presenter observed that the field may flatten in the next few years because it is coming to rely on the creators of distribution devices to dictate the types of content. An example cited was the Reuters/Nokia Collaboration (http://mobileactive.org/reuters-nokia-collaboration). One presenter encouraged funders to think about re-prioritizing mobile technology in their work, because it will become a primary platform for information consumption and distribution as it now is in many developed and most developing countries. Some additional reflections:

  • We must continue to support the content creators, the storytellers, and focus on depth and quality. The demand is there.
  • Grantees can benefit from the knowledge funders have about a particular issue area and who the stakeholders are.
  • There is a lot of low-hanging fruit for funders to choose from and micro-grants offered at regular intervals give funders the ability to identify trends.
  • Small grants are very important and can serve as validation.
  • Access, competition and openness are critical values to promote in the digital age.
  • Funders should take great care in promoting mergers because culture clashes can undermine the effectiveness of the resulting organization.
  • Media literacy is increasingly important for media makers, funders, and the public.
  • Funders who support content need to understand what policy issues will affect distribution of their grantee’s work.


SESSION: Future of the Field: Practitioners and Funders

Grantmakers and grantseekers share an interest in strengthening media philanthropy; there is a great deal at stake for civil society.

Conversation highlights:

Participants discussed a range of specific ideas and suggestions for media grant makers, including whether and how to support health care and sabbaticals for content producers, how to better engage the public in supporting public media and media policy, what role the Obama Administration might play to inform the development of public interest policies to safeguard new media platforms and outlets, and how best to broaden the pool of funders supporting this work. Some additional reflections:

  • Funders need to move from being reactive around crisis situations to a more proactive approach that fosters innovation.
  • The economy is forcing organizations to fight to save themselves rather than do programmatic work. Is there a way funders can fund more consistently to avoid this pattern?
  • There is a need for more funders to support sabbaticals in order to prevent burn-out or for grantees to get up to speed on new technologies and platforms.
  • During these challenging times, livelihood surveys, such as the NEA’s Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005 (http://www.arts.endow.gov/research/ArtistsInWorkforce.pdf) should be conducted regularly to identify gaps and ensure the health of the community.
  • Pew Fellowships in the Arts offers health insurance (http://www.pewarts.org).
  • Future of Music Coalition has a baseline information tool on health insurance for musicians which may be a useful resource for other artists (http://futureofmusic.org/article/article/health-insurance-overview).
  • Knight Foundation has created a fellowship at Stanford for journalists (broadly defined, filmmakers now qualify as well) (http://knight.stanford.edu/).
  • The public needs to understand what life would be like without an open Internet, community media, independent film, to fully realize what is at stake.
  • Need to engage new funders in this work, but need to convince non-media funders that media is effective and that metrics and measurements of success can be applied.


Funder-Only Session: Next Steps for Media Grantmaking

Content, infrastructure and policy are interdependent and interconnected. Participants reviewed concrete examples over the last two days how something that looks like content can also be framed in other ways. The media community is complex, the environment is rapidly changing but the field holds great promise. A range of issues came up in conversation: digital literacy, funder-to-funder mentoring, field mapping (both purpose and intent). The next set of issues related to nomenclature: can we distinguish between media and technology—how broadly should we be thinking? There was a discussion about the phrase social justice, whether it was inclusive enough. Participants also discussed the importance of impact. Finally, there was a strong interest in ongoing conversations like this one, and in cross-sector collaboration. Key points:

  • Greater transparency
  • Trust among funders and between funders and grantees
  • Better distribution of best practices
  • Funders need to work together as allies
  • Cited most frequently as an important and effective activity is the ability of funders to convene knowledge exchanges whether it be media grantees, stakeholders, or bringing both together.
  • Funders need to think of themselves as “platforms.” We are as smart as the “nodes” in our network.
  • Because of the way funders are funding, they’re creating “human deficits.” Grant applications must include salaries and it’s the duty of the funder to ensure that the salaries are workable for the market in which the grantee is operating.
  • Funders should consider adapting the Cultural Data Project developed and operated by the Pew Charitable Trusts (http://www.culturaldata.org), which is mandatory for the grantees of some funders.
  • There are opportunities for philanthropy to help non-profits apply for funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (http://www.recovery.gov). Funders can provide:
    • Matching Grants
    • Technical Assistance
    • Convening
  • Funders need a better understanding of the audience with a goal of participatory democracy.
  • Foundations and nonprofits should have someone on staff to engage in telecom policy and then interpret the impact it has on the foundation’s or nonprofit’s work.
  • Strategies are needed to use the stories of past media impact, i.e. Leni Riefenstahl, An Army of One, to assess the impact of today’s public interest media and, by doing so, convince more funders to enter the field.
  • Significant needs:
    • More expert intermediary organizations to develop and implement outreach and civic engagement campaigns
    • A legal defense fund for media policy
    • A think tank for research
    • An academic SWAT team to mentor the next generation of leaders
    • Technical assistance to help grantees monetize their output

Resources + Publications

 

“What does the America we’re talking about look like?”


To be continued…
GFEM + MDF

 

Speakers

  • Mary Albon, Intelligent Television

Mary Albon is a Research Associate with Intelligent Television. Ms. Albon has over 20 years of experience in media, higher education, and nonprofit management, most recently as a freelance writer and a consultant to media companies, international organizations, foundations, university-based programs and nonprofit organizations. Previously she has served as manager of international field-based programs and corporate relations at the F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College; as associate director of Pubwatch, a nonprofit organization supporting the publishing industries in Eastern & Central Europe and the former Soviet Union; as a program officer at the Foundation for a Civil Society, where she managed the Project on Justice in Times of Transition; and as publications editor and program officer at the Institute for East-West Security Studies. She has also worked as a public relations consultant in Moscow. Ms. Albon has extensive experience collaborating with charitable foundations and cultural education institutions, and she has designed and implemented a wide array of high-level international conferences and programs focused on media and Eastern & Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, Central America, and Northern Ireland. Ms. Albon is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and she is a fellow of the 21st Century Trust.

Intelligent Television.Intelligent Television produces innovative films, television, and online video; conducts research in the future of media; and provides strategic planning and consulting services, all in close association with leading cultural and educational institutions and renowned directors and cinematographers — and all to make educational and cultural material more widely accessible worldwide.

  • Claudine Brown, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Claudine Brown is currently the Director of the Arts and Culture Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She began her professional career as an art and drama teacher in New York City Public Schools. In 1976 she joined the staff of the Brooklyn Museum where she served for thirteen years in several capacities, including the Manager of School and Community Programs and the Museum's Assistant Director for Government and Community Relations. Brown left the Brooklyn Museum in 1990 to direct the Smithsonian Institution's initiative to create a National African American Museum. In 1991, she added to her responsibilities by concurrently assuming the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Museums. Brown has served on several nonprofit boards, including the American Association of Museums, the National Park Service Fund, and the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and she recently served as President of the Board of Grantmakers in the Arts. She has taught graduate courses in the Arts Administration program at New York University, and the Museum Leadership Program at Bank Street College. Brown has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute, a Masters of Science degree in Museum Education from Bank Street College and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Brooklyn Law School.

Nathan Cummings Foundation.The Nathan Cummings Foundation seeks to build a socially and economically just society that values nature and protects the ecological balance for future generations; promotes humane health care; and fosters arts and culture that enriches communities. The Arts and Culture program supports artistic and cultural projects that illuminate social justice issues, convenings and training programs, diverse media and innovative delivery systems, and public policies that strengthen the cultural community.

  • Helen Brunner, Media Democracy Fund

Helen Brunner directs the Media Democracy Fund. Helen served as program consultant to Albert A. List Foundation’s Freedom of Expression, Arts and Telecommunications Policy and Advocacy Programs from 1996-2004. In her capacity as Director of Foundation Services for Art Resources International, she has also advised Ford, Pew, Andy Warhol, Quixote, Women Donors Network, Leeway and other foundations in the areas of communications policy, independent media, freedom of expression, and the arts. She was Executive Director of the National Association of Artists Organizations from 1993-95, founded Art Resources International in 1985, was Director of Programs at the Washington Project for the Arts from 1982-85, and served as coordinator of the Visual Studies Workshop Research Center in Rochester, NY from 1975-82. She has served on numerous boards of directors, including the Progressive Technology Project, the National Association of Artists Organizations and the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression.

Media Democracy Fund.The Media Democracy Fund (MDF) is a collaborative grant making initiative that supports advocacy groups working to create a just media environment and democratic media policy. The Fund is founded on the belief that freedom of expression and access to information are basic human rights. Current and initiating foundations include, Albert A. List Foundation, Arca Foundation, Buddy Taub Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, HKH Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Open Society Institute, Otto Haas Charitable Trusts, Park Foundation, Quixote Foundation, Town Creek Foundation, Wallace Global Fund and individual donor Peter Kent.

Since its launch in September 2006, MDF has awarded grants to organizations working in the areas of digital inclusion, internet policy, media ownership diversification, protecting intellectual property and personal privacy, and preserving and promoting journalism and community media. Most MDF grantees work in many of these issue areas. Grants emphasize the importance of engaging a broad range of constituencies in shaping the communication policies that affect their lives, including Native Americans, Latinos, rural populations, immigrants, low income people, youth, and people of color and faith communities.

MDF offers funding partners and grantees a range of resources beyond the annual grantmaking pool. The Fund works closely with its grantees, making connections within the field and with other movements, providing technical assistance when necessary or appropriate and supporting a rapid response grantmaking function to respond to unanticipated opportunities or threats. MDF funding partners work together to develop strategy and benefit from the Fund’s field tracking work, an annual survey of philanthropic investment in media policy, and newly developed online resources to support their own direct grant making.

  • Katy Chevigny, ArtsEngine

Katy Chevigny, Executive Director of Arts Engine, is a documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and nonprofit manager. For sixteen years, Chevigny has advocated for a diverse media culture, one that illuminates important stories and amplifies voices not often heard in the mainstream media. In addition to the work of Arts Engine, Chevigny is also a filmmaker and directed the film Election Day (2007), which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) in March 2007 and was broadcast on public television by POV on July 1, 2008. Chevigny also co-directed Deadline (2004), an Emmy-nominated documentary about the dramatic events that took place in Illinois in 2003 concerning capital punishment. The film aired on NBC in July 2004 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, won a CINE Golden Eagle Grand Jury Award and the Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award. Chevigny has produced many award-winning documentaries at Arts Engine, including: Arctic Son (2006), Journey to the West: Chinese Medicine Today (2001), Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America (2001), Nuyorican Dream (2000), Brother Born Again (2000), and Innocent Until Proven Guilty (1999).

Arts Engine.The organization now known as Arts Engine began under the leadership of co-founders Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur in 1997 when they formed a partnership to create social-issue documentaries. These two engaged social activists developed the core values and beliefs that have informed all of the projects since then and that make up Arts Engine’s powerful mission today.

In 2000, during the height of the Internet boom, Chevigny and Pimsleur were among the first to realize that social-issue filmmaking was taking a dramatic turn. A new culture was emerging that would entirely change the face of media from televised monologues to internet-driven conversations, as electronically facilitated dialogue and distribution channels opened opportunities to build online communities where no community existed before.

Committed to breaking down traditional hierarchies and status-markers, Arts Engine launched one of the only online commons for filmmakers and activists, called MediaRights.org, and created what is now the most comprehensive database of social-issue documentaries in the nation, and possibly the world, with over 7,000 films registered and more than 20,000 members from around the world. MediaRights.org connects films and mediamakers with nonprofits, librarians and educators to expand the reach and impact of social issue documentary films.

They also developed and launched the Media That Matters Film Festival, one of the first online film festivals, and realized the incredible potential for online showcasing and distribution. Now in its ninth year, Media That Matters reaches hundreds of thousands of people annually and hosts hundreds of internet pages of information with “Take Action Links” on health, global warming, diversity, sustainability and much more.

In 2008, Arts Engine adopted and relaunched DocuClub, a film screening series of works-in-progress documentaries. The ballast of idealism to build Arts Engine from the early beginnings in 1997 to today is the belief that exemplary visual storytelling on social issues can change the world.

  • Bruce Ferguson, F.A.R. (Future Arts Research), Arizona State University

Bruce Ferguson.Bruce W. Ferguson is an independent art curator and critic who has worked internationally for more than thirty years. In fact, he is recognized as having identified many of the top contemporary artists in early stages of their careers. "I have spent most of my professional life in one way or another facilitating artists," Ferguson says.

Bruce has recently become the director of F.A.R. (Future Arts Research) at Arizona State University in Phoenix. Other recent projects include consulting to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto to develop long-range strategies and goals for a complete museum renovation by architect Frank Gehry.

Bruce previously served as the Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University; President and Executive Director of the New York Academy of Art; and is the founding Director and first biennial curator of SITE Santa Fe, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Bruce has curated more than 35 exhibitions for institutions such as the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Barbican Art Gallery in London, the Winnipeg and Vancouver Art Galleries in Canada, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. He also organized exhibitions in the international biennales of Sao Paulo, Sydney, Venice, and Istanbul.

As a curator, Bruce is interested in audiences:
"There has been a whole shift in the museum world, and in the university, from the idea of supply-driven toward demand-driven programming," he says. "It used to be that curators just made exhibitions that reflected their interests. But now, increasingly, you have to ask – does anybody want it or need it? There has to be some relationship to the community and to the local."

A prolific writer, Bruce has written for art publications like Canadian Art, Art Forum, Art in America, Art + Text, Flash Art, Bomb Magazine, Art Press, Borders Crossing, and Parachute. He was the curator and co-writer for Table at the Imperial, a 60-minute radio play for the CBC Radio Drama Series Playing for Keeps #7 and was awarded a Senior Canada Council Grant in Criticism for writing.

Along with Reesa Greenberg and Sandy Nairne, he received a Getty Senior Research Fellowship grant which resulted in the publication of a seminal anthology of essays on the theories of exhibitions, titled Thinking About Exhibitions (Routledge: 1996).

Bruce received his B.A. in Art History from the University of Saskatchewan and his M.A. in Communications from McGill University in Montreal. He currently resides in New York City.

  • Deepa Fernandes, People's Production House

Deepa Fernandes is an award-winning journalist. She is the founder and Executive Director of People’s Production House and the host of Wakeup Call, the morning news show at WBAI 99.5 FM.

Since 2003, Deepa has had extensive experience reporting from corners of the world where few reporters go. From the prisons of Haiti, to the guerilla hide-outs in East Timor, from the indigenous jungles of Chiapas to the streets of Havana, and from the slums of Bombay to the townships of South Africa, Deepa brings forgotten voices to international audiences. In the U.S., she has anchored most of the major national broadcasts for the Pacifica Network, including election year events, Supreme Court nomination hearings and major congressional investigations. Deepa also reports for the BBC World Service and PRI.

Seven Stories Press published Deepa’s first book, Targeted, Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration, where she writes about immigration policy and history, in December 2006. Deepa is also a Puffin Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute. Her writings have appeared in the Village Voice, the Nation magazine and Mother Jones magazine, among many others. She has an MA from Columbia University.

In 2009 Deepa received the Frederick Douglass News Prize honoring her journalism and media training efforts. She has also won numerous radio journalism awards over the years for her news and documentary reporting.

People's Production House.People's Production House (PPH) provides comprehensive media education for students, immigrants, and working families. PPH was founded by journalists who believe merely producing quality stories is not enough. They set out to transform the field by opening new opportunities for participation through education, new media outlets, and positive change in media policy. They have succeeded in creating dozens of new journalists who have contributed thousands of stellar and unique reports to radio stations and print publications around the world. With their ongoing work in media literacy, media skills training, and media policy advocacy, they are changing the face of journalism. PPH helps people find their voices and make them heard.

At PPH they believe that participation in the information age requires that a person be more than a smart media consumer. They believe that media literacy means not just deconstructing media messages, but knowing how to create our own media, and how to shape the policies that determine what we hear and what we can say. PPH promotes this expansive form of media literacy because they believe communication is a foundational human right and a public good; we are all harmed when groups of people are excluded; we all benefit when more people participate.

PPH’s objectives are to:

  • Build a new generation of journalists with professional skills and community roots through staged levels of critical thinking and hands-on technical training.
  • Build a media that reflects a breadth of voices and experiences.
  • Prepare individuals for broadcasting their voices to a variety of outlets.
  • Influence positive change in media policy.
  • Help people find their voices and make them heard.

PPH has three main programs: Radio Rootz is a youth media arts program that teaches radio production, media literacy and media activism in public schools and partners youth organizing groups with high school youth to create radio documentaries that serve as movement-building tools. The Community News Production Institute builds the media capacity of base-building organizations, training their members as journalists. The Digital Expansion Initiative uses research, media production, public education, and community organizing to transform Internet policy and expand meaningful Internet access to low-income communities and communities of color.

PPH works directly with community organizing groups and public school students. Their member-reporters and staff come almost exclusively from low-income communities and communities of color. Their member-reporters are public school students, street vendors, nannies, and day laborers, as well as people living in the shelter system and immigrants fighting detention or deportation.

Placing the power to create media in the hands of affected communities allows them to frame the debate in their own terms, using the language, imagery and voices of their choosing. PPH believes that if the American people heard the voices and issues of low-income communities fairly represented, then public policies based on social justice and human need would be more mainstream. PPH’s goal is to put low-income communities and communities of color as the protagonists in setting the frame and dictating the narrative.

  • Laura Flanders, Grit TV

Laura Flanders is the host of "GRITtv": the new news and culture discussion program online, on satellite, and on cable TV. She is the author of Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America (The Penguin Press, 2007) and the New York Times bestseller Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004), an exposé of women in George W. Bush's cabinet. As part of the original line-up on Air America Radio, she hosted The Laura Flanders Show and RadioNation. An author and broadcaster for more than 20 years, Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group FAIR, where she hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's syndicated radio show. She launched the award-winning Your Call on public radio KALW in San Francisco. She is a regular contributor to the Nation, Ms. Magazine, the Huffington Post, AlterNet, and a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Ed Show.

GRITtv.Launched in May 2008, GRITtv with Laura Flanders harnesses the energy of the political moment and the tools of new technology to reach a broad national audience with an engaging progressive message and a way to get involved. GRITtv’s programming, reach, and visibility have grown rapidly, as the program is now broadcast on key websites online, on satellite and on cable television.

The centerpiece of GRITtv is a conversation moderated by host Laura Flanders, who probes the key questions of the day. Ms. Flanders’ interviewees include acknowledged “experts” and “expert” audience members: legislators, workers, entrepreneurs, students, and journalists – from grassroots to net-roots and back. Building on Ms. Flanders’ established brand of upbeat, intelligent discussion, GRITtv covers politics in Washington but also beyond the Beltway, translating complex policy – ranging from environmental justice and economic policy to reproductive rights – into clear terms and putting local stories within a national framework.

In year one, GRITtv viewers saw timely discussions among guests including Dean Baker, David Cay Johnston, Janeane Garofalo, Stephen Greenhouse, Chris Hedges, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Jim Hightower, Naomi Klein, Walter Mosley, Jane Mayer, Michael Ratner, Matt Taibbi, Hendrick Hertzberg, and the Yes Men, among others.

GRITtv’s staff members are top-notch professionals, many drawn from network and public television. The content of the show hails from the best traditions of intelligent journalism. The multi-platform approach to distribution, however, pushes the content out into every branch of new media: social networking sites, blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter, and the websites of the groups and guests who appear on the show.

Using new technology and building on long-standing relationships, GRITtv emphasizes collaboration and interaction at every level in a medium more typically dominated by a few decision makers and stars. Approximately one fifth of every day’s content is viewer and community generated. In addition, GRITtv holds monthly open editorial meetings (“GRIT GROUP”). GRITtv invites direct input from grassroots groups, labor unions, progressive policy organizations, viewers and independent journalists. It is exactly the kind of cost-effective, mutually reinforcing, responsive media resource that the non-profit sector needs if it is to leverage the power of new media.

  • Alyce Myatt, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media

Alyce Myatt has served as Executive Director of Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media (GFEM) since 2006. Prior to GFEM, she was a multimedia consultant providing analysis and strategic planning services for independent media organizations and the philanthropic community. In that capacity she has had a client base that included the Council on Foundations, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), the Women Donors Network, the Center for Digital Democracy, Free Speech TV, MediaWorks, OneWorld TV, Emerson College, TVE Brasil, the Heinz Endowments, and the Annie E. Casey and Skillman Foundations. Prior to her return to consulting, she was Vice President of Programming for the Public Broadcasting Service overseeing independent film, PBS Kids, and the Ready To Learn initiative. Alyce has been a program officer for media at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and president of her own consulting firm that provided program development services, strategic planning, and brand management to a variety of clients in television, radio, and for the Internet. Her production credits include the Smithsonian Institution, Nickelodeon, and the ABC News magazine, "20/20."

GFEM.Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM) is an association of grantmakers committed to advancing the field of media arts and public interest media funding. GFEM serves as a resource for grantmakers who fund media content, infrastructure, and policy, those who employ media to further their program goals as well as a collaborative network for funders who wish to learn more about media.

GFEM members have a broad range of interests and approaches, but share the view that electronic media is a vital form of human expression, communication and creativity, and plays a key role in building public will and shaping civil society.

GFEM seeks to increase the amount and effectiveness of media funding by foundations and other funders, to increase the use of media in grantmakers' and grantees' work, and to raise the broader foundation community's understanding of current media policy and trends as they affect funders' work in the larger grantmaking community.

GFEM's aim is to deepen the field of media funding by providing programs and services for colleague grantmakers. GFEM facilitates collaboration and idea sharing among media grantmakers and leaders in the field and works to increase the amount and quality of data available on trends in media funding.

  • Jan Schaffer, J-Lab

Jan Schaffer is executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and a leading thinker in the journalism reform movement. She left daily journalism in 1994 to lead pioneering initiatives in civic journalism, interactive and participatory journalism, innovations in journalism and citizen media ventures. She launched J-Lab in 2002 to spotlight new forms of digital storytelling.

Schaffer previously directed the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, a $14 million initiative that funded more than 120 pilot news projects that better engaged people in public issues.

She is a former Business Editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she worked for 22 years as a reporter and editor.

As a federal court reporter, she helped write a series that won freedom for a man wrongly convicted of five murders. The stories led to the civil rights convictions of six Philadelphia homicide detectives and won several national journalism awards, including the 1978 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. Also while covering federal courts, she broke the Philadelphia Abscam story about the FBI sting operation that used agents posing as Arab sheiks. She was sentenced to jail for six months for refusing to reveal her sources; the sentence was stayed on appeal.

Currently, she serves as a speaker, trainer, author, consultant and web publisher on digital storytelling models and the future of journalism.

J-Lab.J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism is an incubator for innovative news experiments that use new technologies to help people actively engage in critical public issues. Its core mission is to improve public life by transforming journalism for today and re-inventing it for tomorrow.

J-Lab spotlights dynamic news experiences and helps to develop interactive news ideas that not only educate people about public affairs but also invite their participation.

J-Lab rewards novel ideas through the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism (www.J-Lab.org). It funds cutting-edge citizen media start-ups through its New Voices project (www.J-NewVoices.org) and the McCormick New Media Women Entrepreneur initiative (http://www.newmediawomen.org). It produces Web tutorials on digital media at www.J-Learning.org and it helps to build journalistic skills and track community news startups through its Knight Citizen News Network (www.kcnn.org). It also spotlights interactive news exercises and digital storytelling examples that involve people in public issues. J-Lab is a center of the American University's School of Communication.

  • Mary Smith, National Endowment for the Arts

Mary Smith is the Film/Radio/Television (Media Arts) Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts. At the Endowment, Mary oversees all aspects of the application process for the independent film, radio and television fields. This entails advising applicants from their initial proposal submission through to their success or failure. Grantees range in budget size (total organizational expenses) from $30,100 to $101,200,794. Projects range in scope and size from three-day film festivals to year-long educational offerings. In addition, Mary represents the NEA at national conferences and conducts site visits to grantees. She has been a visiting lecturer at American University and Long Island University. Mary also works on special NEA initiatives such as this year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Mary received her journalism degree at the University of Colorado with a minor in film studies.

NEA.The National Endowment for the Arts primarily supports non-profit organizations to carry out specific arts projects. The Media Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts supports non-profit organizations in the production, exhibition, distribution and preservation of film/video/audio artworks, and supports television and radio series and single programs about the arts. Grants include film/video exhibition venues (Anthology Film Archives, Seattle International Film Festival); distribution (Women Make Movies, Video Data Bank); preservation (Museum of Modern Art, Pacifica Foundation); and workshops (Scribe Video Center, Sundance Labs). NEA-supported television and radio series include POV, American Masters, American Routes, Independent Lens, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, etc. Recent independent documentary productions supported by the Endowment include Hollywood Chinese (Arthur Dong), The Empress Hotel (Allie Light and Irving Saraf), Milking the Rhino (David Simpson), In the Family (Joanna Rudnick), and New Muslim Cool (Jennifer Taylor).

  • Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge

Gigi B. Sohn is the President and Co-Founder of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit organization that addresses the public's stake in the convergence of communications policy and intellectual property law. Public Knowledge seeks to ensure that the three layers of our communications system - the physical infrastructure, the systems and the content layer - promote fundamental democratic principles and cultural values including openness, access, and the capacity to create and compete.

Gigi serves as the chief strategist, fundraiser and public face of Public Knowledge. She is frequently quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, as well as in trade and local press. Gigi also has had articles published in the Washington Post, USA Today, Variety, CNET and Legal Times, and writes blog posts for the Huffington Post. In addition, she has appeared on numerous national and local cable, broadcast television and radio programs, including the Today Show, Good Morning America, The McNeil-Lehrer Report, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and The Communicators and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition.

Gigi is a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado and a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne Faculty of Law, Graduate Studies Program in Australia. She has been a Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center, and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

Gigi previously served as a Project Specialist in the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts and Culture unit. In that capacity, she developed the strategic vision and oversaw grantmaking for the Foundation’s first-ever media policy and technology portfolio.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Gigi served as Executive Director of the Media Access Project (MAP), a Washington, DC based public interest telecommunications law firm that represents citizens’ rights before the Federal Communications Commission and the courts. In recognition of her work at MAP, President Clinton appointed Gigi to serve as a member of his Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters (“Gore Commission”) in October 1997. The Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Gigi one of its Internet “Pioneer Awards” in 2006.

Gigi currently serves on the board of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) and Broadcasters’ Child Development Center (BCDC). She is a member of the advisory board of the Future of Music Coalition. Gigi served on the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors from 1997-2000.

Gigi holds a B.S. in Broadcasting and Film, Summa Cum Laude, from the Boston University College of Communication and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Public Knowledge.Founded in 2001, Public Knowledge is a public interest organization that works to ensure the free flow of knowledge through day-to-day policy advocacy, press and public education, and work with affected constituencies. They seek to accomplish this goal by promoting communications and copyright policies that 1) ensure open, fast, and affordable communications networks; and 2) promote creativity, innovation, competition, and civic discourse. Their website and policy weblog can be found at www.publicknowledge.org.

Now nearly eight years old, Public Knowledge is an established leader in the media and technology policy field. With a reputation as a smart, effective, tech-savvy advocacy organization, Public Knowledge is a trusted voice in Washington and around the country, maintaining a high degree of credibility on complex communications policy issues. The organization is also considered perhaps the best builder of the industry/public interest coalitions that are critical to success in these policy areas. Public Knowledge is respected among its allies, its adversaries, policymakers, the press and the general public.

  • Vince Stehle, Surdna Foundation

Vince Stehle is the Program Officer for the Nonprofit Sector Support Program at the Surdna Foundation, a family foundation based in New York City with assets approaching $700 million. Surdna also makes grants in the areas of Community Revitalization, Environment, Creating an Effective Citizenry, and the Arts. The Nonprofit Sector Support Program focuses on strengthening the policy and advocacy role of nonprofits, their internal management and their dealing with a changing political, economic and technological environment. It includes support for the creation of new sources of philanthropic dollars and effective collaboration between nonprofits and philanthropy.

Before coming to Surdna, Vince worked for ten years as a reporter for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where he covered fundraising and management issues for the nonprofit sector. In addition, Vince has written extensively for other publications, including The Washington Post, The Nation, Symphony Magazine and other magazines and journals. Vince recently served as Chair of the Board of Directors, Philanthropy New York.

Surdna Foundation.The Surdna Foundation was established in 1917 by John Emory Andrus to pursue a range of philanthropic purposes.

Family stewardship of Surdna over the years has been informed by Mr. Andrus' values: thrift, practicality, modesty, loyalty, excellence and an appreciation for direct service to those in need. These values have been applied both to oversight of the two Memorials and to more general grant programs. In 1989, the third and fourth generations of the Andrus family on the Surdna board established programs in Environment and Community Revitalization and decided to enlarge the professional staff to broaden the Foundation's effectiveness. In 1994, programs in Effective Citizenry and the Arts were added. The Nonprofit Sector Support Program was added in 1997 to address crosscutting issues affecting the sector.

  • Katrin Verclas, MobileActive

Katrin Verclas is a recognized expert in mobile communications for social impact. She is the co-founder and editor of MobileActive.org, a global network of practitioners using mobile phones for social impact. She is also a principal at Calder Strategies, focusing on mobile strategy, impact evaluation, effectiveness and ROI assessment, and interactive capacity building.

Katrin has written widely on mobile phones in citizen participation and civil society organizations, mobile phones in health and for development. She is a co-author of Wireless Technology for Social Change, a report on trends in mobile use by NGOs with the UN Foundation and Vodafone Group Foundation, and author of A Mobile Voice: The Use of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media.

She is a frequent speaker on communications and ITCs in civil society at national and international conferences, and has published numerous articles and publications on technology for social change in leading popular and industry publications.

Katrin serves on the boards of Mobile Voter and Ushahidi.

MobileActive.orgMobileActive.org is a community of people and organizations using mobile phones for social impact. They are committed to increasing the effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the 4.2 billion mobile phones globally provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery.

They work together to create the resources NGOs need to effectively use mobile phones in their work: locally relevant content and services, support and learning opportunities, and networks that help MobileActives connect to each other. With these things on hand, tens of thousands of NGOs will be in a better position to enrich and serve their communities.

The MobileActive.org community includes grassroots activists, NGO staff, intermediary organizations, content and service providers, and organizations who fund mobile technology projects. Their work focuses on:

1. Expanding access to knowledge, ideas and experiences about the use of mobile technology to make the world a better place;
2. Reducing learning costs for deploying mobile technology for civil society organizations;
3. Accelerating the use of effective strategies and tactics of mobile use for NGOs;
4. Providing a comprehensive platform for building partnerships, and for facilitating access to technology and funding.