Funding Media for Social Change - a report

[Source: The MediaWorks Initiative, by Nan Ruben, Sharon Maeda]

November 2003

The MediaWorks Initiative presents the following survey of media funding for social change. The original impetus for this work came out of a meeting of the National Network of Grantmakers Working Group on Funding Media in October 2001. The Patriot Act had just passed with one dissenting vote, the nation was preparing to attack Afghanistan, and nowhere in the media were questions being raised about whether these were appropriate responses to 9/11.

The group decided to see what could be done to increase the investment of donors, investors and foundations in building media that contribute to a fair, inclusive and sustainable democracy. They spent a year locating and conversing with our allies learning about other emerging initiatives and organizations that shared some of our goals. In December of 2002 we created the MediaWorks Initiative, with the mission of increasing funding for social change media. The first step was to commission a study to determine how much money was going to independent media, why there appeared to be so little support, how funders thought about media projects, what the obstacles were to more and better media funding, and what funders thought could be done to strengthen social change media. “Media Funding for Social Change” is the outcome of that study.  Download the report below.


MEDIAWORKS INITIATIVE
mediaworks_initiative@msn.com.

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