Highlights from 2010 Media Grantmaking — The State and Future of the Field

The 2010 Funder Conversation: Media Grantmaking — The State (and Future) of the Field

Presented by:
Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media and the Media Democracy Fund

Hosted by:
The Open Society Institute

Held June 9 – 10, 2010

In June 2009, we held our first Funder Conversation. At the time, our rationale for the convening was tied to the rapid changes in the financial landscape – as well as shifts in the media and technology sectors and the upheaval in journalism. We thought it important for funders to convene and share their knowledge and experience to enable them to stay on top of emerging trends and opportunities. Our ultimate goal was for the sector to have a robust understanding of who is funding what, in what ways, and where the gaps existed.

The field of media continues to be dynamic, as does the philanthropic sector. A number of new initiatives have emerged and funders are assessing the impact of prior grantmaking.

As technology continues to shape the way media is made and consumed, we thought it appropriate to once again bring together a group of media funders. This two-day “conversation” was designed to help the philanthropic community draw on the strength and wisdom of their colleagues to better understand what’s happening in media and therefore serve their missions more effectively.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Introductions: Who’s in the room?

Who are you?
Where are you from (location)?
What is your grantmaking affiliation?
What kinds of things do you fund?
How big or small are your grants?
What are your best and worst experiences funding media?
What BIG QUESTION are you coming with?

Conversation highlights:

A diversity of funders were in the room, representing a spectrum of grantmaking, from microgrants to multi-million dollar gifts, on a range of issues, including: the humanities, health care, education, media policy, media justice, documentary production and outreach, radio, progressive uses of technology, journalism, media infrastructure, fostering democracy, women filmmakers, Native-American documentarians, grassroots community organization, social justice, social media, Internet activism, civic engagement using media, support for independent filmmakers and creative partnerships, advancing the open web, food security and farm issues, technology adoption in underserved communities, open Internet, public works in the Philippines, artists in New England, media reform, and public media.

Core Issues Raised in Introductions:

How do funders best collaborate and make connections with one another?
How do funders best aggregate and share knowledge?
How does one gauge the impact of film projects and/or grantmaking?
How do we re-envision and reinvent public media?
How do we better support, use, and integrate new technology?

Specific Big Questions Posed by Individual Funders in the Group:

• How can we network and work together to build abundance out of scarcity?
• How can philanthropy and government work together to evaluate the impact and best practices of the BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) stimulus funding?
• How do we as national funders do a better job working at the state and local level?
• What is the big question I should be asking?
• How do we increase the number of Native Americans in public media?
• How can this work be inclusive of traditionally marginalized communities?
• How can we better measure the impact of films and grants?
• How do we balance helping to build up community and ethnic media groups, vs. creating new things?
• What are the paradigms for defining media grantmaking given shifts in social media?
• How do we foster independent media in the face of corporate media?
• How do we strengthen public interest journalism and balance it with creating sustainable organizations?
• How can advisors help newly interested media funders implement funding strategies?
• How do we integrate investments and thinking across platforms?
• How can we work with filmmakers to ensure success and get more films made and widely distributed?
• What should we be doing…and is it more expensive?
• How do we figure out the best possible use of grants, and how can we leverage more?
• How do we find the right projects to collaborate on, because we can’t collaborate on everything?
• Urgency and sustainability questions and challenges.
• How can we work together and offer tools?
• How to get better distribution? New ideas for getting great projects out to wider audiences?
• How can we better weave policy discussions through the issues being raised today?
• How can we work with artists to get better strategic thinking, and create a stronger ecology?
• What constitutes a successful partnership?
• How can I better measure the impact of my foundation’s work?
• How can we approach aggregating functions so that great content is searchable and available?
• Many are funding the same filmmakers – how can we look at projects together and collaborate on the same film projects?
• How can we strengthen fiscal sponsorship programs internationally, especially for audiences who don’t have access to these films?
• How do I find collaborative partners? How do I find festivals that want environmental films?
• How can we collaborate more in traditional media and new media?
• How can we aggregate content to learn about the role of regional funders in state and national policy?
• Is there one big question in this room?
• Progressive, critical media - how do we best serve these causes?
• How can we energize the public media space? How can GFEM serve the needs of funders?
• In a field that’s so critical, how can we increase resources?
• How should we grow in the next five years?
• What can I say today that will help you drive media policy off the lot?
• What is philanthropy’s role in deconstructing public media and public broadcasting and reconstructing it in a way that serves all the people in the country?
• How can we bring art and technology together for social benefit? Where do culture and tech meet in media policy?
• Interested in intersection of art and technology. Working together/partnerships.
• Interested in collaboration, new innovations.
• How do we collaborate better and more effectively without pressure to collaborate in everything?

Discussion Highlights

• BP and the oil spill in the Gulf. Idea about a rapid response system among funders – a SWAT team to deal with big issues.
• Shift in corporate power since Citizens United decision. Need to develop strategies to address corporate power. 
• Can film funders better leverage their impact by coordinating post-production among filmmakers working on similar issues? Fledgling has done this for filmmakers; idea is to convene funders. 
• Idea of regulation is a dirty word – needs to be reclaimed.
• There is a problem of dwindling support for advocacy work. Atlantic Philanthropies issued a report in favor of supporting advocacy: http://bit.ly/brvaq4.
• The Good Pitch (http://britdoc.org/real_good/pitch/) and Media Democracy Fund (http://www.mediademocracyfund.org/) are examples of collaboratives where funders can have enough narrowing of interests to collaborate and enough breadth for new ideas.
• US Social Forum (http://www.ussf2010.org/) and Allied Media Conference (http://alliedmediaconference.org/) are good places to go. Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy (FNTG: http://www.fntg.org/) has a funder delegation to the US Social Forum. Opportunity for cross-silo work. 
• Convergence is here and is happening on the web. Visual artists, performance artists, etc. are all posting content to the web – not always under the auspices of “media.” Ultimately, art is usually put online to be shared. 
• Funders should note the fight about Internet classification (http://bit.ly/9aNzKJ). There is concern that telecoms and cable companies such as Comcast and AT&T are poised to take over the Internet and become gatekeepers for content. 
• Discussion about connections between artists, filmmakers, technologists, and infrastructure. In social media in particular the storytellers and advocates need to be effective in using new technology.

Mapping & Redefining Public Media Part I: Connecting the Dots
What is “public media” in the digital age? Funders are investing in public media, including journalism, as well as the broadband infrastructure to ensure its universal delivery to audiences. This infrastructure includes human capital as well as bricks and mortar. At the same time, policies governing the Internet are being determined. Furthermore, there’s a generational shift taking place within public media entities. Even the term “public media” is being redefined. As investments and policies evolve, what innovations are being developed? What systemic changes can be fostered? What kinds of efficiencies can be designed by taking a holistic view and connecting the dots?

Presenter:


• Joaquin Alvarado, Vice President for Digital Innovation, American Public Media (APM)

Presentation Notes:

• Mapping – The public media map at http://publicmediamaps.org/ maps the investment of several foundations - the Ford Foundation and Knight Foundation are current good examples. Need funders to participate in mapping what is being funded so that everyone can see investments in a specific geographical area. Motivated program officers can now share data. Who are you giving money to, for what, and how’s it going? Contact Joaquin directly if you are interested in contributing to the mapping project at the Center for Media Engagement. (http://publicmediamaps.org/)
• With mapping we have greater control of what to do, where, how.
• Public Media Policy - We will never reform public broadcasting. But we can rebuild it.
• Internet - What if we engage open source platforms? Make programs open and accessible rather than funding the same thing over and over…make it scalable, and add capacity.
• Funds are needed to support collaboration space.
• Consider creating shared standards that GFEM could manage. World Wide Web Consortium creates ground rules for web, which allow it to operate smoothly. We have no architecture like this for funding. 
• Can we push hard enough to create open Internet requirements in Comcast/Universal deal? Is there a dollar amount, like the settlement in California that created ZeroDivide, that we could capture for a special fund to support local journalism?
• On Net Neutrality, we’ve made significant progress on generating intelligence, but we are increasingly aware that we are losing. Dick Gephardt has just been hired by Comcast as a lobbyist. NBC/Universal is going to merge with Comcast (http://bit.ly/9IlpVA). Can we require rules around this merger? When Comcast and Universal come together, it will diminish the incentives for the owner of that infrastructure to do local news. What should we be asking for? A $300 million fund to incentivize public media? Trade groups to protect jobs in journalism? We have to fight now and not look back and wonder what we should have done.
• Need to build the community that can share and collaborate effectively to address these issues together. 
• Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC: http://www.bavc.org/) has been very good with collaboration. 
• By looking at projects from an open source perspective, we can be a lot more effective. Example: Not in Our Town website (http://www.niot.org/) is built in Drupal. All components are open for anybody else to use. 
• Build collaboration – don’t chase it.

Q&A and discussion with Joaquin:

Q – Steve Jobs has so much power he can decide not to have Flash on the iPad because he doesn’t like it. Standards are wonderful but how do you create standards that would be strong enough to rebut the power of someone like Steve Jobs?
A – In a funding context we need transparency. The funding community that’s interested in public media and journalism is actually connected enough to have a standards body. It would change the negotiating power.

Q – What should we ask about Comcast/NBC merger?
A – Open Internet and $300 million fund for journalists who will lose jobs. Funding community can request this.

Q – What’s standing in the way of broader usage of Drupal? (http://drupal.org/)
A – Some already do use it, but you can push harder by funding projects that use it. Make it a requirement.

Q – How would you turn funding filmmakers into a mapping structure?
A – Multiple layers over the same map. Think of it like Photoshop – multiple layers. Then network all the films in the portfolio to generate reporting.

• The downside of requiring Drupal is that it requires a sophisticated web developer. Google Maps, Open Street are alternatives that are viable.
• Video games are the single largest media in the world. They are massive data visualization exercises. Abstract data environments are the space in which video games operate.

Mapping & Redefining Public Media Part II: The Past Is Prologue
What’s in the works? What’s working? What hasn’t worked? This section of our day took a look back and forward with presentations by funders actively engaged in supporting a variety of public media initiatives at many different levels. Their presentations were followed by group discussion.

Conversation highlights:

Jenny Toomey, Freedom of Expression, Ford Foundation.

• Media policy is one of 34 program areas at Ford. Priorities are openness and access.
• There are dangers in having a banking industry that’s unregulated or an oil industry that’s under-regulated. Similarly, when there’s nobody making sure that broadband is good for the public, there is a problem. 
• Out of National Broadband Plan (http://www.broadband.gov/), there are 60 rules that need to be changed in order for its goals to be met: to have fast, cheap Internet access so that the U.S. is competitive with the rest of the world. Without an FCC with the jurisdiction to do this, none of this will take place.
• Increased budget and commitment from the highest levels of the foundation for Ford’s media policy work. President Luis Ubiñas recently published an op-ed about the importance of supporting media policy: http://bit.ly/b3oiU3. 
• Two central focus areas in media policy are openness and neutrality/access. 
• At the FCC there is support for good policy, but there is also enormous push-back on the other side from the telecom companies. Asking people to choose between openness and access is like asking people to choose between water and food.
• The good news is that because of the Comcast decision in the D.C. appeals court (http://nyti.ms/9qmXJA), questions about Internet regulation have come forward. Because this has happened, the issue of access has been put in the same bucket.

Vincent Stehle, Consultant, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation has made an unprecedented commitment to promote media innovation. From fellowships, to research, to new media platforms, to collaborative funding with community foundations, Knight is helping to reshape media for the public: what and how we receive critical information that shapes our society.

• Collaboration is a context for some of the work the Knight foundation is funding. We have interactive tech tools today that have great potential for people to be made aware and act.
• Knight’s focus had been on journalism education. Eight of the top ten Knight grantees were universities. The current foundation president wants to expand the definition of media beyond journalism and focus on innovation – and innovation in digital media. 
• There is brokenness in the information systems in our communities. This is the reason the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy commission was created (http://www.knightcomm.org/). 
• Large foundations have the capacity to lead.
• Within digital innovation – notable examples include winners from the Knight News Challenge (http://www.newschallenge.org/): documentcloud (http://www.documentcloud.org/home) and Ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com/).  
• Knight news testing labs – created physical centers where tools could be refined for adoption by media outlets.

Jacquie Jones, Executive Director, National Black Programming Consortium and Public Media Corps. PBS is evolving and the Public Media Corps is a prime mover in that process.

• NBPC is 30 years old and supports content production. Over the course of its history, NBPC has developed relations with broadcasters, producers, and communities. We built on this history and these relationships to develop the Public Media Corps: http://publicmediacorps.org/.
• Belief that we must do more to meet the needs of communities. The public must be actively engaged. Public media needs to play a vital and unique role in our democracy – building cohesion and participation. 
• Focusing only on broadcasting is limited.
• The service corps model of the Public Media Corps has been developed to help connect the dots.
• The project increases access to broadband skills, broadband services, and public media services – encouraging engagement.
• Launching the project this summer and have already recruited the fellows who will begin a week-long meeting on June 21st: http://bit.ly/9vhvKY.

John Schwartz, President, Instructional Telecommunications Foundation. Born out of smart investments in telecommunications infrastructure, a fund has been created to foster growth in new, progressive public media. How do you start something new? How do you track it? What are your risks? What are the expected rewards?

• We’re relatively new to philanthropy…our organizations are under the 501(c)(4) structure which allows greater flexibility in giving and programs.
• Goal of fostering media for progressive social change.
• We have developed a program that takes risks and seeks innovative projects. 
• We fund for-profit and nonprofit enterprises.
• Initial LOI and basic guidelines are online at http://www.itfitv.org/grant_app.php.
• GFEM website lists final projects selected from their initial grantmaking call: http://gfem.org/node/757.
• Looking at outcomes, and don’t expect all the projects to be successful.
• New Media venture fund of the Democracy Alliance (http://www.newmediaventures.org/) brings venture investing to progressive grantmaking.

Sonia Feigenbaum, Deputy Director Division of Public Programs, National Endowment for the Humanities. The NEH has just launched a new program: Bridging Cultures through Film: International Topics, which is looking to expand the projects that examine international and transnational themes in the humanities through documentary films.

• Interested in having projects that look at various points of view and not just one.
• Don’t fund projects that are advocacy based. 
• Want to expand the shelf life of projects they fund. Don’t want to just fund broadcast or website. 
• Grant opportunity developed in the last three to four years called America’s Media Makers. $14.5M budget for museum, radio, documentary – whole gamut of projects.
• Goal was to expand the field of international projects.
• Want to send the message that they are not funding the same filmmakers over and over again. 
• Asking filmmakers to think beyond the film itself.
• Very interested in gaming technology. Gaming funding is costly and risky – but willing to take the risk – however, they don’t want to lower the standards with regard to content. 
• GFEM and their database; that helped us with outreach to new groups of filmmakers: http://media.gfem.org/.

Discussion Highlights

• What is meant by openness and access? Openness = net neutrality fight. Rights of the public cannot disappear. Fight right now is how the Internet is governed. Should it be under the same rules as the telephone? Do we apply the same principles of universal service?
• Grantees can be very much engaged in this issue. Engaged networks such as TechSoup and NTEN are key constituents in this area for organizing.
• Open Internet isn’t just a media issue; it impacts all areas, arts, health, education, etc.
• How do we assist grantees in meeting all these needs – sustainability, use new media, etc?
• Smaller organizations are often more innovative.
• Trying to do more peer learning.
• Much of what is lacking in media is marketing and outreach.
• If we can create an ecosystem of shared relationships, that is worth more than money.
• Where are the content providers in all of this dialogue about electronic media?
• Media policy groups are grossly underfunded. Biggest one is $3–4 million dollars, another is $1.5–1.7 million; the rest are under $1 million.

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? What kind of comprehensive framework is needed to strengthen the philanthropic sector’s efforts? GFEM recently released “Funding Media, Strengthening Democracy: Grantmaking for the 21st Century,” a report by Peter B. Kaufman and Mary Albon. Over a one-year period, Kaufman and Albon collected grantmaking data from foundations large and small, government funders, other researchers, and journalists. This session presented key findings from the survey and provided an opportunity for small group discussions that focused on the implications of the findings, ways to make the recommendations operational and, thereby, allow funders to better leverage their philanthropic investments. A copy of the report can be found at this link: http://gfem.org/node/577.

Presenters: 


• Alyce Myatt, Executive Director, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM)
• Peter B. Kaufman, President and CEO, Intelligent Television

Breakout Group Findings:

BREAKOUT SESSIONS – FUNDING TRACKER RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP #1: Survey Recommendations 1-2

1. Acknowledge the prevalence and impact of media.
Foundations and government agencies of all sizes and in all fields will benefit from recognizing the growing importance of media, and screen-based media in particular, to the future of every field – education, health, the environment, and more.

2. Funders should identify additional common traits across philanthropy.
Funding for media has many traits in common with funding in other fields, and it will behoove media funders to exchange information with funders in other sectors on a more regular basis. Best practices and tools from one grantmaking sector may have applications in another.

Big Idea
Workshops for funders on how to use and create media

Discussion Highlights

• Case studies/storytelling that speak to specific constituents, groups
• Look ahead to evolution of technology – how it involves funders as it evolves
• Funders need to talk to other funders about use of media
• Workshops for funders on how to use media and make media (hands on); ex: via regional grantmakers – can be specific issue
• Strengthen and empower GFEM
• Get funders outside the funder community – “shake things up”
• GFEM as a resource for work that has moved an issue
• GFEM sends out a 2-minute clip of “successful” projects
• Have media makers tell their stories of success

GROUP #2: Survey Recommendations 3-4

3. Philanthropists should create and support new and flexible funding structures.
There have been calls for new structures to support media funding in this age of fast-moving change: many of these are worth listening to. As tectonic shifts take place in the media landscape, rapid-response teams of media funders will need to be assembled to provide for the nimble, strategic and possibly collective allocation of funding.

4. Funders should support the development of new networked media production and distribution systems.
There is now greater emphasis being placed on the potential for networked collaboration among funders and grantees alike. Opportunities now exist for exploring new types of networks, studios, and laboratories – initiatives that themselves may prove to be demonstrations of cost-effective grantmaking.

Big Ideas
Create and support new and flexible funding structures. Broaden the definition of resources; think about funding structures that support things with more than just grants. Program-related investments (PRI’s) and Mission-related investments (MRI’s), helping grantees with new business models and to deal with new technology. Need to develop strategies and mechanisms for doing things more quickly; rapid-response type of structure. Group like GFEM could be resourced to let us know how to do that.

Discussion Highlights

• Facilitating cross-sector exposure
• Broadening definition of resources
• Speed is key. What is rapid? Rapid-response team of media funders. Rapid convening structure around urgent issues. Build in rapid evaluation and metrics. Templating response system
• Building infrastructure, cross-sector work
• Content/policy/infrastructure
• Is it moving beyond ‘grants,’ for instance to tech assistance, access to new networks/PRI’s; business models/profit-seeking investments?
• Building ‘response’ capacity, ‘validating’
• ‘Branding’ as a resource (Kickstarter, http://www.kickstarter.com, adding funders’ logos to project page)
• Google Doc space posting # tags
• Toolkits for thinking about how to respond to local issues
• Gathering environmental scan on issue
• Budgeting implications
• Using ‘open’ resources
• Re-evaluating risk
• Re-evaluating outcomes/goals
• Creative partnerships that utilize technological tools; Collectively invest in access to pipes and tech tools
• Public/private partnerships in building some of these tools and infrastructure
• Full spectrum resource analysis; corporate/govt/corp. fdtn/foundation/individual
• Foundations encouraging cross-sector collaborations, incentivizing collaborations

GROUP #3: Survey Recommendations 5-6

5. Funders and grantees alike should utilize and advocate for open technology.
There is the opportunity to encourage philanthropy to become more intelligent and self-aware, utilizing some of the tools that the commercial media and information sector has been deploying to good effect. This involves beginning to establish and inculcate among foundations as a whole, and media funders in particular, references toward open technology standards and open source solutions for data collection.

6. Communicate and collaborate with your colleagues within your foundation and across the philanthropic sector.
Perhaps the most important survey question and answer in the GFEM Media Funding Tracker concerned whether stakeholders in the future of media grantmaking would be open to further discussion regarding the issues covered in the survey. The overwhelming majority said yes. This interest in engagement opens the door to collaboration that extends beyond the sharing of common concerns into initiatives on a broader scale.

Big Ideas
Funders and grantees alike should support open technology. Always have to ask ourselves are we talking to ourselves or talking to our peers; why does this matter and how is the public interest served by ‘open.’ Mozilla is leading initiatives to expand the open web; funders and grantees alike should communicate with colleagues and across sectors. Collaboration is not a good thing in and of itself; it requires some protocols. To what end/what action should we take?

Discussion Highlights

Questions from the discussion: Why? To what result? What action?

On Recommendation #5:

• Knight – example of strong advocate for the use of open source solutions
• What are the barriers to openness? What do we mean – need to define the terms
• Are we as foundations consumers or investors?
• Why open? What is the ultimate goal?
• What are the problems of openness?
• Align practice and theory

On Recommendation #6:

• Prefer to focus on collaboration
• Need to develop protocol for working together

GROUP #4: Survey Recommendations 7-8

7. Funders should collaborate to create a comprehensive platform for information sharing.
Given the centrality of media funding for all sectors, it would seem beneficial for media funders to establish a version of, or strengthen existing versions of, a media grantmaking database in particular – a living, searchable archive, one that welcomes and processes data on a rolling, ongoing basis.

8. The pervasiveness of media funding must be acknowledged.
Funders and grantees should recognize that media is funded in many grants that do not explicitly highlight media – content, infrastructure, or policy – as the primary object of funding.

Big Ideas
Database is great idea, but must determine the exact purpose of it. Who is responsible for entering data? How do we incentivize data sharing? How do we create taxonomy/tagging system? Pervasiveness of media funding must be acknowledged, but it is tough to institutionalize this concept.

Discussion Highlights

On Recommendation #7:

• Searchable database – to what end? Funders/grantees/both?
• Who is responsible for reporting? Grantee or grantmaker?
• Incentivize data sharing
• How to create taxonomy? GFEM tags metadata – public media has common datastats
• Creative Capital “Open App” process to make data available for groups that they aren’t able to fund – some funders do this internally already

On Recommendation #8:

• Tough to institutionalize it
• Media can be a tool, not the ultimate objective – facilitate opportunity

GROUP #5: Survey Recommendations 9-10

9. The impact of media grantmaking should be measured, and the field should undertake new efforts to do so.
The social impact of grantmaking can now be more specifically measured and tracked across each dimension of progress using technology and tools that the web provides. Indeed, media grantmakers may be able to develop systems – for their own grantmaking as well as grantmaking in other sectors – that track where media has been instrumental in increasing public awareness and engagement, strengthening social movements, and effecting social change.

10. Funders should recognize that media reinforces their missions.
If the public and government are going to understand and appreciate the work of philanthropy, they are going to be looking, or listening, or watching, or gaining and expressing these attitudes through media.

Big Ideas
Acknowledge a hesitancy to do measured media grantmaking; great costs associated with this level of measurement; balance of benefits for these costs. Targeting – not measuring everything but only those things that are most important. Case studies are perhaps not entirely sufficient. Encourage big funders to continue leading in this area.

Discussion Highlights

On Recommendation #9:

• Push for measurement vs. “knowing” – selective impact measurement useful – not everything at all times
• Make your own metrics but be consistent. Ask artists their measurement of success
• Inventory of taxonomy – possible ways to measure, not dictating or setting up for embellishment
• Gut vs. metrics from donors. Big vs. smaller grants shifts need for metrics
• Case study model – useful model that tells story and shows impact – but how does it add up?
• Metrics exist already – visits to website, etc. – does this show real change? Not alone
• How do you standardize media?
• Track immediate responses – FB page, agree to action. Goals: raise awareness, action
• Start with impact – document those and work backwards
• Study 100 best projects @ social impact and see what they share; what they do; shared approaches
• No one way to track all projects

On Recommendation #10:

• Yes! – media seen as means to an end in other projects; when it shifts to ecosystem approach
• Identify ways media projects have had impact – show work/impact
• Very hard to change self-identification

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Recap of Previous Day

Conversation highlights:

• Collaboration

• Openness

• Convergence

• Infrastructure

• How to engage funders in media? How to get it into the dialogue of funding?

• Learned that reclassification, net neutrality and openness are important and all have something to do with each other

State of the Field – Practitioner Presentations
What challenges and opportunities are practitioners seeing from their ground-level view of work in media policy, content, and infrastructure? Brief presentations from a select group of dynamic leaders to foster a more complete understanding of the current realities and trends in the media sector.

Presenters:

Tod Lending, Filmmaker, Nomadic Pictures, presented an update on the state of independent, long-form documentary production and distribution.

Tod Lending audio:

• Outreach allows film to inspire people and be a catalyst for change.
• Essential to fund and to have outreach as a piece of a project. 
• Outreach is often as expensive as the film itself.  
• Think of outreach as a way for funders to get their issues out there in connection with a narrative that people connect with. This can make an outreach project really effective. 
• Great example is the film Legacy (http://www.pbs.org/legacy/), which affected federal legislation. 
• Important to bring on a qualified coordinator. Tod works exclusively with Outreach Extensions in LA (http://www.outreachextensions.com/). 

Q&A and discussion with Tod

Q – How did you organize the outreach on your documentary film Legacy; you said you spent twice as much on outreach as for the film itself. Can you talk about that?
A – No one way to develop an outreach plan. There is no template. Outreach people at Generations United figured out the grandparents-raising-children focus – which had tremendous impact. Your national partners are essential in your outreach.

Q – Name three or four key criteria in selecting an outreach partner.
A – Creativity, great communication skills, innovative thinking, knowledge of digital platforms, financially responsible, well connected, willing to read the research and not make claims that aren’t based on the evidence.

Q – For funders with fewer resources, what are the essential areas for outreach areas to hit?
A – It depends on the film and the story. Look at your issues as a funder and the particular film to make that assessment. What are the intersections?

• The most important thing to do with $10k is to bring together partners to make sure the film has resonance on the ground before the film is finished. Build the film into your partners’ ongoing work from the beginning if possible. Example of the Good Pitch – takes the summit idea and does it really fast – a snapshot of what it could look like. Reach out to the movement and figure out how you can most effectively work with the film and filmmakers. What events will maximize your impact? How will the event you are doing possibly spread?
• Prioritize the audiences you most want to reach and their associations and get on the conference rosters for key organizations.
• Working Films (http://www.workingfilms.org/), Active Voice (http://www.activevoice.net/), Outreach Extensions (http://www.outreachextensions.com/) are the three companies that do this work – there is an opportunity to extend the work through business-related investments to help augment these resources. 
• Is there an application of outreach within journalism? How might they start to think about working with NGO’s and other groups to use their work?

Tracy Van Slyke, Project Director, The Media Consortium and Co-author of Beyond the Echo Chamber presented an analysis of the progressive media landscape.

Tracy Van Slyke audio:

In additon to the audio, a download of her slide presentation is avilable below: TracyVSPresentation.ppt

• New innovations are rapidly reforming journalism.
• Four areas that makers must deal with: sources of value, distinctive competencies, business model, competitive landscape.
• New abundances and new scarcities.
• Filter failure =TMI!
• 1 - Must change internally, how we are structured and how we are incorporating new competencies; 2 - Increase experimentation; 3 – leverage role of collaborations – need to find best practices; and 4 – audiences as communities.
• New revenue models – philanthropy, channels of distribution, micropayments, etc. – mix of revenue streams is key.
• Audiences and demographics are changing and journalism must change to be relevant (can’t be PMS - pale, male, and stale).
• How to define and track impact – elements of impact: reach, relevance, inclusion, engagement, influence = impact.

Q&A and discussion with Tracy

Q – How are non-PMS communities involved in new media discussions and collaboration, and talk about artists’ involvement.
A – We have brought in other groups like Color Lines and New American Media, etc. Still working on this issue. It is a multilevel ongoing effort and remains a challenge. In terms of artists – definition of journalism is changing; how do we bring in new elements to share information as definition changes?

Q – Give an example of what experimentation might look like.
A – Mobile lab wants to look at creating app or campaign to engage citizen journalism on particular issues and a revenue stream to go along with that. Other examples include hack-a-thon...data visualization.

• Balance between abundance and creating content that matters to people. Ways to organize information. Metadata and aggregation 2.0 allows better sharing of information.
• Line between journalism and documentary – are there possible collaborations? What is the self interest and shared needs?
• Art and journalism nexus, encouraging new collaborations – Torture Taxi (http://amzn.to/bzy09M), artist and investigative journalist put together a book. Other example is a radio journalist who takes Polaroid pictures and watercolors them.
• http://www.rhizome.org/ – first online media arts org.
• Idea of collaboration was not well received by journalism four years ago. Changing landscape has happened and we are seeing more editorial collaborations. Relationships need to be built. Need to understand your own organization’s competencies and how they match another organization’s collaborative potential.

TMS Ruge (Teddy), Co-Founder, Project Diaspora, gave us a report on Africa 3.0, the digital development of applications that are strengthening the continent and serving populations around the globe.

TMS Ruge audio:

In additon to the audio, a download of his slide presentation is avilable below: TMSRuge-africasconnected.pdf

• In 2008 not a lot of bandwith was available to Africa. Now moving to a new age of connectivity. One billion people in 53 countries.
• 453 Million – number of individuals under the age of 15 – the Cheetah generation. They are growing up on the mobile platform. Increasingly embedded in lifestyles. Only 67 million on traditional Internet. That is just 3.9% of world traffic – a very small percentage compared to population. 
• Palm [mobile phone] connectivity is most important.
• While there are connectivity challenges – they do innovate around those challenges. 
• 51% of households in South Africa do not have a book in the house, but 90% have a mobile phone. 
• How do we filter and make sense of crowdsourced information? Ushahidi + Swiftriver (http://swift.ushahidi.com/) solution. Allows traditional media and normal consuming public to make sense of crowdsourced material.
• Traditional media is controlled by government in many instances. Uganda Witness, mobile phone journalism circumvents this.
• Labs – combination of physical location and thought space. Can have bar camps to share ideas, have hack-a-thons with members of Cheetah generation who are digitally savvy and innovative.
• Innovation and Incubation Labs: Appafrica Labs (http://appfrica.net/blog/category/appfrica-labs/) in Uganda, started by Jon Gossier (Ted Fellow); Limbe Labs (http://limbelabs.com/) in Cameroon, started by Bill Zimmerman, venture capitalists from CA; Banta Labs (http://bantalabs.com/) in Senegal, just started last year by Yuri Posen from Europe; iHub (http://www.ihub.co.ke/) in Kenya, collaborative process. This is the biggest media hub in East Africa
• Start with these labs to get involved in the various sectors. The market can handle many more labs.
• Education is a space that funders should look at. Mobile is the introduction to technology for many on the continent.

Joe Torres, Government Relations Manager, Free Press, gave us an update on the most pressing policy issues.

Joe Torres audio:

• FCC is no longer able to regulate the broadband industry, but has the ability to reverse this.
• Net neutrality is the reason why the Internet is greatest communications network ever created. This is why we should be troubled…
• People are not aware of the issue on a wide scale because of its complexity.
• Netroots are broadly supportive of net neutrality. The story is covered by traditional media as a business story. 
• Journalists of color understand the importance of policy and the representation of people of color. 
• Many of the traditional national organizations that represent people of color have not been supportive of Net Neutrality; telecom companies are organizing bloggers of color against net neutrality.

Q&A and discussion with Joe

Q – Because of the low barriers to entry, what going on in the blogosphere?
A – Telecom industry is trying to organize bloggers of color.

Q – You did mention the Unity Journalists of color…how are they reacting, and compare that to mainstream journos?
A – Journalists understand the importance of policy. Minority ownership will increase diversity in the newsroom but consolidation will squelch that.

Q – Is the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking out about this? Way to track this in detail is to wait until FCC releases its NPRM and allocates a docket to it; then all comments will be reported in that docket. I was comparing in my mind the firestorm that took place under Chairman Powell re: ownership rules…

• Imploring any funder who is here to step up their funding for this group.
• There needs to be more detail, more in-the-weeds information. 
• Benton Foundation website is a resource (http://www.benton.org/). Benton has communications headlines that people can sign up for for free. Benton has developed a good legislative and FCC tracking system so that when the docket number is issued for this topic, you can track what happens. 
• Need to re-classify what is public media. And what qualifies for federal funding.
• Many nonprofit organizations are increasingly relying on the Internet to contact their constituency. Things that work are things that are interconnected. Open Internet is lifeline to 1 million nonprofit organizations. 
• Not against companies making money, but we want fairness and opportunity. This is what we’re fighting for with net neutrality. These companies are making spectacular profits. 
• The situation with some civil rights groups coming out in opposition to net neutrality is complicated. There are some that are in favor of net neutrality and they’re organizing the other civil rights groups around the issue, but at the same time, the telecoms have done a great job of hiring people of color into positions of authority.

Ben Moskowitz, General Coordinator, Open Video Alliance, provided an understanding of the concept of “open video,” what it means, its scope, and its long-term value to the public.

Ben Moskowitz audio:

In additon to the audio, a PDF of his slide presentation is avilable for download below: BenM-An_Intro_to_Open_Video.pdf

• By 2013, 90% of web will be video.
• Architecture of online video will be central to web freedom.
• What is meant by open video? 1. Openness, open source, open standards. 2. Participatory medium, freedom of expression. Technical openness and media democracy are linked. 
• Open web principles: shared control; transparency; decentralization; hack-ability. These principles need to be reflected in the architecture of online video. 
• Problem of one single, major source. Open video=more resistant. Requires open web + net neutrality. 
• Next Open Video conference will be held October 1-2, 2010 in NYC: http://www.openvideoconference.org/?l=en

Q&A and discussion with Ben

Q – What is your stance on protecting the rights of artists, musicians, composers, painters, filmmakers?
A – Unintended uses are going to happen. This is a side effect of having an open network/open society. If we’re going to maintain an open web/open network, we have to expect side effects.

Q – How do you deal with questions of privacy?
A – Is open access the best strategy for all? Maybe it isn’t in all cases. But regardless of how you feel about it, once you broadcast something, it’s out there. It would be very easy for us to institute filtered network controls…But that kind of detection is exactly the violation of privacy that worries people.

• There is room for both business models to exist. Trent Reznor example. Tracks released under creative commons license; but still sells CDs and singles on iTunes, etc. How can both of these systems exist? Could this kind of model be beneficial to you as a filmmaker?
• We can’t produce conclusions, we have to produce invitations.

Funder-Only Session: Wrap-up and Next Steps

• Helen Brunner, Director, Media Democracy Fund. Based on the work of the MDF, Brunner gave an overview and framed a discussion on emerging funding opportunities.

• What opportunities can the group identify?

• What questions are you leaving with? What DON’T you know?

Discussion Highlights

• Those who have grantees who use media in their work, how do we convey the message to them about how important the fight on net neutrality is to them – that their work is dependent on a free and open Internet?
• Must frame net neutrality as a free expression first amendment concern. Must go beyond talking about it as simply a telecom issue. Corporate funders have an opportunity to engage the leadership of their companies on the issue.  
• Boil it down to a consumer level to help people understand the issue.
• To engage diverse communities in the net neutrality issue, frame it as a human rights issue. 
• We need to engage tea party/libertarians on the net neutrality issue.
• Requests for proposals are highly underutilized. Put out an RFP for short media pieces that address net neutrality and vet them as you would a film.
• Utilize a Bay Area Video Coalition model of bringing together storytellers and technologists to help address the issue – make it simple and fun. Reach people where they are. Consider not calling it net neutrality.
• As relates to fair use in terms and open systems, not comfortable with protections offered to media makers.
• How can smaller funders plug into supporting media? Take a look at 1000 Voices Archive (http://1000voicesarchive.org/) and see3 (http://www.see3.net/). Stone Soup Films (http://www.stonesoupfilms.org/) brings filmmakers together with nonprofits for free and does it beautifully. Many community-based media arts centers that are part of NAMAC (http://www.namac.org/) also do this work. Part of it is establishing relationships. 
• There is a need to establish relationships. Open relationships are important to figuring out how to solve problems.
• Struck me what Teddy said – how young the world is. And how they are viewing technology and media so differently. What do they say about copyright and things like that? How do young people view this? And how would they frame this discussion? I’ve got to listen more to young people about those issues.
• Marney Rosen led a group down to the Gulf and is figuring out how to support groups there. We are getting lots of proposals on making films about the big spill. Is there a way to convene funders and media makers to develop strategies around covering the spill and bringing resources into the communities there?
• Looking at artists, cultural workers, and media makers to address the big spill.
• Organized chaotic synergy.
• Perhaps we should offer to host a funder delegation and each funder should bring a grantee – but GFEM would need support to do it. Perhaps we would collaborate with the Gulf Coast Fund (http://gulfcoastfund.org/), a group that should be involved in that. Provide tech media training to tell their stories. There is a lot already going on that could be supported already. 
• How do we convene an interdisciplinary group around the big spill? 
• What happened to the investment in youth media that was made 10, 20 years ago? Many who were involved are not involved in media any longer and many of the centers are struggling economically.
• Allied Media Conference – conversation to watch on youth media and youth media makers.
• The notion of a $300M public interest fund out of the NBC-Comcast merger is very interesting. Think of California and the $60M that flowed from the mergers there. Free Press is working on this. July 13 is the hearing. Can a public interest fund be created out of the NBC-Comcast merger? California has a specific law that states that 50% of any merger of utilities must go back to the consumer. That law doesn’t exist at the federal level, which makes establishing a fund at a federal level more challenging. [NOTE from GFEM: Commercial media, when launching a single new cable channel venture, operates in $100 million dollar units, committing several units up-front.] 
• Open source / open platforms allow us to practice what we preach. How about the interrelationship between open platforms?
• As a funder who is not regularly in the business of funding media – this meeting has helped me understand the lay of the land; getting a handle on the issues; and making key contacts. 
• First time at this meeting and there have been lots of ideas that I was able to grasp and will put into action. 
• Why is public media static in such a dynamic environment? GFEM is planning a teleconference on public media in the near future.
• Is there an interest in further conversation around open protocols standards for grantees? Do grantmakers want to come up with standards of openness that we want our grantees to sign on to?

________________________________________________________ 

Speakers

• Joaquin Alvarado, American Public Media

Joaquin Alvarado joined American Public Media|Minnesota Public Radio in January 2010 as Senior Vice President for Digital Innovation. Alvarado leads strategic development of APM’s Public Insight initiatives, as well as developing models for deepening audience engagement, widening digital reach and increasing digital revenue growth across all operating divisions; reporting to Jon McTaggart, chief operating officer for APM|MPR.

Alvarado comes to APM|MPR from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where he led successful initiatives in broadening the reach of and diversity within public media as Senior Vice President for Diversity and Innovation. Prior to joining the CPB, Alvarado initiated CoCo Studios, promoting media collaboration for fiber and mobile networks; founded the Institute for Next Generation Internet, which launched in 2005 from San Francisco State University; and in 2004, began the National Public Lightpath, advocating high-speed fiber optic network as the next generation of the Internet with public media, education, and community leadership.
 
Alvarado holds a B.A. in Chicano Studies from U.C. Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the UCLA School of Film, Television, and Digital Media, and served on the boards of the California Council for the Humanities, TechSoup Global and Latino Public Broadcasting.

American Public Media is the nation's largest producer of public radio programs, reaching 15.6 million listeners nationwide each week. National programs include A Prairie Home Companion, Marketplace, Marketplace Money, The Splendid Table, Speaking of Faith, Performance Today, and special reports produced by its national documentary unit, American RadioWorks. American Public Media is the parent organization for Minnesota Public Radio, Southern California Public Radio and Classical South Florida. A complete list of stations, programs and additional services can be found at www.americanpublicmedia.org.

• 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.

The Media Democracy Fund (MDF) is a collaborative grantmaking 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.

• Sonja Feigenbaum, National Endowment for the Humanities

Sonia Feigenbaum serves as Deputy Director in the Division of Public Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), where she oversees the review process for all applications submitted to the Division. In addition, she works closely with media and museum professionals to develop and implement policy for grant opportunities that respond to the mission of the division: to reach broad public audiences through media, exhibitions and community-based programming in the humanities. Throughout her tenure at the NEH, she has participated in numerous media, museums, and academic conferences nationally and internationally to share funding strategies with applicants seeking to receive support for humanities projects. Prior to joining the NEH, Sonia taught Latin-American literature and culture as well as comparative literature at Williams College and the University of St. Thomas. She holds a Doctorate in Hispanic literatures and cultures and an undergraduate degree in Cello performance from Indiana University. She is also a creative writer; her first novel Memorias del olvido was published in 2005, she is working on her second, De aquí al cielo de ida y de regreso.
 
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent grantmaking agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. Grant programs offered by the NEH are administered by divisions and offices that work with prospective applicants, recruit and oversee peer-review panels, provide analysis of panel results to members of the National Council on the Humanities and the agency’s senior staff, conduct site visits of projects that have received NEH support, and represent NEH at regional, national, and international conferences in the humanities.

Public humanities programs enable millions of Americans to explore significant humanities works, ideas, and events. They offer new insights into familiar subjects and invite reflection upon important questions about human life. The Division of Public Programs supports a wide range of public humanities programs that reach large and diverse public audiences. Fundable activities include, but are not limited to, radio and television programs for national broadcast, exhibitions and interpretation of historic sites, reading or film discussion series, lectures, and symposia. NEH encourages projects that make creative use of new and emerging technologies to enhance the content of programs or to engage audiences in new ways.

• Jacquie Jones, National Black Programming Consortium

Jacquie Jones is the Executive Director of the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), a 30-year-old media arts organization that funds, distributes, and produces public interest media for all platforms. NBPC has also launched several training programs over its long history. Since taking over leadership of NBPC, Jacquie has established herself as a leader in the evolving next-media landscape through innovative partnerships and initiatives such as the Katrina Project in 2005, the ground-breaking New Media Institute, which she founded in 2006, and the online public-interest media portal, www.blackpublicmedia.org. Projects such as the Ford Foundation-funded Masculinity Project and NMI: Africa have brought new communities of users online and created new demand for deep resources around Africa, the informal economy, black masculinity, and other critical subject areas. Prior to taking over the leadership of NBPC, she was the executive vice president of ROJA Productions, a production company responsible for several award-winning, high-profile documentary films for public television as well as multimedia installations for museums. Jacquie is also a Peabody Award-winning writer, director, and producer of documentary films. Her film credits include Africans in America and Matters of Race for PBS, From Behind Closed Doors: Sex in the 20th Century for Showtime and The World Before Us for the History Channel. She has been involved in using media content to improve access to and involvement in civic life since 1987. Jacquie holds a BA in English from Howard University and an MA in documentary filmmaking from Stanford University. She was selected a Revson Fellow at Columbia University, is currently a scholar-in-residence at American University, and serves on the board of directors of the Integrated Media Association (iMA) and Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM). She is also co-president of the board of the John Eaton Home and School Association in Washington, D.C.

The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), founded in 1979, is one of five organizations that comprise the National Minority Consortia (NMC). The Consortia function as developers, producers, and distributors of programming that appeals to diverse audiences and harnesses the creative talents of minority communities. Since 1991, NBPC has invested over $9 million in iconic documentary productions for public television and, more recently, online outlets; trained, mentored, and supported a diverse array of producers who create content about both historical and contemporary black experiences; and emerged as a leader in the evolving next-media landscape through its annual New Media Institute and New Media Institute: Africa programs. NBPC, which is headquartered in Harlem, NY, also distributes content through BlackPublicMedia.org, an online home for black digital content and engagement.

• Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television

Peter B. Kaufman is president and executive producer of Intelligent Television (http://www.intelligenttelevision.com), based in New York City. Intelligent Television produces films, television programs, and video projects in close association with educational and cultural institutions, and its research and consulting projects explore how to make educational and cultural material more widely accessible worldwide. Mr. Kaufman serves as an expert advisor on access issues to the Library of Congress’s Division of Motion Pictures, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound (http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/); co-chair of the JISC Film & Sound Think Tank (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/filmandsound.aspx); and a member of the advisory board of EU Screen (http://www.euscreen.eu/). He recently completed a guest appointment as associate director of the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University (http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu). His work today involves funding new forms of nonfiction video production and creating new business models for networking cultural and educational institutions worldwide.

Educated at Cornell and Columbia Universities, Mr. Kaufman has written about media, education and culture for the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Russian History, Scholarly Publishing, Slavic Review and other publications. Most recently he is the author, with Mary Albon, of “Funding Media, Strengthening Democracy: Grantmaking for the 21st Century” (http://www.gfem.org/node/873). Mr. Kaufman recently presented the keynote address at the International Federation of Television Archives general assembly in Copenhagen and the Kinemathek conference on film and digitization in Berlin; in 2010 he will be speaking about cultural heritage at the “Memories of the Future” conference in Ghent and about the future of video and education at the EU Screen workshop in Rome.

Intelligent Television produces films, television programs, and video projects in close association with educational and cultural institutions. Its research, strategic planning, and consulting projects explore how to make educational and cultural material more widely accessible worldwide. More information is available online at www.intelligenttelevision.com.

• Tod Lending, Nomadic Pictures

Mr. Lending is an Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy-winning producer/director/ writer/editor/cinematographer whose work has aired nationally on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and HBO; has been screened and awarded at national and international festivals; and has been televised internationally in Europe and Asia. His work has inspired the creation and passing of federal legislation (The Legacy Act) and has garnered numerous grants from foundations, including the MacArthur Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ford Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, NEH, U.S. Office of Education, Dreihaus Foundation, Sundance Institute, and Wallace Foundation. He was a University of Maryland Journalism Fellow in Child and Family Policy and is the president and founder of Nomadic Pictures, a documentary film production company based in Chicago, and the director of Ethno Pictures, a nonprofit film company that produces and distributes educational films.

Nomadic Pictures Ltd. is a film development and production company based in Chicago, which was established out of a conviction to produce and develop documentary films that would educate and motivate the public on pressing and significant multicultural, social, and political issues. The mission of the company is to create stories that will provoke critical thought and debate, and increase the public's awareness and understanding of these issues. The company is committed to producing films that will captivate, challenge, and engage the viewer through character-driven stories that utilize a strong point of view and a very intimate style of storytelling. In addition to securing distribution for its films through national and international broadcasters, the company is also committed to making its films accessible to community-based organizations and educational institutions through extensive, multi-year outreach projects.

Links to material referenced in Tod’s talk:
The Principal Story: http://www.wallacefoundation.org/principal-story/Pages/default.aspx   
Legacy: http://www.pbs.org/legacy/
Omar & Pete: http://www.reentrymediaoutreach.org/r.htm

• Ben Moskowitz, Open Video Alliance

Ben Moskowitz is general coordinator at the Open Video Alliance, a coalition to democratize the moving image. Ben writes and lectures on access to knowledge and participatory culture, and has served on the board of directors of the international organization Students for Free Culture since 2008.

The Open Video Alliance is a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the idea that the power of the moving image should belong to everyone. Founded in 2009, OVA is a broad movement committed to progress in the areas of media democracy and open source video technology. OVA members include Mozilla, the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Yale Information Society Project, and the Harvard Berkman Center.

• 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."

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.

• TMS Ruge (Teddy), Project Diaspora

TMS Ruge (Teddy) is the co-founder of Project Diaspora – an organization with a mission to motivate, engage, and mobilize the African Diaspora to take an active role in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural revitalization by leveraging their $40 billion in annual remittances, collective intelligence, and global connections. 

A mobile innovation enthusiast, Teddy also frequently blogs about the African ICT sector and its effects on development. He writes extensively regarding the emerging push to connect Africa to broadband Internet on the Project Diaspora blog and has been invited to speak on the subject at such notable conferences as South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), Africa Gathering, Ars Electronica Festival, and Mobile Web East Africa.

Teddy received a Communications Design degree from the University of North Texas and when he isn't up-country in Uganda, works as a professional photographer and web and graphic artist. 

In his previous life, Teddy broke and currently holds Uganda's national record in the decathlon and pole vault and, formerly, the high jump. He was also a one-time Ugandan Olympic hopeful in the decathlon. Teddy was born in Masindi, Uganda to a Sudanese father and a Ugandan mother. He grew up in Uganda, Kenya, and Dallas, TX.



Mobilize. Engage. Motivate.
 Project Diaspora (PD) is a U.S. nonprofit founded in September 2007 with a simple mission – to promote African diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa. PD actively seeks to mobilize, engage, and motivate members of the African diaspora to participate in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural renaissance. Looking beyond the $40 billion in annual remittances to the continent, Africa’s diaspora is well positioned to become a major developmental force. Apart from capital assets, the strongest resources the African diaspora possess are their vast wealth of knowledge, technical expertise, and professional networks. Paired with their cultural and personal ties to their home communities there is no other single group that is better equipped to generate positive, sustained change across the continent.

Diaspora-led economic development projects differ from traditional developmental aid in several areas. First, engaging members of the diaspora to lead or contribute to projects ensures local buy-in reinforced by cultural ties. Second, members of the diaspora have a greater vested interest in the success of a project than an aid worker on a limited engagement. Finally, and most importantly, diaspora-led economic development breaks the “hand-out” mentality fostered by traditional aid. Social entrepreneurship empowers local communities to sustainably solve their own development problems.

Africa’s development cannot continue to depend on international NGO programs and developmental aid, powered by global sympathy. PD’s approach to Africa’s development goes well beyond reliance on aid by advocating for Africa’s self-reliance. By leveraging the knowledge and commitment of the diaspora, Africa’s future will be firmly placed in its own hands.

Links to material associated with Teddy’s talk:
Diaspora and the cloud: http://cartman.aec.at/cloud/2009/09/africas-diaspora-and-the-cloud/
Globe and Mail: Africa's booming tech space will define the continent's future: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/africas-booming-tech-spac...
Africa 3.0: Mobile connectivity in the (global) village: http://projectdiaspora.org/2010/03/20/africa-3-0-mobile-connectivity-in-the-global-village/
Africa 3.0: What’s all this connectivity good for?: http://projectdiaspora.org/2010/03/05/africa-3-0-whats-all-this-connecti...
A few articles on the race to connect Africa to the global broadband network:
http://projectdiaspora.org/?s=eassy&x=0&y=0

• John Schwartz, Instructional Telecommunications Foundation

After college, John Schwartz worked in noncommercial radio; in 1974 he co-founded and managed WYEP-FM, Pittsburgh. He later moved to Colorado, where he founded KBDI-TV, Channel 12, a public television station that went on the air in 1980. He served on the KBDI board of directors from 1985 through 1994. Beginning in 1983, Schwartz worked as a telecommunications consultant specializing in new technologies, with clients including the Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations, as well as noncommercial radio and television stations. Schwartz was a founder of public station KRZA-FM, Alamosa, Colorado, which went on the air in 1985. He also helped to establish public station WYBE-TV, Philadelphia, which signed on in 1990, and he served on its board of directors until 2009. In 1989, Schwartz founded The 90's Channel, a full-time cable network; in 1995, this venture evolved into Free Speech TV, a television network that is seen both on cable and direct broadcast satellite. Schwartz left the staff of Free Speech TV in 2006, but remains on its board.

In the early 1980's, Schwartz established five nonprofit organizations which operate a total of 11 educational microwave systems in the Educational Broadband Service, which are used to deliver educational video programming and broadband wireless data. He remains president of these organizations. The EBS systems are located in Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Portland, OR. FCC rules allow EBS systems to lease their excess capacity to commercial operations. On their behalf, Schwartz concluded two large-scale EBS leasing deals, one in 2001 and the other in 2006. In addition to conducting their educational video and data activities, the EBS companies are active in philanthropy, especially in progressive media. The EBS companies joined the Democracy Alliance, a group of progressive political donors. Schwartz was heavily involved in creating a new media venture fund as a DA project.

Schwartz attended Stanford University, but never obtained a college degree. 

ITF is a nonprofit organization that undertakes to expand the dissemination of media, and points of view carried by them, that offer dissenting, alternative, or critically constructive information and concepts. It also supports the provision of quality and diverse instructional media content and capabilities to educators and students. Log on to www.itfitv.org for further information.

• Vincent Stehle, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Until recently, Vince Stehle was the Program Director for the Nonprofit Sector Support Program at the Surdna Foundation, a family foundation based in New York City with assets approaching $700 million. The Nonprofit Sector Support Program focused on strengthening the policy and advocacy role of nonprofits, their internal management, and their ability to adapt to changing political, economic, and technological environments. Before joining Surdna, Stehle worked for ten years as a reporter for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where he covered fundraising and management issues for the nonprofit sector. He has also written extensively for other publications, including The Washington Post, The Nation, and Symphony Magazine. Stehle has served as Chairperson of Philanthropy New York (formerly the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers) and on the governing boards of YouthNoise, VolunteerMatch, and the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN). Currently he serves on the board of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed, engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

• Jenny Toomey, Ford Foundation

Jenny Toomey is an intellectual, an activist, and a musician. After graduating from Georgetown University with an interdisciplinary major in Philosophy, English, and Women's Studies in 1990, Jenny co-ran Simple Machines, an independent record label, for eight years with FMC’s Kristin Thomson. Simple Machines had over 70 releases, the most important of which may have been a 24-page “Mechanic's Guide to Putting Out Records, Cassettes, and CDs,” which clearly and practically described the process of putting out records and CDs, while educating young artists about the value of retaining control of their work. This guide helped to launch a countless number of independent labels and led to somewhat of a DIY renaissance in the alternative music community throughout the 1990s.

In the past 15 years Jenny has also been a composer and performer on at least 12 CDs and dozens of compilation records, singles, and even a musical. These records were released on Simple Machines and other respected independent labels including Homestead, Sub Pop, and 4AD. Her second solo CD, Tempting, was released in October 2002 on Misra Records.

After closing down Simple Machines in 1998, Jenny worked for three years at the Washington Post as a copywriter. She also wrote music and technology reviews for the Post, the Village Voice, CNET, and a variety of other music and technology publications. Here is where she began to understand the potential power of technology to transform the lives of musicians. This fascination with technology, when combined with her work organizing musicians to support the FCC's Low-Power Radio initiative, led her to join with Kristin Thomson and Insound.com to create an online forum called The Machine in December 1999. At this site, Kristin and Jenny began the process of educating themselves and other musicians about the music/technology landscape. They also began to raise critical questions regarding the artist's role in the unfolding technological revolution. After publishing an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Jenny pulled together a board that wrote and published the “Future of Music Manifesto” (FMC), thus leading to the formation of the organization in June 2000.

In her eight years as the Executive Director of FMC Jenny has testified before Congress, the Senate, the FCC, FDA, and the Copyright Office. She has advocated for artists and music lovers’ rights on five continents and spoken about music and technology at hundreds of institutions and media outlets including Harvard, MIT, Columbia's American Assembly, South by Southwest, CMJ, Comdex, University of Chicago, Temple University, NARM Convention, CNN International, Tech TV, London's Net Media, Manchester's In The City conference, and NPR. In March 2001 she was named one of Internet Weekly's "25 Unsung Heroes of the Web," and more recently received a special achievement award from the Washington Area Music Association for her activism. Previous to assuming the position of Media & Cultural Program Officer at Ford, Jenny served on the boards of Air Traffic Control and The Copyright Offices National Music Preservation Board.

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grantmaking organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

• Joseph Torres, Free Press

Joseph works closely with the policy and program staff at Free Press to lobby for the public interest in Washington, D.C. and to build new coalitions that broaden the base of the media reform movement. Before joining Free Press, Joseph worked as deputy director of communications and media policy at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and was a journalist for eight years. Joseph is currently completing a book with New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez on the battles fought by people of color for greater inclusion in our nation’s media system.
 
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing, and advocacy, Free Press promotes diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, quality journalism, and universal access to communications. Free Press was launched in late 2002 and is now the largest media reform organization in the United States, with nearly half-a-million activists and members.

• Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium

Tracy Van Slyke has dedicated her career as a journalist, communications professional, and media producer to building a strong independent media infrastructure. She is the Director of The Media Consortium, a network of the nation’s leading independent, progressive media outlets. With Jessica Clark, she is the co-author of the book Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media (The New Press, February, 2010). In 2009, she commissioned and edited The Big Thaw: Charting a New Course for Journalism, an influential report that details implications of current and future market trends on journalism and business models and lays out key recommendations for independent media. Van Slyke is the former publisher of In These Times magazine, a national, award-winning monthly magazine of progressive news, analysis, and cultural reporting. Van Slyke is a frequent writer, commentator, and consultant on the future of journalism, the use of social media, and the impact of progressive media.

The Media Consortium is a network of the country's leading progressive, independent media outlets. Its mission is to amplify independent media's voice, increase its collective clout, leverage current audiences, and reach new ones. The Media Consortium works with its members to help them evolve for a 21st-century media environment. It accomplishes this mission by fulfilling five strategic principles:
•    Foster Collaboration and Coordination
•    Build and Diversify Media Leadership
•    Focus on Audience Development
•    Bring Money and Attention into the Sector
•    Support Innovation in Journalism and Business Models

The Media Consortium "...echoes the low-cost, high-reward forms of online organizing that liberal groups excelled at in the 2008 election," wrote Harvard University's Neiman Journalism Lab in a July 2009 article. The Media Consortium is leading initiatives that advance and strengthen the independent media sector and the very foundation of democracy itself.

Links to material referenced in Tracy’s talk:
Link to The Big Thaw: http://www.themediaconsortium.org/thebigthaw/
Link to Investing in Impact Report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/31037215/Investing-in-Impact-Media-Summits-Reveal-Pressing-Needs-Tools-for-Evaluating-Public-Interest-Media
Link to the MediaShift article condensing the report: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/05/5-needs-and-5-tools-for-measuring-...


Meeting Participants
Sara Archambault, LEF Foundation
Alberta Arthurs, Tribeca Film Institute
Diana Barrett, Fledgling Fund
Charles Benton, Benton Foundation
Elise Bernhardt, Foundation for Jewish Culture
Helen Brunner, Media Democracy Fund
Dan Cogan, Impact Partners
Natalie Difford, Chicken & Egg Pictures
Laura Efurd, ZeroDivide
Wendy Ettinger, Chicken & Egg Pictures
Juliette Feeney-Timsit, The French American Charitable Trust
Jon Funabiki, Renaissance Journalism Center
Cecilia Garcia, Benton Foundation
Adelaide Gomer, Park Foundation, Inc.
David Haas, William Penn Foundation
Judith Helfand, Chicken & Egg Pictures
Karen Helmerson, New York State Council on the Arts
Olukemi Ilesanmi, Creative Capital
Jacquie Jones, National Black Programming Consortium
Phyllis Kim, PBS Foundation
Amy Landry, Proteus Fund
Aana Lauckhart, Quixote Foundation
Georgiana Lee, Native American Public Telecommunications
Ruby Lerner, Creative Capital
Geoffrey MacDougall, Mozilla Foundation
Sarah Masters, Hartley Film Foundation
Shawn McCaney, William Penn Foundation
Laurie McGlinchey, Open Society Institute
Cara Mertes, Sundance Institute
Ed Moran, Plutzik-Goldwasser Family Foundation
Alyce Myatt, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media
Eileen Newman, Tribeca Film Institute
Matthew Pakula, Playboy Foundation
Leslie Payne, Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors
Marjorie Roswell, Roswell Infographics
Jessica Schwartz, The Wallace Foundation
Vincent Stehle, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Brent Thompson, William Penn Foundation
Emily Verellen, Fledgling Fund
Irene Villasenor, Morales Family Trust
Timothy Wu, ZeroDivide