RESOURCES FOR ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Funding of Social Documentaries

Social documentaries are funded by individuals with creative strategies including partnering, and by organizations and foundations that know the power of media. They also depend on public resources including public television and arts and humanities council funds. Below you can find some approaches to the struggle to fund social documentary and links to get you started.

In the Battle for Reality: US Documentaries for Social Change
What difference can a documentary make? This fact-filled report by Center co-director Pat Aufderheide, with many case studies of successful strategic use of social documentaries, answers that question.

Funding Media for Social Change
By Nan Rubin and Sharon Maeda
Presents the results of an extensive review of Foundation Center data, as part of the Mediaworks Initiative, as well as over three dozen interviews with funders about their media funding practices and attitudes.

The Current State of the International Marketplace for Documentary Films
By Diana Holtzberg and Jan Rofekamp
"This report focuses on the international marketplace for documentaries from the perspective of who buys and who sells them."

Why Fund Media
Edited by Karen Hirsch
This essay collection, targeted at grantmakers, is fascinating for anyone interested in creative strategies to use media for social change. It includes chapters on activist video, radio documentaries, documentaries designed for social engagement, and outreach strategies.

"Collaborative strategies for social action filmmakers," Op-ed in The Independent, November 2002
By Pat Aufderheide
Far from hindering a filmmaker, collaboration with groups with similar agendas may be the best bet for filmmakers looking to make a project happen.

Media For Social Change: Partnerships
By Pat Aufderheide
An in-depth look at the benefits to filmmakers and funders who form collaborative partnerships in pursuit of their goals.

Links

Association of Independent Video & Filmmakers: Resources for Indies
Getting started on your film can be a daunting process. Professional organizations such as AIVF offer answers to frequently asked questions, like how to begin the search for funding.

ITVS: Producer Resources
In this section of the UTVS website, you can get an inside look at producing for ITVS and learn about the funding process with informative articles and helpful tips.

Cultural Policy & the Arts
A national data archive on artists, funding for the arts, organizations, and audiences for research and statistical analysis.

New York Foundation for the Arts
Provides grants and fellowships to the New York art community, as well as maintaining a national database of arts funding sources for public access. The site also has an extensive list of links sorted by area and information on the arts business.

Women Make Movies: Production Assistance Program
Offers a variety of distribution and financial assistance programs for women media creators.

National Endowment for the Humanities
The Media Log contains descriptions of over eight hundred NEH-supported radio, television and film productions, and links to applying for NEH support.

Creative Capital
Creative Capital supports artists and work with the potential for significant artistic and cultural impact, including Film & Video arts.

Film Arts Foundation Grants
Created in 1984, the goal of the Film Arts Foundation Grants Program is to encourage new and diverse works by film and video artists who have little likelihood of being supported through traditional funding sources. FAF also offers training, equipment access and fiscal sponsorship.

IDFA Forum
The FORUM is Europe’s largest gathering of television commissioning editors and independent documentary producers. Its aim is to stimulate co-financing and co-production of new documentaries by enabling producers to pitch their project concepts to the assembled commissioning editors and other professionals.

Sundance Documentary Fund
The Sundance Documentary Fund is dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films and videos focused on current and significant issues and movements in contemporary human rights, freedom of expression, social justice, and civil liberties.

Morrie Warchawski's Fundraising Bibliography Looking for books on fundraising? Warchawski has compiled an extensive list of books on why to fund media to proposal writing to successful strategies.

**Note: These links are intended to serve as an overview of the types of funding sources available. It is by no means exhaustive and funding ultimately requires extensive research to find good matches for individual projects. The Center for Social Media does not provide funding for media projects.

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