HowCharities Can Work With Documentary FilmmakersA charity can find and form a partnhership from the broad range of documentary filmakers, working together to complement and contribute to their own projects. Filmmakers also bring ideas for projects to charities where they have highlighted a need or a particular story the filmmaker feels a foundation might support. As a charity aims for an ongoing and long term involvement with the communities with which they work, so too they can aim for a longstanding relationship with a filmmaker who has an avowed dedication to a particular area of interest. Documentary filmmakers often work within the same area of interest over many years. Respected and professional documentary filmmakers tend to re-visit subjects and continue to make films in that area, building a body of work throughout their career that contributes significantly to an important social issue or cultural area. For example, some documentary filmmakers focus on indigenous stories and have built up a set of relationships, protocol and rapport with indigenous communities. They are known and trusted and have cultural knowledge. Other filmmakers may have an interest in stories about immigration, cross cultural relationships or issues of cultural heritage and inter-generational understanding. There are filmmakers dedicated to stories about the environment or who have worked extensively with young people. Thus it is in the interests of charities and non profit organisations to engage the skills of documentary filmmakers in projects for which they are seeking funding. Many charitable projects benefit from a media component. This may be an individual documentary or documenting an existing program being run by a charity, or a community based idea around a website, or interactive online documentaries. Charitable organisations partnering with filmmakers help ensure initiatives are sustainable and imaginative when tackling critical community issues. Working in partnership offers an opportunity to complement the qualities and competencies that each specialization has (the non profit sector and the documentary sector) for a common goal. Integrating particular skills of documentary making is beneficial for many charitable projects involving a team building component, creative collaboration or self-esteem and storytelling.Involve a filmmaker in an existing project or invite a filmmaker to make a submission with you to a foundation for philanthropic support. Relationships are of primary importance. The creativity will flow from there. Trust and a shared vision between charity and filmmaker will form a basis for a successful partnership. This is realized in terms of creative ideas furthering the aims of the charity, and sourcing other financial partners to bring ideas to fruition. Investing time and thought into fostering, nurturing and building relationships with independent filmmakers,will be mutually beneficial. Three useful core principles to consider are equity, transparency and mutual benefit. Equity implies all parties have their own objectives and equally share the agreed partnership objective. Transparency implies openness and honesty as preconditions of trust in a healthy partnership. Mutual benefit means that beyond the common goals that are achieved from a successful partnership, benefits for each of the partners are also enhanced. Charities and documentary filmmakers working together in partnership require some guiding principles to unite them as well as a commonly agreed goal. Charities come on board specifically for the outreach and educational aspect of the documentary and work closely with the filmmaker in creating teaching modules. Once a charity or non profit organisation gets together with a documentary maker the relationship can be mutually rewarding:"non profits have a story to tell and filmmakers like to tell stories" Joy Moore Annie E Casey Foundation USA. A charity is in a good position to demonstrate that there is an audience for the work. Seek out filmmakers who have made films and conveyed the kind of message your charity is interested in conveying.Find the filmmakers with whom you can share the vision, then approach foundations and individual donors together. A charity is in a good position to demonstrate that there is an audience for the work. Seek out filmmakers who have made films and conveyed the kind of message that the charity is interested in conveying. Find the filmmakers with whom you can share the vision, then approach foundations and individual donors together. Foundations in Australia do not yet regard documentaries as tools to extend their gift giving programs. This website is designed to encourage that thinking. Charities can partner with foundations and filmmakers to explore ways to take action and build sustained interest about a variety of issues. By inviting filmmakers to share their ideas charities, grantmakers and filmmakers can collaborate on projects of mutual intent. Charities identify audiences and work with filmmakers to involve audience members in a defined project as well as in the outreach for a completed program. Documentaries help charities secure ongoing funding for long term programs. The most successful partnerships are those with shared community interests. It is critical for a charity to identify partners who will add value to the goals of the charity and who are able to build on existing networks and explore new options to encourage greater community outcomes. "Documentary can successfully have multiple primary audiences to achieve multiple outcomes" - Joy Moore, Annie E Casey Foundation To ensure successful delivery of a project to the grantmaker, it is essential to build a partnership plan clearly stating the purpose and benefit to the community including the objectives, outputs and outreach programs with an action plan. This includes a time line, resource and staffing implications. Schedule regular update meetings to ensure milestones are met. Include an evaluation of the project. An action plan framework might include the following:
The primary concern of a foundation or grantmaker is the impact of their donation: how has it ultimately affected change within the community? This reflects the result of the successful partnership between charity and filmmaker, taking into account the costs and benefits to the organisation and the individuals involved. Only by looking at all three (partnership, costs and benefits) is it possible to evaluate the project as a whole. Ideally a successful partnership achieves what it set out to do. It makes an impact beyond its immediate target audience and is sustainable in a way that continues the engagement of the community. This results in long term value, aided by the documentary element, significantly benefiting the community and individual partners. Many Australian documentaries are potential candidates for philanthropic support and are ideal for helping charitable organisations with the production or outreach phase of the project. Below is a list of documentaries matching current interests of philanthropic foundations that would have been ideal candidates for support. See Case Studies at Documentary Australia Foundation for full details: AGED ARTS COMMUNITY DISABILITY EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT HEALTH/WELLBEING HUMAN RIGHTS INDIGENOUS REFUGEES RURAL SOCIAL JUSTICE SPORT/ADVENTURE WELFARE YOUTH |
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