USA ExamplesIn the USA media support is a well established strategy used by grantmakers to "expand, enhance and sustain their ability to achieve their program goals and advance the common good." The Council for Foundations showcases the most interesting and influential documentary films funded by foundations at an annual festival. Productions selected for the festival demonstrate the unique effect media can have in advancing program goals. Over 400 privately funded documentaries are listed in the catalogue spanning forty years of award winning high impact work. For a comprehensive list of the films and to download the catalogue visit www.fundfilm.org. Each title shows the length, budget and category and includes a list of funding contributors, ranging in budgets from less than $5,000 to approximately $800,000. See examples below. 
KIDS CARE DATE: 2005 Kids Care addresses the issues and needs of young people who have lost a loved one to cancer. The documentary features a memorable group of young people, each one dealing with the death of a parent, sister, cousin, or best friend. The participants-some as young as eight, others in their teen and early adult years-talk candidly about their experiences. They explore their hopes and their search to re-establish normality while learning to live with their loss. They also describe what friends, parents, and teachers can do to help kids cope with feelings of fear, anger, isolation, and sadness. 
THE NEW ASYLUMS DATE: 2005 50,000 mentally ill men and women receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals and 500,00 of the mentally ill are in jails and prisons. As sheriffs and prison wardens become unexpected and ill-equipped gatekeepers a troubling question is raised: Have America's jails and prisons become our new asylums? 
WAGING A LIVING DATE: 2005 Chronicles the day-to-day battle of four low wage earners to lift their families out of poverty. Captures the dreams, frustrations, and accomplishments of a diverse group of people struggling to survive from paycheck to paycheck. These examples show foundations and other private donors consider a film's outreach to be crucial to the sustainability of the issue. Outreach describes the ways a film reaches out to inspire, educate and involve community members to effect change. Successful outreach campaigns usually involve partnerships between filmmakers, educators, community and not-for-profit groups interested in the subject matter of the film. As well as providing valuable knowledge to filmmakers, these groups can use completed documentaries for education, discussion groups and stimulating strategic public advocacy campaigns. 
i) AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH Synopsis: Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced. With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue, rather, it is the biggest moral challenge facing our global civilization today. Funding: Participant Productions and Lawrence Bender Productions USA. Outreach and Impact: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH premiered in May 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival and has since become the third top-grossing documentary film of all time. It has been released in over 30 countries and has won countless international awards. The film has generated international awareness about global warming, and inspired numerous initiatives to address this issue from grassroots to corporate activism. The website also has a free downloadable study guide for schools and 50,000 copies of the film were given away to teachers in the USA via the participate.net website between 18 December 2006 and 18 January 2007. Al Gore and a team of renowned climate change scientists and educators have trained more than 1,000 individuals to give a version of his presentation on the effects of - and solutions for - global warming, to community groups throughout the USA. 
ii) BORN INTO BROTHELS Synopsis: BORN INTO BROTHELS is a privately-funded 85-minute documentary by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. Briski is a photographer from New York who visits the red-light district of Calcutta. She meets the children of Calcutta's prostitutes and becomes deeply involved in trying to achieve a better life for them. Briski teaches the children to use cameras and encourages them to photography - and hopefully transform - their lives. BORN INTO BROTHELS won countless awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005. Funding: The film was funded by the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Swartz Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Sundance Institute. Outreach and Impact: One of the most tangible results of BORN INTO BROTHELS was the establishment of a non-profit organisation, Kids with Cameras. Kids with Cameras works with marginalised children around the world. The organisation teaches photography to children, provides scholarships and forms local partnerships to assist them in their general education. Kids with Cameras has a comprehensive website with information about its mission and program, and ways to purchase the DVD of the film or its companion soundtrack and book. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the book go to support the children's education. The website also has information about how people can donate, volunteer and join the organisation's emailing list. 
iii) LEGACY Synopsis: LEGACY is an inspirational 90-minute documentary by Tod Lending. It follows one family over a five-year period as they struggle living in one of America's most dangerous public housing projects. The family has amazing strength and manages to significantly transform their social and economic situation. Over the five years that Lending films, family members manage to end welfare dependence, substance abuse and move away from the violence that is so prevalent in their community. Family members also manage to complete education and job-training, find work and buy a house in a safer neighbourhood. Funding: The film was funded by the Annie E Casey Foundation, the Richard H Driehaus Foundation, the J R Houlsby Foundation, the John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation and the W K Kellogg Foundation. Outreach and Impact: Several of these foundations were heavily involved in supporting the film's outreach campaign. In particular, the Annie E Casey Foundation funded the campaign as part of its Making Connections Media Outreach Initiative. The Foundation provided multiple-year funding that totaled approximately US$300,000. The LEGACY outreach campaign was divided into three phases: Phase one centred around distributing materials such as a Community Action Toolbox and working with community partners to find and engage audiences. Screenings and discussions were held and a letter-writing campaign initiated. One of the most significant outcomes of phase one was the introduction of legislation to provide safe and affordable housing for grandparents and other relatives raising children across the US. In March 2002, a LEGACY (Living Equitably - Grandparents Aiding Children and Youth) bill was introduced in Congress and in June 2002, in the Senate. Phase two of the outreach campaign focused on addressing problems in neighbourhoods. Phase three continued the focussing on reaching communities with public TV broadcasts and screenings featuring discussions with the subject family of the film. A partnership was entered into with the Association of Halfway House Alcoholism Programs of North America. LEGACY also has a comprehensive website which is part of the PBS website. The website has extensive educational material. As part of their outreach funding, the Annie E Casey Foundation assisted the transfer of the film's website to PBS. LEGACY was screened on PBS and was nominated for an Academy Award. 
iv) TREMBLING BEFORE G-D Synopsis: TREMBLING BEFORE G-D is an 84-minute documentary by Sandi Simcha DuBowski and Marc Smolowitz exploring the dilemma faced by homosexual Orthodox Jews. The subjects of the film include a gay Orthodox rabbi, closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians, and those abandoned by religious families. The film explores the struggle to maintain faith and a true sense of self in our complex modern world. TREMBLING BEFORE G-D was filmed in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London, Miami and San Francisco. Funding: The film was funded by a number of foundations - the Rockefeller Foundation, the H van Ameringen Foundation, the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation, the Burstein Family Foundation, the Creative Capital Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Dorot Foundation, the Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund, the Gelman Foundation, the Tom Healy and Fred Hochberg Foundation, the David Hochberg Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Peter T Joseph Foundation, the Rita J and Stanley H Kaplan Family Foundation, the Karma Foundation, the Mathilde & Arthur B Krim Foundation, the Michael Palm Foundation, the Richard Nathan Anti-Homophobia Trusts, the Paul Rapoport Fund, the Rapoport Family Foundation, the Recanati Foundation, the Donna and David Reis Family Foundation, the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, the Rosenthal Foundation, the Shefa Fund, the Ted Snowden Foundation, the Threshold Foundation, the Ruth/Allen Ziegler Foundation and Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation. Outreach and Impact: The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. At the festival, the director and a rabbi hosted Shabbat and a Mormon-Jewish gay dialogue. They then traveled to over sixty cities conducting discussions with the public and other organisations concerned with faith, sexuality, age, racial and Jewish issues. An Orthodox community education project, using the film as a central resource, has been launched in the US, Israel and the UK. The project has received funding from Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation. Other outreach strategies include the formation of an Orthodox Mental Health Network to work with rabbis, families, schools, teachers and synagogues. Outreach work is also being conducted in other faith communities. The film's website provides links to resources and opportunities to help the filmmakers with their outreach. Some suggestions include placing announcements in newsletters about the film, requesting your video shop to stock the DVD and linking your own website to the film's site. There is also a sample fundraising letter to raise money for further outreach. 
v) MIGHTY TIMES: THE CHILDREN'S MARCH Synopsis: This documentary by Robert Hudson and Bobby Houston unveils the stories of children's contribution to the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Using word of mouth under a veil of secrecy, more than 4,000 black schoolchildren organised themselves to desert classrooms at exactly 11am on "D Day" May 2 1963, touching off a week of mass demonstrations and rioting that shocked the nation and rocked the world. Police tried to stop them, yet the children prevailed. The documentary focuses on a group of Birmigham citizens, many of whom participated in the march when they were children. Funding: The film was funded by the Southern Poverty Law Center in partnership with the Birmingham Pledge Foundation and presented by HBO. Outreach and Impact: MIGHTY TIMES: THE CHILDREN'S MARCH won an Academy Award for best documentary short subject. The Southern Poverty Law Center, through its magazine and multimedia kits distributed over 12,000 educational kits for the documentary, containing the DVD or video with a teacher's guide, to educational institutions across the country at no charge. Foundation support made this possible. "This film is empowering" said Richard Cohen, President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It demonstrates that citizens, including children, can change history by confronting social injustices. It is our hope that THE CHILDREN'S MARCH will inspire youth to take stands on vital human issues affecting their communities and their lives, most especially racism and the devastating impact of discrimination upon our society." See full case study of Mighty Times: The Children's March.
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