Join our network of funders strengthening media in the public interest.
Membership is the most powerful way to plug into the full breadth of the media philanthropy field. MIF helps members save time, avoid duplication, find partners and make stronger media investments—whether media is your primary focus or simply a lever in your broader strategy.
MIF also offers tailored services for individuals and institutions looking for support beyond our foundational suite of benefits. Learn more about additional membership options here.
Members Receive:
Curated guidance, briefings and resources to help you understand what’s happening across journalism, documentary, technology and narrative change—and how those trends intersect with your priorities.
Peer learning with funders who are navigating similar questions, challenges and opportunities.
A new resource library, funder guides and playbooks, research, and member-only events designed to help funders invest more effectively.
Access to our staff and network to help you identify collaborators, surface best practices and make informed decisions.
Opportunities to shape the field through working groups, peer sessions, content and convenings.
Member Benefits
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A new member welcome call and an individualized annual check-in call with MIF staff after each renewal.
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Office hours and consulting time give you direct access to MIF staff for questions, advice and custom connections.
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Members receive discounted tickets to our flagship convenings—such as the Media Impact Forum—which connect you with hundreds of peers, surface new ideas and equip you with insights you can immediately share with your board and colleagues.
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Through monthly MIF Network Calls, virtual briefings and small-group learning circles, you’ll always have timely updates on emerging opportunities so you’re the one keeping your team informed.
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Our online resources and landscape playbooks give you practical frameworks and clear, actionable advice you can use immediately.
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With curated reports, tailored analysis and our custom media grants data map, you can quickly understand the funding landscape and benchmark your strategy.
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Access to our members-only newsletter.
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Access to a members-only directory, a protected list of members’ interests and contact details.
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Our regional convenings and invitation-only gatherings connect you with funders across journalism, documentary and issue-driven media—including dedicated programming at Knight Media Forum, the Sundance Film Festival and the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. These spaces help you find shared interests and spark collaborations.
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Share projects, applicants and grantees that you are excited about with other members in a tailored Member Project Exchange—a confidential platform created to spotlight emerging initiatives and help members identify alignment, collaboration or co-funding opportunities earlier in a project’s life cycle.
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MIF also supports working groups and ongoing learning communities on specific topics—including public media, science and rural and international media—giving funders a place to explore complex issues together, compare strategies and build alignment over time.
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Ability to initiate and deliver a Member Briefing, a virtual meeting in which 2–3 members present their work, share lessons learned and engage peers in candid conversation.
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Opportunity to be featured in a Member Spotlight, which showcases your media funding approach, strategy and priorities to the broader MIF network.
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Advisory committees give you a voice in shaping the agendas of flagship events and guiding field-wide conversations
Member Spotlights
MIF Member Spotlight: Albi
Albi is reimagining what narrative infrastructure can look like in one of the most polarized cultural contexts in the world. Through its Film and Television Fund, institute and lab, the organization supports films by and about Israelis and Palestinians that resist binaries and make room for complexity, dissent and human proximity. In this Member Spotlight Q&A, Founder and President Libby Lenkinski reflects on how Albi defines success beyond awards or reach, why audience “encounter” matters more than scale, and what it takes to fund storytelling responsibly in conflict environments. She also explains how the organization’s Protection Hub safeguards filmmakers who are under threat and how the Palestinian Creatives Pipeline is building long-term structural access for emerging storytellers. Media Impact Funders: Albi works on documentaries in one of the most polarized spaces imaginable, where many people arrive with strongly held beliefs. Your goal is to “establish paradigm-shifting narratives.” What are the ways you think about achieving that goal and what are your markers for success? Libby Lenkinski: Albi works from a simple premise. In deeply polarized environments, facts alone rarely change minds. Stories reshape what people believe is imaginable. Documentary cinema is uniquely powerful because it operates simultaneously as… Read More
February 26, 2026
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- Media Impact Funders
MIF Member Spotlight: The Carmack Collective
In just four years, The Carmack Collective has established itself as one of the boldest philanthropic actors in the climate space. To support movement building and cultural change, Carmack invests in a range of media activities, from investigative journalism to comedy, animation, and gaming. Throughout this work, they remain committed to trust-based philanthropy and a belief in the power of storytelling to challenge assumptions about fossil fuel and climate change. In this Member Spotlight Q&A, Carmack’s Founder and Executive Director Jessie Bluedorn and Director Ricky Benavidez share how Carmack is countering industry disinformation, rethinking philanthropy’s role in narrative change, and building a pipeline of creative projects designed to shift culture at scale. Nina Sachdev: I don’t think we can talk about Carmack’s mission of combatting and dismantling the fossil fuel industry without talking about the persistent narratives that the industry uses to maintain its power. Fossil fuel companies have invested heavily in shaping public perception for decades. How is Carmack thinking about countering them through media and storytelling? Jessie Bluedorn: One of the most prolific and harmful false narratives is that fossil fuels are essential and therefore good. For example, we see this narrative pushed by industry via numerous TV ads depicting a… Read More
September 28, 2025
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- Nina Sachdev
Member Spotlight: Chicken & Egg Films
Chaos and confusion; that about sums up the current U.S. political environment, right? “I think that’s the strategy,” Chicken & Egg Films CEO Jenni Wolfson says. “To unmoor us all.” A longtime MIF member, Chicken & Egg Films is our member spotlight this month. To celebrate their 20th anniversary and their work to support women and gender-expansive documentary filmmakers worldwide, we headed over to their offices to talk to Jenni in person. Reflecting on the current political environment here in the U.S., Jenni shared how Chicken & Egg Films is adapting its strategies to protect and empower filmmakers whose identities and stories are often at the center of ongoing attacks. Operating as a vital intermediary funder, Chicken & Egg is both raising and regranting funds to support, as Jenni says, the storytellers who “represent the world that we live in.” More than just financial aid though, the organization provides crucial mentorship and industry access, enabling filmmakers to craft powerful narratives that remind us of our shared humanity. That reminder is why, despite the chaos and confusion, “Chicken & Egg Films, first and foremost, is staying steady.” Here, Jenni discusses the shifting landscape for both filmmakers and funders,… Read More
May 29, 2025
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- Nina Sachdev ,
- Adriana Imhof