Member Spotlight: Outrider Foundation

For most of us, the notion of nuclear threat is impossibly abstract—even as Russia continues to threaten nuclear action against Ukraine and allied NATO countries. It’s not something people generally want to talk about. Read More

For more than 10 years, Humanity United has been dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring peace and freedom. HU supports and works alongside partners who strive to advance human dignity and change the systems that enable violent conflict and human exploitation around the world. A member of MIF since 2017, Humanity United is part of The Omidyar Group, a collection of independent organizations and initiatives that pursue different ways to improve the lives of people and societies. Humanity United is focused on specific portfolios of work: Peacebuilding and Human Trafficking and Forced Labor, in addition to a cross-cutting Public Engagement portfolio. Its Independent Journalism and Media (IJAM) program operates within the Public Engagement portfolio and supports investigative reporting, journalism networks, and robust duty of care and support for journalists. Here, Liz Baker, Senior Director of IJAM, highlights HU's journalism strategy, its evolution as a media funder, and what the organization wants to learn alongside its peers. Read More

With a fresh Oscar nod and a Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, 2023 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Catapult Film Fund. A longtime partner and stakeholder in MIF’s efforts to convene a robust network of documentary film funders, and a member of MIF since 2022, Catapult has gained a reputation for its work to support artists and their films in the earliest stages of development. Founded in 2010 by Lisa Kleiner Chanoff and Bonni Cohen, Catapult is among the first supporters on a project, and it stays with that project from its very early beginnings until it makes its way out into the world. In this Q&A, Catapult Co-Director and Senior Program Officer Megan Gelstein—who spoke at our film funder gathering adjacent to the Sundance Film Festival earlier this month—gives us a deeper look into Catapult’s strategy, lessons learned from playing the long game, and what the funding community should do more of to support nonfiction storytelling. Nina Sachdev, Communications Director, Media Impact Funders: We know that getting films off the ground is incredibly difficult. But early stage work is your bread and butter. Tell us how you “catapult” nonfiction… Read More

The Heising-Simons Foundation, a member of MIF since 2016, is a family foundation based in Los Altos and San Francisco, Calif. Awarding more than $900 million since making its first grant in 2007, the foundation focuses on five program areas—Education, Climate & Clean Energy, Human Rights, Science, and Community and Opportunity.  With a history of funding media relating to its programmatic priorities, the foundation took a step further by creating a journalism portfolio within the Community and Opportunity program area—managed by Brian Eule, the foundation's director of Journalism and Communications. In this Q&A, Brian shares details about the foundation's thinking around media strategy, why we need to sustain the field of freelance journalism and the critical need to elevate ignored voices, and more. Read More

Lumina Foundation, a member of MIF since 2011, is a private foundation in Indianapolis committed to learning after high school that prepares people for informed citizenship and success in a global economy. For 14 years, Lumina has focused on ensuring that, by 2025, 60 percent of adults in the United States have college degrees or other credentials of value. Lumina believes no matter where you come from, what you look like, or how much money your family has, you should have what you need to learn, grow, and thrive. The foundation works with education and business leaders, civil rights organizations, state and federal policymakers, and other leaders who want to reimagine higher learning for today’s students. These learners are more likely to be Black, Hispanic or Latino, Native American, from low-income households, the first in their families to go to college, and family caregivers. They attend community colleges, regional universities, open-access private colleges, and minority-serving institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And they often experience unstable housing situations, a lack of healthcare, and uncertainty over where their next meals are coming from. Read More

The Joyce Foundation, a member of MIF since 2016, is a Chicago-based private foundation that focuses on evidence-based public policy solutions to some of the nation’s most pressing challenges. Since 1993, Joyce has been a leader among philanthropies in supporting efforts to prevent gun violence. (Research the foundation has supported informed key provisions of the recently passed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Joyce called a “significant step forward in reducing gun violence in America.”) Joyce Foundation's Chief External Affairs Officer Kayce Ataiyero (left) and Hugh Dellios, Senior Program Officer, Journalism. Joyce has been playing the long game in its support of journalism, too, recognizing the effective role media can play in surfacing public policy solutions. At a recent MIF meeting among journalism funders, Hugh Dellios, Joyce’s Senior Program Officer, Journalism, described the evolution of the foundation’s media grantmaking strategy, which started in the communications department as a way to support Joyce’s primary program areas. Eventually, the foundation established a separate media grantmaking portfolio to deepen the impact of its other investments—and to help rebuild the news ecosystem in the Great Lakes region. This shift was the result of Joyce’s recognition that quality reporting is essential to sound public policy. Here, Chief External Affairs Officer Kayce Ataiyero—who oversees the Journalism program at Joyce—shares more thinking around Joyce’s media funding, the importance of journalism for a healthy democracy, and advice for funders who may be interested in making media and journalism grants. Read More

The role of the impact campaign and its impact producer is critical to the long-term success of a film whose goal is to catalyze social change. It's the impact producer who must deeply understand the film's mission and message, and then figure out how best to leverage it for impact—whether it's raising awareness, inspiring action or changing policy. Few funders are supporting the documentary impact ecosystem as robustly as Perspective Fund. A member of Media Impact Funders (MIF) since 2016, Perspective—in addition to supporting powerhouse social change documentaries such as "Writing with Fire," "Crip Camp" and "Coded Bias"— offers general operating support and infrastructure grants geared toward building and sustaining the field. In 2020, soon after COVID-19 forced widespread lockdowns, which all but eliminated film releases and disrupted their impact campaigns, Perspective implemented an emergency relief fund for struggling impact producers facing economic uncertainty. MIF Communications Director Nina Sachdev recently spoke with Denae Peters, a former impact practitioner who oversees Perspective Fund’s infrastructure program, about the organization’s work two years into the pandemic, opportunities and concerns in the impact ecosystem, and its Our Democracy portfolio. Read More

The Colorado Health Foundation, a member of MIF since 2020, has worked to bring health in reach for all Coloradans for more than two decades by engaging closely with communities across the state through investing, policy advocacy, learning and capacity building. Since 2015, the foundation sharpened its focus on creating health equity for all Coloradans, especially those for whom health is furthest from reach, by intentionally prioritizing communities of color. Relatively new to media grantmaking, the foundation is well under way with efforts to build and sustain the flow of quality information across Colorado. We recently talked with Senior Communications Officer Jaclyn Lensen about the foundation's commitment to equity and takeaways from its work to rebuild the state's local news ecosystem. Read More

There’s a foreboding sketch of an hour glass with an image of a melting globe dripping through it on the most recent edition of h magazine, the semi-annual publication produced by The Heinz Endowments. The headline on the cover declares, “Moment of Truth: Action is Needed to Address Environmental Crises Before Time Runs Out.” Read More