2023 Media Impact Forum: Stories of Community

Funders are invited to join us Thursday, June 1, at KQED Headquarters in San Francisco for our 2023 Media Impact Forum: Stories of Community. The Forum will explore the power and presence of community media and its importance for the empowerment of civil society. Throughout the day, we’ll feature thought-provoking plenaries, flash talks, breakout sessions, networking, and music featuring the makers and journalists creating change on the local level and the funders who are supporting it.

HERE’S HOW THE AGENDA IS SHAPING UP:

• What does it mean to do journalism in community and for community? Our opening panel of speakers will share different ways of challenging power and uplifting voices through a dynamic and diverse array of community media initiatives.
• We’ll feature several experts throughout the day in short “Tek Toks” (yeah, we went there) that explore the intersection of media and tech: Marc Hand, CEO and founder of Public Media Venture Group, and Deepti Doshi, co-director of New Public, will both offer guidance for philanthropic investment in a new digital media landscape.
• Grant Oliphant, Chief Executive Officer of the Conrad Prebys Foundation, will engage Mark Horvath, founder of multimedia storytelling platform Invisible People, and Marisol Bello, executive director of the Housing Narrative Lab, a communications and narrative research hub, in a thoughtful plenary session focused on shifting harmful narratives on poverty, wealth and homelessness.
• Grant will also moderate a discussion exploring inequality and wealth with Michael Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton and founder of End Poverty in California, and Jacob Kornbluth, award winning writer & director and co-founder of Inequality Media, about their new documentary, Poverty and Power, and the connective tissue between policy change and narrative change work.
• Join the Sundance Institute’s Carrie Lozano and award-winning filmmaker Pete Nicks—two of the most dynamic players in the documentary film field—in a sweeping conversation about the state of the field and Nicks’ filmography, which includes his three-part film project exploring public institutions in the city of Oakland, as well as his new film, “Stephen Curry: Underrated,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
• Spotlight on a learning project from the USC Norman Lear Center and funded by the California Health Care Foundation that explores what’s needed to generate impact through entertainment-driven narrative change.
• Spotlight on the latest developments in measuring the impact of journalism with Impact Architects.
• A performance by Meklit (singer-composer Meklit Hadero) and discussion of her transmedia storytelling initiative, Movement, which lives at the intersection of migration and music.
• Stay tuned as we confirm more speakers and content!

Please note: For those of you who can stay in San Francisco for an extra day, we will be hosting funder-only discussions on Friday, June 2, at the offices of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

To register, pick the days you’ll be able to participate below.