Film Funders Gathering in Park City, Utah

This event is sold out. To be added to the waitlist, please reach out to MIF Manager of Member Engagement, Shannon Thomas, at shannon@mediafunders.org.

Each year ahead of the Sundance Film Festival, Media Impact Funders convenes funders who support documentary film, journalism, public media and public-benefit storytelling. This year, the ecosystem is shifting quickly and dramatically:

Public media is under unprecedented pressure, new platforms are reshaping audience discovery, creators are navigating heightened legal, political, and economic risks, and commercial markets are evolving in ways that directly influence how stories reach the public. Taken together, these shifts underscore the need for funders to work together in new and more coordinated ways.

Instead of traditional panel presentations, our gathering’s featured conversation will bring together funder and field perspectives aimed at surfacing questions and tensions that will guide two rounds of facilitated table discussions immediately following the conversation.

Featured Speakers:

• Craig Cichy, Executive Director, Social Impact Fund
• Candice McFarlance, Chief Creative Officer, Cinereach
• Brian Newman, Founder, Sub-Genre

Panelists will offer brief provocations organized around four pillars guiding Media Impact Funders’ work:

• The Future of Public Media
• Evaluating Impact
• Platform Futures & Audience Reach
• Safeguarding Journalism & Media

Across these areas, speakers will surface shared pressures, tensions and open questions funders are navigating, including where new partnership models are emerging, what assumptions may no longer hold, and where existing approaches to funding, distribution and impact evaluation are being tested. The goal is to establish a common understanding of the challenges and tradeoffs shaping the field.

This shared framing will then set the stage for deeper funder-to-funder exchange. Following the conversation, participants will move directly into facilitated table discussions aligned with the same four pillars.

Through two structured rounds of conversation, funders will:

• Examine the limitations and constraints shaping their work within each area
• Shift to future visioning, exploring what stronger, more resilient approaches could look like over the next several years, where collaboration and new partnerships could add value, and how funders might responsibly build on and grow from what is already working

We’re eager to explore this work at a moment of significant change for nonfiction storytelling.

Please note: This gathering is for philanthropic funders only. For intermediary funders, we ask that you participate in the meeting with your funder hat on: Attendees should be actively engaged in grantmaking, not development activities.