Stay up-to-date on the latest news, trends and perspectives in media and philanthropy.

As you may have noticed, a few weeks ago we completely overhauled our website in an effort to better serve the rapidly changing fields of media and philanthropy. (Here's an overview of what you can now find.) And with our shiny new website comes shiny new impact assessment resources, which we're eager to showcase. Read More

Editor's note: Earlier this month, Media Impact Funders brought funders together at Philanthropy New York with organizers and presenters from the first VR for Change summit to explore how immersive platforms offer new ways to engage and mobilize users around social issues. Because this is a new and quickly evolving medium, attendees had many questions. The lively conversation ranged across definitions of new technologies, ways to match funders’ goals to VR productions, emerging research on impact, and the costs of supporting such projects as platforms continue to roll out. Diana Barrett of the Fledgling Fund has thought through many of these questions in her own practice. In this post adapted from a piece published in the online publication Immerse, she shares what she’s learned about the impact of VR, and how Fledgling chooses the projects they support.  Read More

By Meghan Ventura | Community & Operations Manager, Games for Change With VR’s promise to help us see the world from someone else’s point of view, one word has become nearly synonymous with virtual reality projects on real-world issues—empathy. Read More

Media Impact Funders and Foundation Center Announce New Mapping Tool for Media and Philanthropy Read More

By Sarah Lutman, Principal at Lutman & Associates and author of the report, Like, Link, Share: How Cultural Institutions are Embracing Digital Technologies Media funders take note. The museum community has been investing steadily in its collective media capabilities: in technical infrastructure, media production tools, staff expertise, and asset digitization. As a result, museums are becoming some of the 21st century’s most compelling conveners, storytellers, and media producers. Read More

By Sarah Lutman The Wyncote Foundation releases a special report on digital innovation in cultural institutions. In its continuing effort to understand the non-profit public media sector, the Wyncote Foundation has released Like, Link, Share: How Cultural Institutions are Embracing Digital Technology. Read More

Collaboration and invention were key concepts for the mid-afternoon sessions at the 2014 Media Impact Forum, which honed in on how cross-platform public media initiatives are filling holes in local news and healthcare coverage and influencing audiences and policymakers. View highlights from this discussion below, or go to our YouTube page for the full session. Media Impact Funders Executive Director Vince Stehle moderated the discussion on innovation in local journalism, which featured Laura Walker, the president and CEO of New York Public Radio; Laura Frank, the executive director of I-News and vice president for news at Rocky Mountain PBS, and Clark Bell, the director of the McCormick Foundation’s Journalism Program. Walker heads up a clutch of award-winning public stations—WNYC-FM, WNYC-AM, WQXR, WQXW, and New Jersey Public Radio—which, along with related digital properties and programs, reach an average 14.2 million people each month. She spoke about the importance of partnerships in building better local coverage across the region, especially in New Jersey, where major outlets have collapsed. With support from such funders as the Charles H. Revson Foundation, The Gates Foundation, The Wyncote Foundation, and the Jerome L. Read More

“Photography has a special capacity to serve the public interest,” Media Impact Funders Executive Director Vince Stehle told attendees at the March 5 Media Impact Focus event, AIM and Shoot. And who could imagine a better venue to explore this topic than the Skylight Studios of the Annenberg Space for Photography? Read More

On March 5 we continued the discussion of cutting-edge impact analysis methods we began last November, and added documentary photography to the list of topics covered. Read the storify from the day. We heard from leading funders and media makers from the National Geographic Society, Open Society Foundations, Participant Media, and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, among others, to learn how philanthropically funded productions are transforming audiences and sparking social change. _______________ 9:00 — Introduction and Welcome Vince Stehle, Executive Director, Media Impact Funders Leonard Aube, Executive Director, Annenberg Foundation    9:10 — Documentary Impact in Action Chad Boettcher, Executive Vice President, Social Action and Advocacy, Participant Media Caty Borum Chattoo, Public Affairs Strategist, Participant Media and Creative Director, Center for Media & Social Impact; Executive in Residence, American University Shaun MacGillivray, Producer, To the Arctic Jim Miller, Executive Director, Brave New Films We heard how leading documentary producers are demonstrating the impact of their films. Boettcher demoed the Participant Index, a national survey panel tracking how media spurs action. MacGillivray revealed how his spectacular IMAX journey into one of the planet’s last untouched regions has rallied more than a million viewers to call… Read More

At our Media Impact Focus: AIM and Shoot event, we'll take a long look at the ways in which new technologies are opening up fresh opportunities for photographers to connect and collaborate with audiences. To shed light on these shifts, three of our speakers have assembled a shortlist of relevant readings—Amy Yenkin, the director of the Open Society Foundations Documentary Photography Project; Susan Meiselas, the president of the Magnum Cultural Foundation and a critically acclaimed photographer, and Sara Terry, the founder and artistic director of The Aftermath Project. Read More

Studios of WQXR and WNYC, 160 Varick Street, 8th Floor, NYC New York Grantmakers in the Arts, Philanthropy New York and Media Impact Funders came together for a discussion among arts funders about the role of digital media within the arts,  Read More