Fledgling Fund | Documentary Film Grant

by Fledgling Fund
(New York City, Boston and Los Angeles)

"The Fledgling Fund seeks to improve the lives of vulnerable individuals, families, and communities by supporting innovative media projects that target entrenched social problems."

That's the mission of the Fledgling Fund. With approximately $1.5 million in funding disbursed annually, we are interested in making strategic grants and investments that help fledgling projects take flight.

The Fledgling Fund's grants range from $10,000 - $35,000.

Our grants typically fall into three broad categories:

Outreach and Audience Engagement: These grants support the development and/or implementation of strategic audience engagement initiatives for feature and short form documentary films. Films should be at least at a rough cut stage to be considered for this type of funding.
Grants for Films: Generally these grants support late-stage post production costs. Films should be timely, have strong outreach potential, have completed production, and have a rough cut to be considered.
Innovative Creative Media: These grants support the use of emerging technology to engage new audiences around important social issues, not necessarily tied to a film.

We look for opportunities where our funding can play a key role in the life of a creative media project that we think has the potential to ignite social change. Typically, these are grants at a critical stage of a media project where timely funding could amplify its social impact.

We leverage our resources by funding projects around a cluster of issues that we believe are critical including: girls' empowerment and women's leadership, health and wellness, and systemic poverty, among others. In this way we can select media projects that not only highlight the complexity of these social problems but also offer solutions.

When possible we use a three-pronged approach that includes funding for an innovative film or media project, funding for a strategic outreach and audience engagement campaign, as well as financial support for the community- based organizations that are committed to the issues raised in the film.

The Fledgling Fund considers requests for creative media projects in two funding cycles each year. Applicants are strongly encouraged to review the mission of our creative media initiative as well as its application process prior to submitting an online form.

The next funding cycle will open on August 13th, 2012.

Visit our site: www.thefledglingfund.org

Read an interview with the Fledgling Fund's Director of Programs and Communications, Emily Verellen. A Funder's Perspective: The Fledgling Fund

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