Types of Funding
The primary focus of The Fledgling Fund's creative media initiative is outreach and audience engagement. We are interested in supporting film and other media projects that engage key audiences in efforts to affect positive social change. In recent application cycles, the average grant size for The Fledgling Fund has been approximately $30,000. 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 films. Films should be at least at a rough cut stage to be considered for this type of funding. To read more about how we define outreach and audience engagement, please read our paper "From Distribution to Audience Engagement".
* 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.
Our existing portfolio of projects will give you a better understanding of the types of projects that we have funded. We also strongly encourage you to review our key issue areas below, which provide more information on our areas of interest.
Key Issue Areas
* Girls' Empowerment and Women's Leadership: With an unwavering belief in the potential and strength of women and girls to change the world, we look for projects that demonstrate this capacity, highlight their unique challenges and inspire the world to cheer them on. We are particularly interested in projects that are effective educational tools for vulnerable young girls, social service providers, advocates and other stakeholders. We celebrate the work past generations have done to improve the status of women and we are committed to making sure that girls and women around the world are empowered and have an equal voice. We believe that creative media can make connections, showcase solutions, create policies and spark important dialogue among girls, women, and men and help inspire the world to hear their voices.
We consider creative media projects in two funding cycles as outlined below. Projects that wish to be considered for funding must submit a letter of inquiry using the online form as a first step in the application process. From these initial inquiries, smaller pools of applicants are invited to submit a full application. If your project is selected to move to the next step in our application process, we will request additional material such as footage, or other work samples as well as a detailed budget. Applicants will also be asked about their goals for the project and its potential to affect social change. Please note that we do not return DVD's to applicants after the application process has completed.
If you are requesting funding for outreach and audience engagement, you will also be asked for an initial plan that outlines the project's goals and objectives, audience engagement strategies and your plans for assessing the impact of the project. To read more about how we assess the impact of creative media, please read our paper "Assessing Creative Media's Social Impact".
The Fledgling Fund only makes grants to 501(c) 3 organizations. While an initial Letter of Inquiry may be submitted by a film production company or an individual, you will be required to submit documentation from your fiscal sponsor before a grant can be processed. Therefore, we suggest beginning the process of securing a fiscal sponsor upon applying. If you are an international applicant, you must have a U.S.-based fiscal sponsor.
Funding Cycles
Spring Cycle
Funding cycle opens online: January 17th, 2011
Deadline for Initial Letter of Inquiry: February 21st, 2011
* Please note that after this date the online Letter of Inquiry form will not be available until the next funding cycle opens
Applicants Notified as to Request Status: April 6th, 2011
Materials Due by Invited Applicants: April 29th, 2011
Applicants Notified as to Outcome of their Request: June 17th, 2011
Apply for Funding
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 this online form.
You can access The Fledgling Fund Letter of Inquiry here. The deadline for submissions in this round is February 21st and the letter of inquiry will no longer be available after that day.
Apply here.
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