How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Outreach, Networks, and Education

How the Ford Foundation Changed the Entertainment Industry (full series)
The Ford Foundation | Direct Film Funding | Film Festivals
Outreach, Networks, and Education | Why Ford’s Strategy Works

Outreach, Networks, and Education

The Ford Foundation’s film strategy involves much more than simply paying for the nuts and bolts of making and promoting a movie. Indeed, as noted earlier, JustFilms spends vast sums on what it calls “documentary infrastructure.” An October 2023 program evaluation prepared by the California-based consulting firm Informing Change noted the “social justice documentary ecosystem” that JustFilms seeks to foster consists of “filmmakers, filmmaker support organizations, academia, journalism, tech, social movements, and more.” Indeed, much of Ford’s support for the Sundance Institute has been earmarked for the institute’s documentary film program, which provides constant support for documentary filmmaking outside of the festival itself.

Another example is the over $9.6 million that Ford has given since 2012 to a nonprofit called Firelight Media, whose mission is to support “documentary filmmakers of color.” Almost all this money was earmarked for “general support to connect inclusive talent pipelines with best practices for film impact and audience engagement, and for core support for institutional strengthening.” The foundation has also given an additional $975,000 to the group’s for-profit spinoff Firelight Films to produce specific films.

From 2011 to 2023, Ford gave over $10.1 million to a group called the Doc Society, whose mission is to support both individual filmmakers and the networks associated with them. The organization asserts that “a commitment to anti-racism, economic justice and climate justice is embedded in and informs all we do.” According to the Doc Society, populism, misinformation, climate change, and white nationalism are among the principal challenges facing society, and the group strongly believes in the power of documentary filmmaking to bring about what it would consider to be favorable sociopolitical shifts. The Doc Society’s board members include a former Obama Administration official, a vice president at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the former CEO of the Sundance Institute, the president of the New York Times Company’s international business, the co-executive director of Green New Deal UK, and the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Most of the Ford Foundation’s money for the Doc Society was earmarked simply for general support, but it also gave $2 million specifically to fund an initiative called Good Pitch, which functions as a forum to connect “social justice filmmakers” with prospective partners and activists. It offers training and other filmmaker development resources. According to its website, Good Pitch events have brought about over 1,600 partnerships “between filmmakers and changemakers,” led to over $30 million in funding for documentary films, and resulted in more than 100 films that were “used in social justice campaigns.” The Ford Foundation is one of two Good Pitch Global Partners, alongside the Sundance Institute.

The Doc Society appears to leverage its relationship with the Ford Foundation to help convert Good Pitch participants into bona fide Ford-funded filmmakers. For instance, in 2015 filmmakers Ian Kibbe and Margaret Byrne presented their film Raising Bertie at the Good Pitch Chicago event, sponsored by the Chicago Media Project. The event was designed to connect filmmakers with “foundations, NGOs, campaigners, philanthropists, policy makers, brands and media around leading social and environmental issues to forge coalitions and campaigns that are good for all these partners, good for the films and good for society.” It did just that. Kibbe and Byrne raised an additional $50,000 from the Ford Foundation that day, setting their film up for success and positioning themselves well to have a continued relationship with Ford in the future.

Film training and related educational programs abound within the Ford Foundation’s film-related grantmaking, many of which are for startup funds or for the benefit of international filmmakers. For example, in 2015 the foundation gave $100,000 to the New Fund for Cinema and Television’s Greenhouse Development Program, which helps train emerging filmmakers in the Middle East and North Africa. From 2014 to 2015 it gave $155,000 to Race Forward for a social justice activist documentary film training program. From 2012 to 2021 it gave $2,565,000 to the East African Documentary Film Fund, mostly for training, development, and “institutional strengthening” for filmmakers in the region. In 2017, it gave $200,000 to the Bronx Documentary Center to create a training program called BDC Films. Xavier Cousens, a recent alumnus of the BDC Films program, worked on Out of the Picture, a 2024 documentary that itself received $52,500 from the Ford Foundation—just one example of how Ford’s education and training grants complement its direct content grants as part of the foundation’s broader film funding strategy.

The list of such programs funded by Ford is long, as the foundation spreads its grants among a variety of different educational strategies. Ford seems to understand that if it wants direct film funding to be part of its portfolio, it must invest in the world’s future filmmakers as well. Ford takes a long-term view of its film funding, and it is willing to support educational programs that may not immediately pay dividends. Eventually however, the top filmmakers who emerge from these training programs are well positioned to receive further Ford funding for documentaries that align with Ford’s ideological perspective for the remainder of their careers.

Education and training are only one part of the strategy for how Ford uses its funds to leverage networks and maximize the impact of films that it supports. Of the 900+ separate Ford Foundation grants returned by a search for “film” in its online database, at least 65 mention “outreach” somewhere in their one-sentence blurb, many of which also include the word “engagement.” Ford regularly spends on the infrastructure surrounding film distribution and screening. Fundamentally (and crucially), Ford is as interested in funding future filmmakers, increasing the visibility of a film, and making sure it gets in front of the right audience as it is in funding the production of the film itself.

Ani Mercedes is one example of this system working in practice. Mercedes started her career at Kartemquin Films, studying raw footage from Steve James, a world-renowned director who was nominated for an Academy Award for the 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams. Since 2007, Kartemquin Films has received nine grants from the Ford Foundation, totaling $915,000. Mercedes was a 2017 participant in the Impact Producer Fellowship, which is an activist-oriented training program for “producers of color.” While that fellowship was not directly funded by Ford, it was launched by Firelight Media, which has received millions of dollars from the foundation over the years. Mercedes has also attended the Doc Society’s Good Pitch events, remarking on the “dynamic and electric synergy between pitchers and local organizations.” All of this appears to have paid off, as Mercedes has been involved with at least two Ford-funded films: Building the American Dream, which received $280,000 from the foundation, and Through the Night, which received $100,000.

Of course, many activist-filmmakers were educated at universities and film schools. Accordingly, Ford also funds this early stage of the film training process. American University’s Center for Media and Social Impact received $235,000 from 2020 to 2022 for documentary-related research. Montana State received $356,221 from 2015 to 2016 to train and mentor emerging African filmmakers. Other schools receiving film-related grants from Ford include the University of Iowa ($110,000), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham ($60,000). Interestingly, Ford has also funded less conventional film schools and related programs such as React to Film ($200,000) and South Africa–based Big Fish ($822,734). A $750,000 grant Ford made through the Nate Parker Foundation in 2016 was earmarked for Wiley College’s film program. In 2017, Ford even made a $150,000 grant to Natives at Large, for a program that would provide mentorship to recent graduates of film schools in South Africa.

In the next installment, the impact of the Ford Foundation’s spending on documentary films has been staggering.