Call for Sessions

Day-long Seminar
at Winter Family Foundations Conference:

"START HERE!"
Media Funding to Meet Your Program Goals

[The application form is available for download at the bottom of this page]

Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM) will present a day-long seminar on Saturday, January 31, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana in advance of the Council on Foundations Winter Conference for Family Foundations taking place February 1-3, 2009.

Media — print, television, radio, film, mobile phones, and the Internet — are pervasive. They shape our thinking, they shape our behavior; media directly affect the impact of our philanthropy and our ability to strengthen civil society.

Many funders support media: documentary films, media policy advocates, radio programs, Web-based independent journalism, bloggers and more — but most funders don’t…

GFEM often hears from funders who want to support media-making and media policy but they don’t know where to start. Well, we’re going to start here.

Following GFEM’s Philanthropy and Media mini-summit held during the May, Council on Foundations Leadership Summit, we were asked by many funders to provide the basics of media funding. Our seminar title and theme, “START HERE,” captures what we want to achieve: providing the funding community with workshops that build on past and current best-practices in media funding and equips funders with the knowledge and tools to further their program goals.

The seminar aims to help novice media funders learn how to make solid judgments about what media to support and how to do it well. We also want to demonstrate how to use media to further program goals—even if a funder didn’t support the creation of it. For the seasoned funders, we’d like to offer opportunities to learn about the gaps in media funding that would build on their previous support. In both cases, we are hoping the proposed sessions will spark new thinking, generate innovation, and foster more diverse, open, and independent media systems.


Seminar Details

The seminar will consist of:
• an opening plenary,
• two 90-minute sessions in the morning,
• a box lunch, and
• two afternoon sessions.
This call for workshop sessions is to address the nuts and bolts of media funding. One size does not fit all. In an advanced technological age that offers a dizzying array of format options - TV, the Internet, installations, podcasts, kiosks, mobile phones, YouTube video clips, radio, webisodes, feature length documentaries, or gaming platforms—determining the right delivery platform for your issue area is both an important consideration and a potential challenge. We are looking for sessions that can address the how-to in a rapidly changing media environment and sessions to address the funding of documentary films; media policy advocacy; new, non-profit distribution models and using media to advance a social issue or policy agenda.

Issues and areas we would like the sessions to address may include those that:
• are timely; consider relating content to recent elections and related media issues or media concerns requiring attention from the new administration;
• offer accessible entry points by highlighting the intersection of media with other sectors (e.g. the environment, education, immigration issues, the arts);
• demonstrate how to effectively reach a target audience and best leverage media investments by matching the message to the right delivery format.
• demonstrate the use of media to advance policy issues and promote democracy;
• demonstrate the use of media to mobilize communities, advance social change; and
• reflect the current state of independent media—audio, video & print (online and off) policy, production, distribution/exhibition and audience development—and offer opportunities to foster innovation.

Over the course of the seminar we want to cover media content, policy, and infrastructure with an emphasis on "going beyond the choir" and engaging a broader pool of colleagues. Proposed sessions can have as few as one but no more than four presenters.

Requirements

This Call for Sessions is open to all funding organizations and affinity groups that are current members of the Council on Foundations. Extra consideration will be given to session proposals submitted by current GFEM members. Non-profit organizations may not apply but can submit as a collaborative partner with a qualifying funder.

Selection Criteria

The Selection Committee’s aim is to create a multi-faceted program of sessions that will be of value to those who wish to learn more about supporting media as well as experienced media funders.
The Selection Committee will be looking for sessions that:
• clearly identify opportunities for strategic grantmaking
• provide tangible take-aways
• offer practical "How-to's"
• shape the content and knowledge level for attendees new to media
• celebrate success as well as hard lessons learned
• resonate with issues related to strengthening independent media systems
• use interactive learning models

Session Designer Responsibilities

If your session is selected, as “session designer” you will be responsible for the following:
• developing its format and agenda;
• inviting presenter(s);
• coordinating presenter travel with GFEM staff;
• organizing a conference call with all presenters;
• refining the session’s content;
• determining room setup and audiovisual requirements;
• helping prepare presenters; and
• implementing the session at the conference in Indianapolis.

GFEM staff will be available to assist session designers as needed.

Submission Procedure

• All submissions should be e-mailed as a Microsoft Word attachment to info@gfem.org.
• Please write “Session Submission” in the subject line of the e-mail.
• Only sessions received by midnight, Monday, September 8, 2008 will be accepted.
• If you are submitting more than one session, please send each as a separate document.
• Please limit your submission to no more than two pages using the form available for download below.

We will send you a confirmation of our receipt of your proposal via e-mail once we have received it. If you do not receive a confirmation within 24 hours after submitting, please contact Pam Harris, (415) 370-4169, pharris@gfem.org to verify that we have received your proposal. We recommend that you print and keep your confirmation.

You will be notified if your session has been accepted by October 3, 2008, after which you can confirm your presenters.

We look forward to your ideas. Thank you for your participation.

Alyce Myatt, Executive Director, GFEM, amyatt@gfem.org