Funder Friday

Our friends at The Redford Center are offering IDA members a special preview of the organization’s new Redford Center Grants program, which will launch on Wednesday, June 22. IDA thanks our guest funder, Melissa Fondakowski (Program and Development) , for answering the questions we’re most curious about, and giving our members an exclusive look at their latest exciting endeavor. How Did Redford Center Grants Come About? As a small nonprofit, The Redford Center’s organizational model has been to produce one film at a time about an issue on the verge of a tipping point. Since we were founded, we

When we think of documentary, we might not immediately consider its broader uses in transmedia and digital applications. For example, Tracy Fullerton’s Walden, a game , takes us into "a real-time 3D environment, which replicates the geography of Walden Pond and the woods in which Thoreau made his home." The game allows individuals to explore complex humanities themes outlined by Thoreau in a newly immersive environment. Telling Stories with the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project is a work currently in development that will result in web-based "public interactives" that will provide a cultural and

We’ve spoken to quite a few of you who are excited to apply to the freshly launched Miller / Packan Film Fund, so we went straight to the source and asked Hugh Rogovy, Founder and President of the Rogovy Foundation, to answer a few questions about their latest philanthropic endeavor. In this #FunderFriday installment, you will hear directly from Hugh what inspired the grant’s creation and how your project can get noticed amidst the many fantastic films applying for this highly competitive doc fund. What inspired the Foundation to create the Miller / Packan Film Fund? Documentary films can have

As I was putting together this quarter’s grants and opportunities blog post , I was made aware of an outstanding response posted in one of our favorite online communities, The D-Word. Lucky for us, the writer agreed to share her knowledge with the IDA community. We are pleased to feature the thoughtful insight of director/producer Tracy Heather Strain , as she shares her key takeaways about the NEH grant application process. She has applied and received two grants each from the NEA and NEH (!), with rejections from both as well, and served as a panelist for the organization three times since

For this month's #FunderFriday, we asked Lisa Chanoff and Bonni Cohen from Catapult Film Fund to answer some questions from our Twitter community. Below, they answer our community's questions, while also offering up answers to frequently asked questions. Don't forget: the Catapult Film Fund deadline is August 25th! Is Catapult a fit for Indie Docs Seeking Post Production Funds? #FunderFriday — ljfogel (@ljfogel) August 5, 2014 Catapult Film Fund: ​No. Catapult is all about early money. Our focus is to help launch documentary film projects near the beginning of their process. These "development