Field Directed Funding Bears Fruit

by Sahar Driver

In July 2022, Color Congress members began a three-month process to collectively direct our Field Building Fund toward resources that will stabilize and strengthen the sustainability of their organizations. Just as in other sectors, people of color led organizations in the documentary field are under-resourced relative to their white peers; many are led by filmmakers who are natural leaders that stepped in to create the support they themselves could not find but have not seen their leadership sufficiently invested in; and their contributions to the field are perpetually taken for granted.

Color Congress was built to strengthen people of color visibility, voice, and power by investing in the leaders of color and the organizations they helm that are committed to centering people of color. We know that strengthening the foundations upon which filmmakers of color stand is one of the surest and most powerful ways to stabilize their role in the field. So we knew that in our first year, it would be critical for Color Congress to immediately shower this ecosystem with the kind of support it has long deserved.

We launched in January with an open call for unrestricted 2-year grants to organizations and distributed $1.35M to 17 organizations through our Organizational Grant Program. But our membership is 80+ and growing and we knew it was not enough. This is why it was critical to leverage our Field Building Fund (a $525K fund) so that it would reach and meaningfully support every single one of our members. And stretching those dollars to make sure every single member got exactly what they most need meant we needed to get organized.

Step 1: Listening

We knew from early conversations and surveying what kinds of challenges many people of color-led organizations in the documentary ecosystem face and where they thought support could be most helpful. So we did a bit of research and developed a preliminary list of services and service providers (the Resource Menu) that responded to what we heard.

Step 2: Partnering

We shared the preliminary Resource Menu with our membership in early summer and in July and August invited them to review, reflect, and respond to it during our monthly meetups. They discussed together the challenges they face and support that could be most useful to them, both from the perspective of the roles or functions their organizations play in the field or their geographic location. And they shared back ideas that emerged from those conversations and how the Menu should be adjusted to respond to gaps they surfaced, new questions that came up, or other considerations. In this way, our members became the primary architects in our program design.

Step 3: Building Cohorts

Each month we received feedback from our members and returned to the service providers with it. In some cases we asked for clarification or refinements to their plans, in other cases we identified new vendors to partner with. Few have ever participated in a program quite like this but most were willing to shape their services in ways that supported cohorts where possible. This had the added benefit of helping members to see they were not alone in needing the kinds of support they were requesting, and of building trust and relationship among our membership over time.

This month our members begin to reap the rewards of this work. They have each signed up to receive their top 2 most needed support offerings out of the 14 on our Resource Menu. They will be benefiting from: communications support; financial planning; fundraising training and infrastructure development; board development; leadership development; legal support; management training; campaign strategy; conflict mediation; strategic planning for their organizations; and best practices for reporting on their impact.

This summer’s process was our first baby step in collective decision-making that illustrates how much more powerful our ecosystem can be when we work together. A few core values animated this work.

Trust

We know our members understand the challenges their organizations face better than anyone else. We trust them to define those challenges and the solutions for themselves.

Solidarity

We know that while our communities are distinct we also share common experiences, and that by focusing on the ways we are connected we can build power and create solutions that benefit us all.

Relationships

We know that success should be measured on the strength of relationships and that relationships take time and trust to build.

As we build trust and relationship, understanding and solidarity will follow. And, we hope that this will lead to bolder interventions that benefit our ecosystem and the broader documentary field.