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| From The Fledgling Fund |
It's grantmaking season again - both the worst and the best times of the year for us at Fledgling; it happens twice, once in the spring and once in the fall and each time our process becomes a bit more systematic, certainly tougher due to the sheer numbers and the increase of good applications, and we hope, a bit more objective. I thought it might be useful to give you a sense of the process ...what's going on right now, before the final decisions are made on January 15th.
From the approximately 400 on-line applications that were submitted to us in September, we chose around 90 to move along to the full proposal phase. This wasn't easy, although some were easier to reject than others because they just clearly did not fit our mission. Even in this initial large pool however, we had some heated discussions among ourselves trying to reach consensus. Then the really tough part began; reducing 90 to a manageable short list that will be reduced further to perhaps 15 grants.
The word "grant" is a bit misleading, at least for me, since the three of us view each grant as an investment in the film, in the project and in the filmmaker. We tend to think of each decision as a fairly long-term partnership, one that evolves and matures as the needs of the project become more clear over time. We have worked with some of our projects since they were selected scenes, rough cuts, still rough cuts and gradually moved along to the fine cut stage. We have followed them through color corrections, editing and more editing. We have congratulated filmmakers for festival prizes and often been just as pleased for them when their films reached key audiences and moved along an idea, or a social movement.
So, what are the screens we use that distinguish this week's short list to next week's grantees? We really do try to make our decisions clear, and defensible, more objective than subjective. Assuming that we have footage, and we usually do, all three of us watch independently and discuss in batches. The first comments usually revolve around the absolute "watchability"... how much did we each want to watch it until the end? Did we find the subject and more importantly, its treatment, really compelling?
Then we looked at the shape of the ideas presented. Did the filmmaker take the time to really think about the film's potential? What might it do? And, equally important, did they think about key partners who are already interested in the film or the idea and who might willingly jump on board? Beyond planning for screenings, did they think about how these screenings would move the conversation forward? We then generally moved to a "best in class" discussion...if this film is about deportation, or drilling for natural gas, or school reform, was it the best of the group in this cycle? When we have a number of projects, films, games, websites on a specific issue, we group them in order to really get a sense of how they compare to one another and which would be most likely to have real social impact.
Other issues always seem to have a role in our discussions. Personal courage in taking on a subject, humor in its depiction, a track record that might make us choose one project over another based on our previous experience with the filmmaker, characters that are particularly appealing... all of these, and others. play a part. But in the end, for us, it's about social change. Can the project really have an impact? Might it be measured? Will it move the conversation forward? And, of course, since we're generally talking about visual media, who will see this and why?
We're almost there - each of us viewing everything and in the end able to defend our own choices. But we are always sad about all of the great projects that we can not fund, at least not now.
