Did you know that Working Films is available to offer workshops and training for documentary filmmakers and social justice leaders? Building on our 25 years of experience positioning films for change, we have an array of offerings ranging from the key elements of impact campaigns to fundraising and defining impact, accountability to evaluation – and more. We’ve worked with dozens of industry leaders and foundations to offer our best practices and lessons learned. Reach out to us if you’d like to learn more about working with us.
Explore Our Offerings
Key Elements of Impact Campaigns
Gleaned from 25 years of learning and innovation, we’ll cover the key elements of impact campaigns - from vision and goal setting to assessing impact. This offering can be provided via a 2-hour or multi-session workshop series.
Fundraising and Budgeting for Impact
This offering covers the many factors that go into fundraising for documentary impact campaigns. From grant writing to budgeting, crafting a compelling deck, to making an ask to an individual donor - you'll gain valuable insights and strategies for securing the resources needed to position your film to drive positive change.
Care and Accountability in Documentary Filmmaking, Programming, Impact and Distribution
Since 2017, Working Films has been uplifting processes of care and accountability in documentary filmmaking and funding processes. We are available to lead workshops for artists and donors, and to facilitate processes between film teams and participants featured in documentaries.
Mutually Beneficial Partnerships for Impact
Working Films offers consultation and workshops to help filmmakers and organizations build strategic partnerships and amplify the impact of documentary films. By focusing on mutual benefit, we provide concrete tools and strategies for coming together to drive social and environmental change through film.
Participatory Budgeting and Accounting for Arts and Culture Nonprofits
This offering shares our in-depth experiences, learnings, steps and considerations for creating an organizational budget that prioritizes equity and agency for the entire team, while supporting organizational accountability and transparency. Attendees will leave with an understanding of the benefits and the processes for collaborative budgeting.
Democratizing Arts and Culture Funding
This offering forefronts ways that funders of storytelling and the arts can embrace power-sharing, build trust, and advance equity in their funding practices and relationships with grantees. Participants will learn concrete strategies for embodying transparency and accountability, including case studies where community organizers and artists shape grantmaking decisions, and approaches like verbal reporting and feedback prioritizing underrepresented artists.
Decentralizing Power in Arts Organizations
This offering explores flattened leadership structures. We can share our experience and guidance for organizations interested in transitioning to more equitable, collaborative models by providing strategic insights, facilitation, and actionable steps. With a focus on sustainability and shared decision-making, we can help organizations move their leadership model forward in ways that foster inclusivity, trust, and long-term success.
Evaluating Impact
How do we measure if a film has had an impact? We’ll explore the tools used by Working FIlms and others across the field to assess the impact of films on social movements in a ways that shares both practical tips and digs into the important nuances of how change happens and the nuances of measuring impact.
Narrative Shift Strategies
This offering provides guidance for narrative shift strategies to identify and combat harmful dominant narratives that perpetuate oppression, while advancing alternatives that center and move us toward equity, justice, and liberation. Drawing from the award winning multimedia project Rise Home Stories and our Docs In Action initiative, we’ll offer concrete case studies and tested approaches that foster transformative change.
Strategy Summit
A strategy summit is a 1-2 day event that helps filmmakers plan their impact campaigns and solidify relationships with potential partners. The summit results in a clear strategy, goals, and commitments from attendees for future participation. In follow up, film teams receive a report that can be used to guide the campaign forward and engage supporters.
Let's Connect
Thank you for your interest in our workshops and training modules for filmmakers and social justice leaders. We have a wealth of experience and best practices to share, and we would be happy to discuss how we can work together. Please reach out to us for more information.
Who we worked with
