Fiscal Sponsors
Fiscal sponsors are intermediates that allow documentary filmmakers to receive funding that would not usually go to individuals. The organizations below have indicated that they allow fiscal sponsorship for documentaries. Some will charge fees for this service, but they might also provide other services to help manage the documentary fundraising process.
| Fiscal Sponsor | Description |
|---|---|
| Brooklyn Arts Council | Brooklyn Arts Council offers fiscal sponsorship to artists and arts organizations that are based in Brooklyn or primarily serve Brooklyn residents. The program provides individual attention and advice, feedback on grant proposals, online giving tools, low fees and fast turn-around. |
| Center for Independent Documentary | The Center for Independent Documentary collaborates with independent producers to create films and videos on issues of contemporary social and cultural concern. CID provides a variety of project management services for projects, including fiscal sponsorship/managing project funds. |
| Creative Visions | Creative Visions supports creative activists - people that use the arts and media to ignite positive social change. We can extend our fiscal sponsorship to any filmmaker or mediamaker that is actively working on a project that is aligned with our mission of creative activism. |
| Docs in Progress | Docs In Progress administers a Fiscal Sponsorship Program to allow eligible documentary projects to be able to apply for funding to foundations and other grant-making institutions and to accept tax-deductible donations from individual donors. |
| Documentary Educational Resources | Documentary Educational Resources welcomes applications for fiscal sponsorship of film and media productions, particularly in projects that support the mission to foster cross-cultural understanding, but will consider a wide range of social issue documentaries. |
| Film Forum | Film Forum, Inc. provides fiscal sponsorship to filmmakers in support of their projects. Film Forum accepts project that are feature length films by experienced filmmakers. To be as inclusive as possible, there is no set criteria for the style or types of films that will be accepted. |
| Film Independent | Film Independent's Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists, supporting projects at every stage in the process – from development to distribution and beyond. |
| Filmmakers Collaborative | Filmmakers Collaborative offers low cost fiscal sponsorship to independent filmmakers around the world. |
| Fractured Atlas | As the country's largest arts fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas provide accessibility, efficiency and affordability. Fractured Atlas work with thousands of artists and arts organizations to provide education and support for raising funds. |
| Independent Arts and Media | IAM offers fiscal sponsorship to projects and producers that raise the educational and social levels of the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding regional and national communities, through the development of non-commercial, educational and cultural media, news and arts projects for the benefit of the general public. |
| Independent Filmmaker Project | IFP Fiscal Sponsorship is exclusively for creative, artistic and/or educational film, video and transmedia projects, giving filmmakers the benefit of our focused experience and reputation in the field. |
| IFP Chicago | IFP Chicago's Fiscal Sponsorship program assists independent filmmakers applying for funding opportunities. |
| International Documentary Association | IDA's fiscal sponsorship program is open to independent filmmakers and documentarians, regardless of education, background or previous credits. Whether this is your first film, if you've been making documentaries as long as we've been sponsoring them, or if you have an idea and a plan, IDA can help. |
| Kartemquin Films | If the timing is right and the project resonates with Kartemquin's mission, they do provide fiscal sponsorship. |
| Living Archives | Living Archives helps documentary filmmakers fund their projects through contributions from individuals and grantmakers. It oversees the distribution of given funds and ensuring that they are used for their intended purposes. Living Archives is operated by award-winning documentary filmmaker D A Pennebaker, who has developed longstanding personal relationships with many well-known grantmakers and individual funders. |
| Media Alliance | Media Alliance has offered fiscal sponsorship to new not-for-profit organizations and temporary media projects that align with its mission and are compatible with its values. |
| NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship | NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship is one of the oldest and most reputable programs of its kind in the country. It gives individual artists and artist-run organizations increased access to greater funding and enhances their fundraising capabilities. |
| The Film Collaborative | As a fiscal sponsor, The Film Collaborative serves as a conduit for financial resources, and provides some support and oversight for independently produced film projects. |
| The Southern Documentary Fund | The Southern Documentary Fund offers fiscal sponsorship for documentary projects made in or about the American South. |
| Third World Newsreel | In accordance with its mission, TWN serves as a fiscal sponsor of independent film and electronic media productions, as well as artistic, educational and cultural projects emphasizing social justice issues and the concerns and interests of people, groups, and nations often marginalized in mainstream media. |
| Wavelength Media Arts | Wavelength provides artists, journalists and media producers within its community fiscal sponsorship. |
| Women Make Movies | Women Make Movies Fiscal Sponsorship is designed for women filmmakers who are actively fundraising for their film or video project and need 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt status. |
| Women's Voices Now | Women's Voices Now offers low-cost fiscal sponsorship to independent producers internationally. WVN supports film projects that are consistent with our mission statement. Projects must be artistic in nature and may not be produced solely for commercial gain. |
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If you have an addition, update or correction, please email filmmakers[at]pov.org and let us know! Last Updated: 7/24/2017