Pop Culture Collab: Meet Our Spring 2023 Grantees
Image Description: A mutlicolored graphic background with large text that reads: 2023 Grantees. Below, 4 headshots of smiling people. From L to R: A Black person with long hair wearing multicolored jewelry, a black blazer and yellow top smiles; A person with short dark hair, round glasses and wearing a denim buttin up shirt with a t-shirt underneath; A smiling person with curly brown hair and a turquoise nose ring, wearing coral lipstick and a white lacy sleeveless top that shows their arm tattoo; A Black person with short buzzed hair and a beard wearing a blue striped suit with a black shirt.
We are delighted to announce the Pop Culture Collaborative’s Spring 2023 grantee partners.
We need intersectional BIPOC artists, cultural strategists, and movement leaders working at maximum capacity to challenge the onslaught of toxic narratives and unlock public imagination about our pluralist future.
With this community of grantee partners, the Pop Culture Collaborative advanced nearly $3.8 million across multiple strategic priority areas: 1) Movement-Led Pop Culture Narrative Change, 2) Building the Field, 3) Culture Change Research, 4) the Pluralist Visionaries Program, and 5) the Becoming America Fund’s emerging True History Narrative Network. Read more about each grantee below.
MOVEMENT-LED POP CULTURE NARRATIVE CHANGE. Supporting organizations to design, coordinate, and activate long-term narrative change strategies at the pop culture level in social movements.
Color of Change. Funding Color of Change’s pop culture narrative change programs and capacity to build a robust narrative infrastructure that generates and activates stories, and builds political and cultural power that affirms Black people and centers Black leadership; and supporting the STORYWORLD initiative, a first-of-its kind strategy to bring entertainment storytellers and movement organizations together in physical and digital spaces for deep collaboration and learning.
IllumiNative. Advancing IllumiNative’s pop culture narrative change programs and capacity for scaling their culture change model to work towards building power for Native peoples and transforming systems that have silenced, erased, and dehumanized this community.
National Domestic Workers Alliance. Supporting NDWA’s pop culture narrative change programs and capacity to firmly position care as a defining national issue in order to expand the narrative and political power of their BIPOC/Immigrant domestic worker membership base.
United We Dream. Advancing United We Dream’s pop culture narrative change programs and capacity to fight for dignity and fair treatment of immigrants in the United States.
BUILDING THE FIELD. Investing in artists, organizations, entertainment companies, and cultural strategists working to expand the narrative power of the pop culture for social change field.
AI for the People. Supporting AI for the People’s organizational capacity and programmatic activities to shape narratives on the future of technology and its impact on BIPOC communities
Barcid Foundation. Supporting the Barcid Foundation’s programs to work with Native artists and Native-led content projects in Hollywood, as well as the production of the LA Skins Film Festival.
BlackStar. Advancing organizational capacity for BlackStar, an artist-centric and BIPOC-led organization that provides high-quality opportunities for artists and critics, and thoughtfully curated experiences for audiences, funders, and distributors.
BLD PWR. Supporting BLD Power’s to organize BIPOC artists communities inside the entertainment industry; as well as conduct strategic planning for BLD POWER Productions and a new studio and creative campus for BIPOC artists.
Break The Room Media. Advancing Break The Room’s development of training curricula for BIPOC-centered writers rooms; as well as cultivating a global network of emerging and experienced BIPOC television writers.
Breaking Light Studios. Supporting Breaking Light Studio’s writer mentorship program for a cohort of BIPOC artists.
Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. Supporting adrienne maree brown to develop and workshop “To Feel A Thing: A Ritual for Emergence,” a gospel oratorio that reconnects audiences through a communal chorus experience that reimagines our collective future.
Fandom Forward. Supporting Fandom Forward—in partnership with Black Nerds Create—to advance the work of the Fan Organizer Coalition and to build strategies to counter white supremacy and build resilience in online fandom spaces.
Gold House Foundation. Funded curated programming and events, including partnerships between the Gold House Foundation and other cultural lodges, at Sundance Film Festival.
Inevitable Foundation. Supporting the Inevitable Foundation to systematically break down barriers keeping mid-level disabled screenwriters from reaching their full commercial and creative potential.
Intelligent Mischief. Supporting Intelligent Mischief to build its creative studio and fandom engagement that creates spaces where Black imagination can thrive, reimagine and shape beautiful futures.
LatinX House. Funding for the Latinx House’s activation at Sundance and for Raizado: The Latinx House Festival, an annual multi-day event in Aspen, CO.
Muslim Futures Project. Supporting the first Muslim Futures Project artist cohort, as well as organizational capacity to conduct long-term institutional planning.
Offsides Productions. Advancing Offsides Productions’ organizational capacity to develop and implement impact campaign strategies in tandem with their productions.
Open Television. Growing Open Television’s core capacity and activities to build out and support an ecosystem of BIPOC queer, women, transgender, nonbinary, and/or disabled digital storytellers in the U.S.
The Opportunity Agenda. Supporting The Opportunity Agenda’s pop culture narrative change programs and capacity, with a focus on the startup of the Immigration Narrative Table.
Pillars Fund. Supporting the Pillars Fund’s Culture Change program initiative in order to seed a new narrative ocean about Muslims in the United States.
Center for Working Families Fund’s “Real Housewives of Politics.” Investing in the Real Housewives of Politics’s community expansion and interactive civic engagement strategies with the Bravo Network’s Real Housewives fan community.
Storyline Partners. Funding Storyline Partners to support entertainment writers, showrunners, development executives and inclusive content teams to create more nuanced, accurate and inclusive narratives about BIPOC communities.
Sundance Institute. Provided support to the Sundance Film Festival’s Foundation Brunch, which highlights and celebrates the essential work of the Institute’s artist community and the funding programs that support them.
Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity. Supporting the Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity’s industry research and entertainment industry–focused programs dedicated to improving working conditions for all intersectional BIPOC television writers.
Yes, and…Laughter Lab. Supporting the Yes, And…Laughter Lab’s organizational capacity as a competitive incubation lab and pitch program designed to introduce diverse comedians to the entertainment industry, social justice organizations, and philanthropists who can help bring their work into the entertainment marketplace—and into movements for social change.
CULTURE CHANGE RESEARCH. Supporting research, analysis, and sharing of insights in order to inform narrative design, and advance cultural strategy.
Bold ReThink. Supporting audience research around YouTube explainer videos and to share findings around digital narrative and distribution strategies.
Harmony Labs. Supporting Harmony Labs, in partnership with Gusty Media, to conduct audience research around video games and associated storyworlds.
Institute for the Future. Advancing research around how White nationalist cultural movements are using the mechanisms of pop culture fandoms to mainstream toxic narratives and disinformation.
BECOMING AMERICA PLURALIST VISIONARIES GRANTS. Supporting a network of cultural guides and stewards to leverage their voice and influence to help millions of Americans onto a path towards a more just and pluralist society.
Our Body Politic. Funding to expand the work, reach, and brand of the podcast and media platform Our Body Politic, from Pluralist Visionary Farai Chideya.
TransLash Media. Supporting the communications and brand-building capacity of TransLash Media, the organizational home of Pluralist Visionary Imara Jones.
Resilience Force. Providing support around Pluralist Visionary Saket Soni’s The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America book tour.
BECOMING AMERICA TRUE HISTORY NARRATIVE NETWORK GRANTS. Curating and investing in storytellers and other content creators, cultural strategists, and researchers to work together to increase the American public’s access to honest and accurate accounts of U.S. history, while also cultivating the narrative leadership of high school students, teachers, parents, entertainment storytellers, and others working to defend access to true history in public education.
“1/6” Comic Book Series/Western States Center. Supporting the publication, distribution, and impact marketing of the digital and print editions of 1/6, a 4-volume speculative fiction comic book series exploring the real and imagined buildup and outcomes of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Chromatic Black. Advancing the impact campaign for Fannie, a short film starring Oscar-nominated actor Aunjanue Ellis, based on a pivotal moment in the life of activist Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–77).
The Langston League. Advancing Phase I of “Mapping Black America Through Film and Television,” a database project that will curate an expansive collection of Black history and culture curricula, pop culture stories, educational tools, and resources into an accessible interactive digital map available to teachers, parents, and students across the nation and globally.
