Strategic Communication for Justice (Podcast Transcript)

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Sherylynn Sealy:
Welcome to a podcast by Grantmakers in the Arts, a national membership association of public and private arts and culture funders. I'm Sherylynn Sealy, GIA's program manager. GIA is a community of practice with a shared vision of investing in arts and culture as a strategy for social change. Since 2008, GIA has been elevating racial equity as a critical issue affecting the field. To actualize this work within the sector, GIA published its Racial Equity and Arts Funding Statement of Purpose in 2015. Since then, this journey has reaffirmed the many intersections at play as we leverage our dollars for the deepest impact and continue exploring new ways to be agents of change.

In this podcast episode, we are glad to have two guests from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We will be speaking with Aisha Edwards, a program officer with the Criminal Justice Team, and Lauren Pabst, a senior program officer with the Journalism & Media Team. Through our discussion, we are going to dive into the ways MacArthur has prioritized criminal justice and incarceration justice efforts via media, narrative support and partnerships, and we will hear specifically about their support for the documentary film, Crime and Punishment, and their collaborative Envisioning Justice Initiative. Lauren and Aisha, thank you so much for joining us. How are you both showing up today?

Aisha Edwards:
Moment by moment. So many things going on with navigating the changes in our outside world, and trying to show up and be ambitious for what's on our plate. So I think that I've been adding things to my silver linings playbook as we go, looking for the silver linings and the motivation to go forward.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right. Thank you, Aisha. And Lauren?

Lauren Pabst:
I'm showing up really inspired by exactly what Aisha said, which is this sense of ambition of what we can bring to this moment as a community of people who are lucky enough to work in the philanthropic sector. I'm feeling really challenged. I'm feeling like the bar is high and the bar should be high, and feeling a lot of urgency in the current moment.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right. I think the word of 2020 is urgency, so I appreciate that. Let's dive right in. Lauren, can you tell us a little bit about how MacArthur Foundation approaches funding and media narrative, and why the Journalism & Media department shifted to regranting for partnerships?

Lauren Pabst:
The documentary film field in particular is one of the oldest fields that MacArthur has funded in. That dates back to the early 1980s. That's the part of the Journalism & Media program at MacArthur that I work on the closest, is the documentary film field. In the case of documentaries, many people say right now we're going through a golden age of documentary, that there's more opportunities to see documentary, for documentary film making to have impact than ever before. But that has changed over time in a big way, especially since the documentary film funding dated back at MacArthur. Before 2010, the proposals from independent filmmakers would come to MacArthur on a rolling basis. So when we were considering documentary projects for funding on a rolling basis, it felt too closed.

Under the leadership of Kathy Im, who directs our program, between 2010 and 2015 MacArthur held a widely publicized open call for documentary projects and made all of our funding decisions at the same time from a much larger and much more diverse set of projects. It was during that era that I had the fortune of joining the Foundation in 2012. In 2016, we made the decision to stop funding documentary projects directly, and instead give those funds to organizations that are closer to the work with decision-making lenses that were different from ours and were also created and organizations that were born of the need to support, in particular, black, indigenous and people of color filmmakers, and those that are underrepresented in the field for gender, LGBTQ status, geography, stage of career and things like this. So we made the decision to support documentaries through partner organizations that… We grant MacArthur funds to projects and individuals, but also provide professional development and creative support to filmmakers through labs and other non-monetary supportive programs.

We now have about 18 partner organizations that we work with. They're focused on supporting filmmakers that have been underrepresented in this field. Even though we're in a golden age of documentary, the opportunities and the resources, unfortunately, mirror the historic and current oppression in our society. There's concentration in the hands of white male filmmakers, even as there's proliferating opportunities for documentaries to be supported and seen. So as part of MacArthur's strategic shift to funding documentaries through partners, we worked with the International Documentary Association to support the creation of the Enterprise Documentary Fund, which launched in 2016. The Enterprise Fund is specifically focused on supporting investigative and journalistic documentaries. One of the main reasons we wanted to take this focus is because MacArthur has long supported work, particularly at the intersection of journalism and documentary, and it's also a response to the fact that many independent documentary filmmakers are increasingly taking on investigative topics using film, but they don't always have access to the research and the legal support that is needed when you're taking on these controversial subjects.

So International Documentary Association created the Enterprise Fund to provide development grants and production grants that are on the larger side of what is generally available in the field and mirrored the amounts that MacArthur used to award directly through our own open call. It also critically provides non-monetary supports like legal vetting through partnerships established by the International Documentary Association, including with the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press and the UCLA Documentary Film Legal Clinic. So MacArthur's Journalism & Media program was able to launch this fund with a four year, $5 million grant of which 1 million each year has been regranted to documentary projects. We've been incredibly impressed with the films that have been supported by the fund and the International Documentary Association has attracted additional funders, including the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the Emerson Collective. Partnerships like these are a great way for funders who are interested in supporting documentary films, but may not have the in-house expertise and bandwidth to do so.

We also carry a principle of our wider Journalism & Media program through in this grant making, which is being as hands-off as possible. We place a strong emphasis on unrestricted support throughout our grantee relationships. In the case of our regranting partnerships, like the Enterprise Fund, they do take the form of project grants because we're focused on the funds eventually reaching the film projects and filmmakers, but we never get involved in the regranting process or the review panel. We feel very confident trusting the expertise of our partners to help inform the national narrative.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. So it's interesting that you said all of that only because, I mean, full transparency, everyone listening, we had a short conversation before this recording, but I don't think I realize the story behind the creation of the IDA Enterprise Fund, so that was really exciting for you to share that. I mean, what I took from a lot of what you said, larger grants, unrestricted grants, more robust support, and lots of trust. Specifically with documentary, it's a great way to reach people. So can you talk a little bit more about how partnership made it more feasible for you to support criminal justice efforts and incarceration justice efforts within Journalism & Media in a deeper way? I know there's a very specific documentary that we actually talked about before this, that I feel like has taken the nation by storm, if you could talk a little bit about that.

Lauren Pabst:
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. In terms of our support of, in this case, the Enterprise Fund at IDA, criminal justice projects, of course, rose to the top of that set of projects and, through the really rigorous and thoughtful decision-making process that IDA put in place for the Enterprise Fund in the first set of grantees that received this funding, there's a film called Crime and Punishment. If you're Googling it, it's Crime + Punishment. It came out in 2018 directed by Stephen Maing. It's truly an investigative documentary. It goes into following the 12 NYPD officers who in 2016 blew the whistle and sued the city for carrying out illegal arrest and summons quotas in the Black and Brown neighborhoods of New York where they work. The film won an Emmy using hidden camera footage of the whistleblowing police officers, themselves who are all Black and Latino, and it provides evidence that these quotas were being required by their superiors. Really it's reaching wider audiences now, of course, as policing is on everyone's mind. It's because you can see it happen and it's right there on tape.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yes. Thank you. I have to go back to the ultimate decision to regrant because the bigger grants that you were able to offer the IDA Enterprise Fund made it possible to get the legal support and vetting and research support, and all that's needed to be able to get that type of footage, to be able to share it with the world to create more awareness of what's happening in communities behind the scenes. I think that's really key when we're thinking about the value and the impact of funder partnerships, but I know the work didn't stop there. I would love to bring Aisha into the conversation now, as we talk a little bit more about some of the efforts within MacArthur and talk a little bit about strategic communication. I know that within MacArthur, you had an Envisioning Justice Project where that involved multiple portfolios or departments within MacArthur to address criminal justice reform efforts. So I would love to hear a little bit more about that and the process for that, the thought behind it, if you will.

Aisha Edwards:
Yes. Envisioning Justice Project is a really cool project that it's under our overall umbrella of the Safety and Justice Challenge, which is our national initiative for the Criminal Justice Team at the MacArthur Foundation, the goals of which are to reduce the jail population and racial disparities in jails. Seeded and wrapped around those goals are authentically engaging with your community to do the work and doing data collection and mining your data, properly coding your data and unpacking the disparities in that way.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right.

Aisha Edwards:
Envisioning Justice is the project that has hands in it from different departments, not just the Criminal Justice Team, but we do have a Chicago Commitment Team. We have our Journalism and Media Team that was part of that conversation. We have our fellow in arts and culture program officers that were all part of coming together to develop a project that pulled all these different expertise of programs that also brought together some community focus on criminal justice reform or a way to approach it using arts and humanities in the Chicago area.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's excellent. You said something to the effect of bringing different levels of expertise or different types of expertise together, which speaks to cross sector collaboration. That's what we talk about pretty often and always enhances what is being done. The work didn't stop there with the Envisioning Justice Project, because there was also, I know, the 70 Million Podcasts that came out of that type of collaboration as well. Is that right?

Aisha Edwards:
That's right. It's a collaboration specifically between the Criminal Justice Team and Journalism & Media, again, as part of our national initiatives. One third of the work stream is communications, amplification of messages, and narratives change. The 70 Million Podcasts was a way to get that done. 70 Million named for the number of Americans who have a criminal record, at least then. I think it's up to 77 million now.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Oh my gosh.

Aisha Edwards:
It really highlights the stories, not just of our jurisdictions, but other jurisdictions who are working collaboratively across different sectors. Prosecutors with judges, with community members, working collaboratively to develop ways to address over-incarceration, address racial disparities and it brings together local stories.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. Right. I think that speaks to the power of strategic communication and partnership and collaboration. I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. Lauren, or what we spoke about earlier, and that's about what's within the portfolio of the Journalism & Media department. A lot of funders will have Journalism & Media within the arts and culture space, right? But MacArthur, it's separate and MacArthur is a very big foundation. So can you talk a little bit about the collaboration between the Journalism & Media department, the Arts and Culture department, and I actually would love to bring you in for this one as well, Aisha, to hear more about the three-way collaborations that you've participated in for some of these projects and just how that worked. For folks listening, what should they be thinking about if they want to do something like what MacArthur did?

Lauren Pabst:
So I'll just start. In terms of the Journalism & Media program at MacArthur, we exist in collaboration. As I mentioned earlier, we don't have a topic focus for Journalism & Media, but I've had the real privilege of, in these moments and projects that intersect here, to help make the case to the Criminal Justice Team to collaborate on some of this work that is about independent storytelling, independent journalism. In the case of our Arts and Culture program, which is focused on the city of Chicago in the Envisioning Justice Program, we all got the chance to come together, the Journalism & Media Program, the Fellows Program that awards individual exceptional creativity and our Arts and Culture in Chicago Program alongside the Criminal Justice Team to really think about how to bring this idea of envisioning justice in partnership with Illinois Humanities to the city of Chicago into life.

Aisha Edwards:
Yeah. I guess I just wanted to add that for the Envisioning Justice Project, in addition to the collaboration we have going on, the way it manifested, and I'm sure that came from the thought partnership and the collaboration internally and with the partnership in Illinois Humanities, is to focus community arts efforts in community hubs around the city of Chicago. I believe it was a total of seven hubs, including a focus on the Cook County jail, as well as the juvenile detention facility. All had art hubs. One really cool thing is that these are disparate, different communities around Chicago, but all have their own story and history of what's going on. I think there was communities on north side, south side, west side, and they'll all have different stories and struggles with the justice system and all have been traditionally segregated because of way segregation and communities developed historically in Chicago.

One cool thing to come out of the project was to bring those communities together and join their collective voices and empowerment to share their experiences with the criminal justice system. It was very illuminating to see how art and humanities could bring together people to have a conversation around criminal justice and what needs to change and how it was impacting people, from being overly victimized by certain things. Part of the Envisioning Justice Project was an art exhibit where the different hubs got to contribute different pieces of art to it. For example, there was a exhibit that paid homage to the police torture that has happened in Chicago. There was also recordings of spoken word poetry, hip hop group that expresses their frustrations with social justice through that. We got to watch that. One impactful piece that still stays with me is that we were able to do a mural at the opening of the exhibition.

Essentially it has an image of a snake eating its tail, large eyes that signifies that we are being a witnesses and not necessarily doing enough for the criminal justice system that just cycles people in and out. So it was just a powerful way to pull in hearts and minds of folks who were just on the outside of the issue, but it was also a way to empower the community to have this voice and to share their voice. One of the amazing things that came from it is that the hubs still want to be networked after that exhibition, that the work that we helped seed, it wanted to continue beyond the life of the grant. There's been additional networking and now tying more of that community voice to actual policy is what we're trying to do now. Policy change is the next level of what's happening.

Lauren Pabst:
With Envisioning Justice, those seven community hubs where specifically Free Write Arts and Literacy, the Breathing Room space from the Let Us Breathe Collective, Bright Star Community Outreach, BFF Family Services, Open Center for the Arts, Circles & Ciphers and Just Art.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's excellent. You said you wouldn't do the exhibitions justice, but I mean, more reason for folks to be able to click the link and read more about what's happening and explore more and see what can be replicated in everyone's respective communities, so I appreciate that. Before we run, I want to ask if you have any final thoughts for our listeners, any of you.

Lauren Pabst:
I did want to share, just circling back quickly, and just talk for just a moment about the why and the why of supporting documentaries, supporting these documentaries that are investigative, that take these risks and just share a couple more thoughts on that. So when we were talking about the Enterprise Documentary Fund, this is a fund that, over the last several cycles since it's launched in 2016, 70% of the projects have had a director or producer in those top roles who's a person of color. Why is that significant? So when we look at Crime and Punishment, it's an investigative documentary. It's also a beautifully cinematic character-driven film and it does what all good documentaries do, which is reach back through a chaotic news cycle and bring together a narrative and it's protagonist with all possible context and respect.

What's special about Crime and Punishment, and what I could also say about several of the films that happened to be supported through the Enterprise Fund as well as many other partners, including the Ford Foundation, Prospective Fund, and other really great funders in this space, but there's several films supported through the Enterprise Fund that have been released in 2020, just recently. These include And She Could Be Next. That's directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. And Through the Night. That's directed by Loira Limbal. In the case of these three projects, all of their topics, policing, electoral politics and caregiving, these projects that have been in the works for a couple of years, all seem to anticipate the current moment that they're being released into. The huge viewership of Crime and Punishment as an example. Why is that? I think that, in large part, it's because these are empowerment stories and they're at the exposed fault lines that these institutions in our society. Policing, electoral politics, and caregiving, these are all failing most people, including the people that are working within them.

But the incredible protagonists of these documentaries are people who show up with their whole selves and have the courage to assert themselves and show a different path in each one of these films. The argument for supporting black, indigenous and people of color documentary storytellers and journalists and artists, it's an argument about aesthetic excellence and journalistic innovation, as much as it is a political injustice argument. These projects are oftentimes more trusted. They inquire differently and they acknowledge the frame, celebrate the joy and see the nuance in a way that our narratives really need right now. I want to mention just one more organization that has been critical to moving the documentary industry towards greater racial justice, and that is Firelight Media founded by Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith. Their motto is "Changing the story," and they are absolutely doing that in terms of the documentary fields.

They support and provide this kind of mentorship and creative support to black, indigenous and people of color documentary filmmakers through their documentary lab. They do this regional skill building through their Groundwork Project, and since June, they've been hosting a Beyond Resilience virtual webinar series that has unpacked a lot of the current moment for, in this case, documentary film creators. But really, I think a lot of fields are asking this question of how can we rebuild from COVID-19 without replicating the inequities that were already pre-existing in these different fields? So just as we think about partners and that we've learned a lot from MacArthur in terms of our approach, I just wanted to mention them and how critical they are to the fields and just say we're grateful to have partners in this space that are thinking in this way.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren Pabst:
Yup.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Aisha.

Aisha Edwards:
I think I want to pick up on something Lauren said about the courage to show up. It makes me think about right before the exhibition opened to the public, we were able to have a conversation with the community hub directors. So some of us from the Foundation across the different programs that have been involved in it, to have a face-to-face with how the work was going on the ground and lessons learned, and they got a chance to talk to us, what they wanted to tell philanthropy. That was a really, really impactful moment and reminder of just a accountability thing and reminded me of my own roots growing up on the south side of Chicago and how far I had got away from that. They brought up how we needed to do some more support and lifting up of even abolition framework and that concept.

In our criminal justice reform conversations, it also helped change the way Illinois Humanities council… It's completely changed their strategic direction. The organization underwent anti-racism training to help be better partners in this work, which is deeply invested in racial equity and advancing equity and getting away from that mind frame of being the helper or the coordinator and being the partner and letting the community take the lead. Now the Envisioning Justice has become much more of a community-led initiative where the community are controlling the dialogue and they're being empowered in such a way that it's very humbling to see. It's been very transformative for the people involved in the project.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. Wow. That was powerful. I think it really speaks to the big picture mindset that we strive to maintain when we're doing this work. So thank you for sharing that and thank you both so much for the conversation and for participating in our racial equity podcast series. Your insights and the decisions MacArthur has made to support more impactful criminal justice efforts are a great example of the power of partnerships when advancing racial equity. To our listeners, we look forward to continuing these conversations so be sure to tune in to our GIA racial equity podcast series and be sure to follow us on Facebook at GIArts, Twitter @GIArts and Instagram at Grantmakers in the Arts. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, Sherylynn Sealy, at sherylynn@giarts.org. Lastly, as Ava DuVernay says: "There's no one thing that's going to fix plea bargains and the people making money in prisons, and cops and they're over militarization. There's no one solution that does that. The only way to fix it is if we all start to think differently." Thanks so much for listening.