10x10 Premieres "Girl Rising" and Launches Fund for Girls' Education
10x10 is a global action campaign for girls' education launched by the award-winning former ABC News journalists of The Documentary Group and Vulcan Productions, and strategic partner, Intel Corporation. Centered on the new feature film, Girl Rising, 10x10 uses the power of storytelling and the leverage of high-impact partnerships to deliver a simple, critical truth: Educate Girls and you will Change the World.
10x10 is proud to partner with the Tides Foundation to create and manage the 10×10 Fund for Girls' Education.
Donations to the Fund will be distributed among 10x10's NGO partners – some of the leading organizations improving the lives of girls around the world. They include: A New Day Cambodia, CARE, Partners in Health, Plan International USA, Room to Read, Unicef, United Nations Foundation / Girl Up, and World Vision. These partners have committed to directing the funds to specific girls education and related programs around the world.
What can you do? With the release of Girl Rising on March 7th, each girl featured in the movie -- and girls worldwide -- will get closer to achieving the recognition they deserve, the education they want, and the opportunity to succeed. However, this can only be done with your help. Girl Rising has a strong message, but this message means nothing if it doesn't get heard. We need people from Des Moines to Houston, from Billings to New York City to get out there, host screenings in their hometowns, and do everything in their ability to get their friends, family and neighbors to attend these screenings. Every girl has a right to an education, and your hometown can make an insurmountable difference in making this known. So, sign up to host a screening. Invite everyone you know. Make an impact. Change the world.
Sign up to host a screening here.
Watch the trailer here.
Connected, the acclaimed Sundance doc from filmmaker & Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain, launches on iTunes TODAY, Feb 5.
After a Sundance world premiere, a theatrical release, 14 awards (including a Disruptive Innovation Award from The Tribeca Film Festival), and traveling the world with the U.S. State Department's 2012 American Film Showcase, Connected is now available on iTunes and all digital platforms. Hailed by The New York Times as "Examining everything from the Big Bang to Twitter" and "incredibly engaging!", Connected explores what it means to be connected in the 21st century. You can download the film here.
Create Videos for Effective Human Rights Advocacy
(Thanks to Marcia Jarmel from Patchworkfilms.org for bringing to our attention!)
WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that has been using the power of video and storytelling for 20 years to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. It was co-founded in 1992 by musician and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel, Human Rights First and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation.
WITNESS empowers human rights defenders to use video to fight injustice, and to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools that can pressure those in power or with power to act. By bringing often unseen images and seldom heard stories to the attention of key decision makers, the media, and the public–WITNESS catalyzes grassroots activism, political engagement, and lasting change. We bridge the worlds of human rights, media and technology by incorporating cutting-edge innovations into traditional approaches to advocacy. WITNESS’ unique contribution to the human rights community is to serve as global authority on best practices in the use of video for human rights purposes and a frontline resource for training and expertise. More >
$100,000 in Prizes for Fresh Ideas on Democracy
A new competition offers $100,000 in prizes for creative and provocative digital media pieces that offer new ideas and fresh perspectives to help improve American democracy. The competition – Looking@Democracy – aims to spark a national conversation about why government is important to our lives and how individuals and communities can come together to strengthen American democracy.
“Given our perception that the political system has failed to adequately address major issues confronting the nation, MacArthur seeks to stimulate discussion about the future of the Republic and invests in promising ideas to help enhance democratic ideals, institutions, and practices,” said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. “This new public competition is all about engaging citizens and encouraging them to apply their creative talents and offer their ideas to strengthen American democracy.”
By welcoming submissions in any digital format (e.g., videos, apps, data visualizations, podcasts, graphic art), the competition hopes to engage independent media makers, investigative reporters, students, graphic designers, and artists – anyone with creative ideas to help engage Americans and shift the political discussion in a fresh and engaging way. Examples of successful approaches could include addressing a critical topic that is absent from the national debate, looking at data and exploring the stories behind them, or highlighting an aspect about democracy taking place on a local level.
Looking@Democracy is a project of the Illinois Humanities Council and funded by MacArthur. Submissions are due by April 30 and will be reviewed by a panel of expert judges from media and the nonprofit community. More >
A Journey of Mortality, Renewal & Ethical Investment: Joel Solomon at TedX Vancouver
Former Tides board member Joel Solomon's TedX talk on ethical investments is now up on you Tube! Watch the full clip of the video here >
Nonprofit Finance Fund State of the Sector Survey Live
Nonprofit Finance Fund is conducting its fifth annual nationwide survey examining the current state of the nonprofit sector, and we hope that you will add your voice. The survey, which is anonymous and takes only 10 minutes to fill out, collects data on important financial and management issues facing the nonprofit sector.
To take the 2013 survey, please click on this link before February 15th! There is also a live link on the homepage of NFF's website.
Also, please do pass on the link above to other nonprofit managers you know—the more survey respondents, the more representative and accurate the findings will be.
NFF will analyze the results and provide them to all of us—nonprofits, government, foundations, lending institutions, media, and umbrella organizations—in late March. Also, all survey respondents who choose to give their contact information will receive the results directly. The findings, and the comparison to previous years' findings, will help identify the most critical areas of need in the sector.
If you have already filled out the 2013 survey, thank you for supporting this data gathering effort!
Inagural Environmental Coverage Ranking Report Released
The Project for Improved Environmental Coverage released their inaugural Environmental Coverage Ranking Report last Thursday, January 31st.
The Project for Improved Environmental Coverage (PIEC) analyzed data over 17 months from 30 nationally prominent news organizations across platforms and compiled into a groundbreaking report that compares and ranks news organizations among their peers according to how they are prioritizing environmental headlines. This report also examines coverage ratios, citizen attitudes, pathways for innovation, and a host of other topics.
On average, entertainment headlines get over three times more coverage than environmental stories for nationally prominent news organizations and for some news organizations, entertainment and crime garner twenty times and sixty times more coverage, respectively. Environmental stories represent just 1% of news headlines and news consumers overwhelmingly know that something needs to change on this front as a recent poll shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans want improved environmental coverage in the news.
For more information and to view a copy of the report, click here >
