Do you remember what life was like one year ago? Let's travel back in time: People around the world were just beginning to process the trauma, grief and loss created by a multiyear pandemic. A coordinated attack on the bodily autonomy and human rights of...
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...
In 2022, the Pop Culture Collaborative proudly made $2.2 million in narrative infrastructure grants to 27 inspiring field partners. Since the Pop Culture Collaborative was founded in 2016, we have prioritized support for both Narrative Infrastructure, the investment in leadership, intelligence, collaboration, industry power, innovation, and community...
Supporting a slate of BIPOC creators' project development, decision-making, and collaboration skills through community workshops and a writers' intensive program....
Advancing pop culture narratives about caregiving and the role of caregivers in our society....
Creating talent pipelines for Native film and television artists....
Cultivating the vision and leadership of BIPOC girls and womxn to build a culture that is safe and sustainable....
Developing a talent pipeline for live action and animated film and television writers from immigrant, refugee, Muslim, Indigenous and LGBTQIA communities....
Researching toxic digital narrative ecosystems and their cultural impact on society....
Advancing Latinx equity and inclusion in Hollywood through the Dear Hollywood (Demanding Equal Access and Representation in Hollywood) initiative....
Organizing artists, activists and entertainment leaders to use the power of storytelling to imagine and co-create a more equitable and just world. ...
Open Television is a non-profit platform for intersectional television. ...
Developing and sharing narrative-focused rapid response digital content....
Creating a hub for Latinx creatives in the entertainment industry....
Bringing together artists, entertainers, influencers, advocates, activists, and funders to develop an aspirational vision for a just and abundant future....
Supporting Middle Eastern artists to develop narratives and produce pop culture projects....
Supporting the release of author and artist Paola Mendoza's new Young Adult book SOLIS, the sequel to the best-seller Sanctuary....
Developing a research and analysis program that integrates audience insights and trend forecasting into social justice work....
Organizing content creators and cultural strategists to work togethr as in developing entertainment projects that defy stereotypical Muslim tropes. ...
Producing educational tools, training courses, artwork, films, music, and mass mobilizations that center the voices of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities....
Developing a creative village ecosystem for the Starfish Fellows Cohort....
Advancing authentic, accurate, and equitable narratives in television and film....
Empowering underrepresented television writers to transform the industry into one in which all writers and all stories can thrive....
Creating a new understanding of immigrant justice as racial justice, anchored in love, pride, abundance and collective care....
Through the power of nonfiction storytelling and narrative change, centering the humanity of trans people in the national, social, and cultural landscape....
Launching the Find Your People Program, a new pipeline initiative that will organize communities of BIPOC artists and crew members inside the entertainment industry....
Identifying the global distribution pipelines that are implicated in the spread of disinformation....
Accelerating the power of immigrant, refugee, disabled, and/or trans emerging television writers through the Artists Disruptors Fellowship Program....
Exploring the relationship people in the United States have to our nation’s history....
After the early leak of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn fifty years of legal precedent around abortion access, the Pop Culture Collaborative, with support from an anonymous donor, activated our Becoming America Fund’s narrative-focused, rapid response grantmaking capacity. The Collaborative is honored to support the critical...
From Hollywood artists to social justice organizers, the Pop Culture Collaborative is supporting more than three dozen pop culture for social change grantees working to ignite public imagination about our pluralist future. ...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021A 2021-2022 Harvard Religion + Public Life Fellow in Media + Entertainment, Dr. Maytha Alhassen is a historian, TV writer + producer, journalist, arts-based social justice organizer, and mending practitioner. She has worked as an on-air host for Al Jazeera English and The Young...
PLURALIST VISIONARIES Cristina Jiménez is the Co-Founder and former Executive Director of United We Dream (UWD), the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. She was instrumental in United We Dream’s successful campaign for President Obama to sign Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) into law....
PLURALIST VISIONARIES Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee) is the Founder and Executive Director of IllumiNative, a national Native-led organization focused on changing the narrative about Native peoples on a mass scale. She built IllumiNative to activate a cohesive set of research-informed strategies that illuminate the voices, stories,...
PLURALIST VISIONARIES LaTosha Brown is the Co-Founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, BVM Capacity Building Institute and founder of the Southern Black Girls & Women's Consortium. These initiatives are designed to boost Black voter registration and turnout, as well as increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black...
PLURALIST VISIONARIES George Goehl is the Director of People’s Action, where he led the most robust, race conscious rural organizing and persuasion program in the United States. No other organizer has put more into making the case that progressives need a strategy that includes low-income white...
We are thrilled to announce that the Pop Culture Collaborative has joined forces with the CAA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the talent and sports group Creative Artists Agency, to launch Evolutionaries, a first-of-its-kind program to advance the vision and voice of pluralist visionaries. Through this partnership,...
Everyday, the Pop Culture Collaborative team works with our partners to move closer to our North Star: a robust, well-resourced pop culture for social change field that has the resources they need to unleash abundant thinking, inspire deeper bonds across our differences, and spark deep...
Center for working families THE ABUNDANCE MINDSET: MORE IS MORE During the two-week congressional recess (March 29-April 9), the Center for Working Families launched Recovery Recess, organizing artists and TikTok micro-influencers to elevate narratives and build public urgency for the Thrive Agenda, a blueprint for the future...
Amber Abundance The Abundance Mindset: More is More On Saturday, May 29, storyteller, organizer, and filmmaker Amber J. Phillips released a short film, Abundance, exploring what it means to exist in this world as a Black, fat, queer person. Broken into three parts—“Fat,” “Angry,” and “Queer,”—Abundance digs...
Walking Iris mediaTHE UPSTANDERS MINDSET: THE TIME TO STEP INTO THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IS NOWThe May 19th AAPI Solidarity campaign, produced by Jeff Chang and Renee Tajima-Pena, in association with the Asian American Foundation, For Freedoms, A-Doc, and the UCLA Asian American Studies program,...
Accelerating the power of immigrant, refugee, disabled, and/or trans emerging television writers through the Artists Disruptors Fellowship Program...
Organizing an expanding community of entertainment and BIPOC gender justice leaders to support new collaborations and narrative change opportunities...
Working to activate an intra-fandom network-weaving project in partnership with Black Girls Create ...
Building the tools, strategy, and technology for the next stage of human existence ...
Hosting an inaugural Music in Cinema Fellow to design programs that support bringing a diversity of musicians into the cinematic space...
Creating talent pipelines, learning and skill-building programs, and access to employment for Native film and television artists...
Advancing long-term pop culture narrative change strategy to develop a new understanding of immigrant justice as racial justice, anchored in love, pride, abundance and collective care...
Amplifying Native voices, stories and issues using research, narrative and culture change strategies, movement-building and organizing...
Empowering underrepresented television writers to transform the industry into one in which all writers and all stories can thrive...
Developing a network of Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) leaders from within media, brands, and entertainment...
Launching a second cohort of six mid-career BIPOC artists to develop, produce and disseminate their own creative IP...
Exploring how to seed new narratives on social justice issues within digital-based cultural communities...
Advancing long-term pop culture narrative change strategies that reshape dominant narratives and shift cultural norms for Black communities...
We're pleased to share that Pop Culture Collaborative was featured in the June 2021 issue of Inside Philanthropy: Some of the most enduring stories we tell each other on screen and on the page aren’t just entertainment. They’re empathy-generating machines. Late 1970s miniseries sensation “Roots” didn’t...
Acorn Center for Restoration and freedomThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreBLKTrans*+ Whole is an IGTV gathering place for storytelling and practice featuring Black Trans* healing, arts and spiritual justice practitioners.Too often “single storied” (a term created by Chimamanda Adichie) BLKTrans* aim to present the lives...
harness, the league, Illuminative & center for Cultural PowerThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreCulture Surge is a broad coalition of change makers working together in this vital moment for the survival of historically marginalized communities, American democracy, and a vision of a shared future. Co-founded...
Frontline Election DefendersThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreIn this special early voting and election day action, the Frontline Election Defenders (Working Families Party and Movement 4 Black Lives) created Joy to the Polls. In partnership with Live Nation, they organized artists, DJs and musicians (including...
Revolutionary Love Project, The Soze Foundation, AmpliferThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreThe People’s Inauguration was a virtual experience to celebrate what is possible for our country; taking place on January 21, 2021, the day after the Presidential inauguration. Created by Valarie Kaur of the The Revolutionary...
People's ActionThe Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the Answer"To See Each Other" is a documentary podcast series, launched in September 2020, that complicates the narrative about rural Americans in our most misunderstood communities. Executive Director of People's Action, host George Goehl travels to Michigan, Iowa,...
Starfish ACCELERATOR The Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the Answer Starfish Accelerator incubated "God Bless the Promise Land" (GBPL), an immersive experience that explores the ideas of black woman martyrdom, "Rest as Resistance" (as coined and researched by The Nap Ministry) and vulnerability. GBPL is part of...
She Se PuedeThe Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the AnswerFrom October 19-23, 2020, She Se Puede—a coalition of prominent Latina activists that includes Carmen Perez, Mónica Ramírez, and Stephanie Valencia, in partnership with artists such as America Ferrera and Eva Longoria—held "The Latinas Make A...
Starfish AcceleratorThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowStarfish Accelerator incubated "Laying Flowers.:.Setting Fires", a short film by poet Amir Sulaiman and produced in collaboration with Michael Fernandez (Black Is King and The Burial of Kojo), is a poem, a...
Define AmericanThe Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the AnswerTo combat the most common misconceptions about immigration spread by the far right on YouTube, Define American teamed up with four influencers to create a series of explainer videos focused on four different major narratives, with the...
A2 Productions The Abundance Mindset: More is More Ultra Naté, chart topping Dance/EDM artist joins Angelica Ross (American Horror Story, Pose, Chicago on Broadway), and Mila Jam (Rent) to deliver a stunning vocal performance on the A2 Productions (Anthony Preston/Andre Lindal) written and produced dance/pop track “Fierce.”...
aMplifierThe Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the AnswerAmplifier, the design lab behind the "We The People" campaign that circled the globe during the 2017 Women's March, released AMPLIFIER AR, an activist-driven augmented reality platform that is now available for free download worldwide. The Amplifier AR...
Guild of Future ArchitectsThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is Now"Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler" is an interactive WebXR experience created by five groundbreaking Black artists: Stephanie Dinkins, Yance Ford, Terence Nance, Sophia Nahli Allison, and Idris Brewster....
Sozo ImpactThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowInspired by Black equestrian activist and owner of Mulatto Meadows, Brianna Noble, whose iconic image went viral after she rode her horse through the streets of Oakland during the 2020 Black...
Into ActionThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowInto Action created and distributed GIFs throughout the 2020 campaign that cultivated people's instincts to "Cry No" against injustice, engaging with multiple organizations to distribute pieces of content that covered a...
ARRAYThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowThe ARRAY Law Enforcement Accountability Project (ARRAY LEAP) developed by writer, director, and producer Ava DuVernay and founded by Array Alliance, is a propulsive fund dedicated to empowering activists as they pursue...
Moore & AssociatesThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreThe Essential Campaign micro-videos are aimed at contributing to a more expansive and imaginative concept of “belonging” in America, while shifting from the margins to the mainstream policies that address injustices faced by essential workers. Each short, executive...
IlluminativeThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowAmericans are engaging in a conversation about systemic racism and are pushing themselves to reimagine an America rooted in true equity. This unprecedented opportunity allowed IllumiNative to partner with a larger coalition...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021Alicia Garza is an innovator, strategist, and organizer. She is the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, founder and principal of the Black Futures Lab, the Strategy & Partnerships Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the co-founder of...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021As a transgender rights activist, artist, community organizer, speaker, and writer, Elle Moxley is best-known for her work as a co-founding member of the Black Lives Matter Network and organizer of the first-ever National Day of Action for Black Trans Women, in 2015. Elle...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021Imara Jones is an award-winning content creator and journalist with nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of media, journalism, and social change. She has been featured regularly in a number of leading news outlets such as The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, CNBC,...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021Paola Mendoza is a film director, activist, author, and artist. She is a co-founder of The Women’s March and served as its Artistic Director. She was a leading participant in the New York Times best-seller Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021Zahra Noorbakhsh is a feminist Muslim, Iranian-American comedian, writer, and podcaster. Her podcast #GoodMuslimBadMuslim was deemed a “must listen” by O, The Oprah Magazine, and her writing has been featured in The New York Times and on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Her...
Pluralist Visionaries2020-2021Eric K. Ward is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy. In his 30+-year civil rights career, he has worked with community groups, government and business leaders, human rights advocates, and philanthropy as an organizer,...
Offsides ProductionsThe Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is NowThis digital comedy short, conceived by Craig Robinson (The Office) and Adam Mansbach (Go the F*ck to Sleep), announces a new emergency number, just for white people, because they can't be...
The Soze FoundationThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreThe three-day Becoming America Festival virtual experience was created to inspire and engage young people to vote. Inspired by the joy and community of music festivals, the impact of thought conferences, the passion of social movements, and the...
Center for Media & Social Impact, American UniversityThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreComedy, when developed properly, can aid and accelerate social justice. Using the Comedy Think Tank model developed and activated in partnership with groups such as Color Of Change, IllumiNative, Define American, Caring Across...
Center for Cultural PowerThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreThe Center for Cultural Power’s Movement to the Ballot Box art series harnessed the power of artists to inspire new ideas and make the future we want feel possible, tangible, and inevitable. For 10 weeks leading up...
Pen AmericaThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreIn the Fall of 2020, PEN America commissioned various writers to speak directly to voters around the country in advance of the November election. Published in The Guardian and as an audio essay on WYNC, journalist Jean Guerrero penned,...
13ExpThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreNationX is an immersive storyworld project centered on a fictional society established in 1325, when a fleet of African traders sailing across the Atlantic goes off course. This storyworld features brujxs, a fast food worker underground, and nomadic DJ's who...
Open Television is a non-profit platform for intersectional television. ...
Supporting a new community of entertainment and BIPOC gender justice leaders to support new collaborations and narrative change opportunities....
Empowering underrepresented television writers to transform the industry into one in which all writers and all stories can thrive....
Launching the Creative Change Innovation Fellowship for leading-edge storytellers to develop culture change projects....
Developing the series Damaged Goods to further discussion about the representation of black sex and intimacy on TV....
Activating entertainment industry leaders and influencers in support of Hollywood 4 Black Lives campaign....
Accelerating the work of Black creatives to become social entrepreneurs for narrative and community impact....
Encouraging diverse, authentic, and accurate portrayals of people with disabilities in entertainment....
Implementing a long-term, high-impact pop culture narrative change strategy to support domestic workers....
Creating bold, cinematic content that sparks the radical imagination for social change....
Lifting up diverse comedy writers and performers through a competitive incubation lab and pitch program....
2020 laid America bare. With the most consequential election of our lifetimes, the raging COVID-19 pandemic, and protests around the nation in support of Black lives, the events of the past year exposed a tug-of-war between pluralist belonging and nationalist exclusion—a conflict that has raged...
When Emmy- and Peabody-winning journalist Imara Jones called for a “reimagination and an expansion of Blackness” in Time Magazine’s recent issue featuring voices of the “New American Revolution,” she did so with the goal of shifting the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in...
It was a Saturday in November at an early voting location in Southwest Philadelphia when the singing began. A group of singers wearing all white performed on top of a flatbed truck decorated with flowers and streamers, with “JOY” painted in rainbow letters on the...
Break the RoomThe Seekers Mindset: Embracing Difference Is the AnswerThe Becoming America Anthology series is a digital short anthology series comprised of three stories from three different writers rooms located across the country (Los Angeles, Chicago, and Durham, NC) that explore the humanity of life...
Global CitizenThe Abundance Mindset: More is MoreGlobal Citizen, in partnership with producing partner Harness, developed the nationwide television and digital broadcast special "Every Vote Counts—A Celebration of Democracy," which aired on CBS and on a range of streaming platforms on October 29, 2020. The special...