Gerry Leonard

Docs in Action Fund

Gerry Leonard directs Working Films Docs In Action and Impact Kickstart funds. Working Films is an organization that leverages the power of documentary film and storytelling as a resource for social justice movements. He is from Jakarta, Indonesia and is based in Brooklyn, New York. Gerry brings into the field of narrative shift a background in community organizing, blending his experience in grassroots movement building and policy advocacy towards collective action and liberation. Before joining the Working Films team, Gerry worked on issues of food justice, voting rights, and police accountability. His leadership on a number of coalitions and boards have led to policies to reduce racial profiling within the carceral system and collaborative funding opportunities for equitable and just community leadership.

Participating Sessions

FUNDING SHIFT

The reckonings over race, power and the role of media are forcing a reevaluation among funders across the country. Not only are foundations beginning to ask new questions of their applicants, but they are interrogating their own grant-making, with some even changing their grant review and selection process to cede their own agency and power and to render their decisions more transparent. The shift includes new application questions designed to...