The Ford Foundation commissioned Informing Change—in collaboration with Active Voice Lab—to conduct an evaluation covering five years of the JustFilms initiative (2017–2021) that seeks to take stock of JustFilms’ strategy over that time. During 2017–2021, JustFilms awarded $27.3 million to 187 films through 223 content grants, including six grants through fiscal sponsors. This Executive Summary presents a high-level overview of this evaluation.

The evaluation is intended to strengthen and refine JustFilms’ theory of how change happens. We explore progress toward outcomes, unpack Ford’s contributions, and test assumptions undergirding the theory of how change happens. Ultimately, this evaluation aims to inform the next five-year cycle of strategic grantmaking and generate lessons learned that can support the documentary field and its funders.

There are two areas of inquiry:

1. What the Ford Foundation and JustFilms expected in terms of how change happens; and
2. How funding, program team support, and grantees’ work contributed to outcomes.

Further reading on this evaluation can be found on the Ford Foundation’s website, while the full Executive Summary can be viewed directly here.

About JustFilms

Since 2015, the Ford Foundation‘s Creativity and Free Expression (CFE) program has invested in creative organizations and storytellers shaping a more inclusive, just world across three areas of focus—arts and culture, journalism, and documentary filmmaking through its JustFilms initiative.

Originally developed in 2011, JustFilms was designed as a five-year, $50 million effort focused on social issue films that primarily funded just a few large and established institutions. Since then, JustFilms has grown to become one of the largest social justice documentary funders in the United States and now funds a wide range of filmmakers, leaders, and field building organizations within the US and globally, creating networks and opportunities for underrepresented filmmakers and other key voices in the field, including critics and curators.