Find out what's happening with the Moonshot Film Challenge in Los Angeles and Moonshot Initiative's recent fundraiser
At the beginning of 2024, we announced that we were hoping to bring our signature film challenge to Los Angeles this October — the first time this program would be on the West Coast since 2020. Due to the industry downturn, we needed to fundraise last month with the aims of bringing back the film challenge and keeping Moonshot Initiative running. Below is an update on the fundraiser and the film challenge:
Your support means the world to us
Last month, we held a fundraiser, with the goal of keeping Moonshot Initiative afloat during the industry downturn and hopefully bringing our signature film challenge.
We were so touched by the outpouring of support from our community — past participants, volunteers, friends, board members, and even family members of our filmmakers. We loved seeing familiar names pop up on our donor list, and we received so many kind notes about how impactful Moonshot Initiative has been in your lives.
In all, we were able to raise $7,734 from a total of 95 donors!
Several donors even committed to monthly giving, which is hugely impactful since it gives our nonprofit an income source we can count on throughout the year. Plus, it’s a way for us to give our supporters access to a library of past virtual workshop recordings, so it’s learning and giving all rolled up in one.
The official fundraiser may be over, but it’s not too late to give. We’re a grassroots nonprofit, and your support is crucial year-round — especially this year, as the industry has slowed down and many of our funding sources have slowed down, too.
Moonshot Initiative is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and your donations are tax-deductible.
An update on the Los Angeles film challenge
Now for the bad news. We had planned to host a film challenge in Los Angeles this fall, but unfortunately, we didn’t raise enough money to do so. We haven’t held a film challenge in LA since 2020, and we were so excited to bring the program back to the West Coast. We wish we could have made it happen this year, but we’re committed to getting back to Los Angeles in the future!
It’s important to us to be transparent about what’s going on behind the scenes at Moonshot Initiative, so we’d like to share a little more about what it takes to bring back the film challenge. In this Instagram reel, we talk you through a detailed breakdown of the LA film challenge budget.
The Sparknotes version is that it takes about $98,500 to host a film challenge. This budget includes the challenge weekend itself, a pre-production meeting for 200 filmmakers, a screening for 400 attendees, a film festival submission workshop, assessing over 600 applications, marketing, travel for our team, and more. This number does not include the general operating costs for Moonshot Initiative for the six or more months it takes to plan the challenge and bring it to life.
We had hoped to raise $20,000 from our fundraiser and to raise an additional $40,000 from grants and sponsorships, and to get $40,000 worth of rental equipment donated by sponsors. While we’re confident that we would have been able to get most of the in-kind equipment donations, we fell short on our fundraiser. Additionally, it’s been an incredibly difficult time for monetary sponsorships, as DEI initiatives have become less of a priority, and as many potential industry sponsors are recovering from the strike. The good news on the grant front is that we’re eligible for a wider range of grants now that we’re an official nonprofit, and while the grant world moves slowly, we’re hoping to bring in more grant funding in 2025.
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