Mel Chen's Give OUT Day Fundraiser for QWOCMAP
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project - QWOCMAPI’m helping QWOCMAP on Give OUT Day and matching the first $1200 donated!
$2,900
raised by 26 people
$3,000 goal
Goal met! Thank you SO much!
I have news! With a boost from more anonymous donors and Vivian, Abigail, and Maxe, we have met the $1200 match amount today. Once I contribute my match, which I am doing now, donations will have met my individual goal of $2400. I'll be honest, this virtual storm of generosity took me by surprise. My dear colleagues on the board advise me to ride the energy and raise the individual goal for further outreach, which I will also do. With so, so many thanks, and gratitude that can't easily be put into words to all of you who have gotten this campaign off to a roaring start!
I’m a new member of the Board of Directors for QWOCMAP (Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project), and part of a team raising $25,000 for for Give Out Day. In these difficult times, I am spending my money and time on many things that feel important to sustain and grow. Because I've seen what QWOCMAP can do, I will be matching the first $1200 donated in the month of June. Please join me in supporting this one of a kind community arts program!
I've known and loved this organization since 2000. Their Filmmaker Training Program has provided free professional workshops, mentoring, equipment and resources for queer and trans women of color filmmakers and nonbinary filmmakers to create more than 450 films over its 20 years - making the largest archive of films by queer folks of color in the world. And QWOCMAP has grown a much larger community of 500 people nourishing queer of color arts in the Bay Area and beyond. This year, in a major recognition of its work, the Wallace Foundation has chosen QWOCMAP as one of 18 community-focused arts organizations of color to be funded in a 5-year national initiative.
In 2000, when I joined QWOCMAP's screenwriting workshop in the Mission, I was a youngish queer in the Bay Area who was opening to the radical potential of queer arts and queer of color spaces. What I learned then and in later filmmaking workshops has indelibly shaped how I understand community as a place for radical praxis and life sustaining collaboration. In 2006, QWOCMAP provided me with resources and collaborators to make a film called "Local Grown Corn," connecting migration, food, labor, illness, and friendship in Central Illinois. I had wanted to tell stories about the Asian American Midwest, showing migration and belonging in ways that register the body itself. No other single experience has greater influenced how I think about the relationship between imagination and social justice, or provided lifelong friends with whom I conjure thriving, just futures.
QWOCMAP's Critical Juncture program takes the filmmaking training work even further by ensuring access to production camera packages, post-production laptop packages, artist fees, and advanced training and industry mentorship. The Ford Foundation “Beyond Inclusion” report noted that the filmmakers that QWOCMAP serves are forced out of filmmaking because of a lack of resources and support. This is important because our films play a big role in shifting culture over the long term toward justice.
I invite you to take advantage of my $1200 match! Donating through this page during June 1-30 will count towards my $2,400 individual goal for Give OUT Day. Overall, QWOCMAP needs 1,000 individual donors to contribute $25 or more to meet our $25,000 goal. After 1,000 donors, QWOCMAP becomes eligible for additional Give Out cash prizes.
Your gift will genuinely help sustain and build QWOCMAP, a shining local example of lasting change by queer women of color and nonbinary people of color. THANK YOU!