DARK MONEY, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and which The Nation named “the most valuable documentary” on its Progressive Honor Roll, examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials.
The film takes viewers to Montana — a frontline in the fight to preserve fair elections nationwide — to follow an intrepid local journalist working to expose the real-life impacts of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
In the process of developing DARK MONEY’s impact campaign strategy, it quickly became apparent that there was overwhelming public concern for the issue of money in politics that was matched with a correspondingly overwhelming sense of pessimism that anything could be done about it.
We recognized this as an opportunity to educate audiences about the wide range of policy and practice changes that could be undertaken and were, in fact, being actively pursued by an influential, relatively well-resourced, and bipartisan group of people and organizations, ranging from enforcement and safeguarding of existing disclosure laws to a Constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wanted to pursue a new area of funding in which they did not have a great deal of experience. So, before releasing a Call for Proposals (CFP), Aggregate identified and engaged influencers who could help them reach new communities to inform their funding strategy and build trust for the foundation among those working in the field. Throughout the process, we served as the program officer’s coach, helping her build her online network and to share timely and transparent updates. The process contributed to establishing the program officer as a credible thought leader and led to new relationships and opportunities well before the CFP was released. When it was released, the CFP generated a level of interest unprecedented by past CFPs issued by the foundation.
