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Apply for Sponsorship

If you're interested in applying for fiscal sponsorship, you should submit the following:

All materials should be mailed to:
The Southern Documentary Fund
762 Ninth St. #574
Durham, NC 27705

The deadline for submitting new projects comes once per quarter: January 15, April 15, July 15, and October 15. Materials must be received by 5pm on the deadline date. Late submissions will not be considered.

After your application materials are submitted, a rotating four-person Project Review committee, consisting of two SDF board members and two documentary artists, will meet to consider the project. The committee will then consider whether to recommend the project to the Board of Directors, which will make final decisions. If approved, the Project Director will sign the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement.

If accepted, SDF applies a 5% administrative fee to all funds received for the project. A 7% fee will be assessed to certain projects whose funding comes from grant sources that require additional reporting from SDF.

Project Selection Criteria

Acceptance of your application is largely based on the following criteria:

Proposal Recommendations

Your proposal must give both a description and work plan for the project. Generally, proposals are between 8-10 pages, including the budget (but not including the resumes key personnel). We recommend the following format in anticipation of the requirements of potential funders:

We suggest a three-column format with the total budget, in-kind, and amount needed. The budget may be arranged either chronologically (pre-production, production, and post-production, and, if appropriate, distribution) or by key areas of expense (e.g. salaries, fees, supplies, equipment rentals, travel, services, office, etc.). In either case, the budget breakdown should include unit pricing, as well as grand totals. It should list expenditures already made on the project and itemize in-kind contributions, whether previously made or anticipated. In most cases, the budget should be no more than 4 pages.

Work Sample

Your application should include a Work Sample ( DVD, printed or digital photographs, text, audio, interactive media, writing, or film), with a 1-2 paragraph explanation of the selection. Indicate when the work was made and the role of the applicant in what is presented. Sorry, but materials cannot be returned, unless you include a self-addressed stamped envelope large enough to accommodate your work. Please DO NOT send original art work. Please limit work sample submissions to 2!

Optional Materials

We strongly encourage you to consider submitting optional materials such as letters of support for your project, personal references (name, relationship to you, and phone number), and especially a sample tape. If you do not have a sample tape of the project for which you are applying, please send a sample of your previous work. If this is your first project of any kind, we will consider a sample tape from members of your principal production team (a director, co-producer, writer, cinematographer, or editor, for example). We also urge you to investigate the video production course offerings at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

SDF reserves the right to request any or all of these additional materials from the applicant.