Blog

A Warm Welcome to our New Board Members

Posted by : Dakota Straub
01.28.16

We are thrilled to welcome four new board members into the Kindling Group family. With professional expertise that ranges from law to finance to marketing and advertising, and bringing with them such passions as wildlife conservation, dance, the arts, and social justice, we are excited about all of the ways that their experience and skills will help Kindling continue to grow.

Without further ado, allow us to introduce:

Josie Davis 

The KG Year in Review

Posted by : Dakota Straub
12.30.15

It’s been a year of growth at Kindling! As we’ve brought new KGers on board, we’ve also had the chance to hear — and share — the stories of many people, from activist nuns to students in Chicago Public Schools, working to make positive change in the world. Here’s the rundown of what 2015 had in store for Kindling:

A Season for Healing

Posted by : Dakota Straub
12.23.15

Whether you’re celebrating a religious holiday this month or not, this is a good season for reflecting on where the year has brought us and what we will do next. This past year has often been disturbing and scary to watch unfold, with attacks in Paris, a refugee crisis, and acts of violence Americans have perpetrated against each other, not least in our hometown of Chicago. We’ve found ourselves asking how, amid divisiveness and violence, we can remain connected, active, and hopeful.

Farewell to Our Fall 2015 Interns

Posted by : Dakota Straub
12.18.15

This week, we said farewell to our fantastic cohort of Fall 2015 interns. Nikki King, Sam Simcox, Megan Heinowski, and Avery LaFlamme became key members of the KG family in just a short time. To celebrate all they have done this semester, we gathered together for a showcase of their work to learn more about what they do in their creative lives. From fiction films to documentary shorts, it was great for us to get some insight into the vision of a new generation of up and coming filmmakers. 

Taking a Project's Pulse

Posted by : Dakota Straub
12.11.15

Last week, the entire Kindling team gathered for a two-day kick-off session for a new project we’re working on. (Stay tuned for details…) A major goal for the meetings was to lay the groundwork for the project’s impact campaign. Here are a few questions we asked at the outset:

What are our impact goals?
Who do we want to reach? 
Who can we partner with? 
How will we measure change? 

Inspired by COP21

Posted by : Dakota Straub
12.05.15

It takes all of about five minutes as a doc filmmaker to learn that you need a good elevator speech. But it can be hard to distill your doc into a few sentences after you’ve dived so deeply into your subject. Besides, sometimes projects are just plain hard to pitch.

Impact Report: Radical Grace Sparks Conversations about Faith, Feminism, and Social Justice

Posted by : Dakota Straub
11.19.15

This November, our film Radical Grace had its first theatrical run at The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. What a feeling to see Radical Grace in one place for a week — and in our hometown nonetheless! We’re really proud of the film, not only because Director Rebecca Parrish has produced an amazing story and a well-crafted doc, but because of the work that it’s doing in the world.

How moving beyond traditional storytelling can help engage audiences

Posted by : Dakota Straub
11.11.15

The NY Times Research & Development Lab suggests that — while the news article isn't exactly dead — we need to be going beyond traditional modes of storytelling to adapt to our audiences’ needs. For a while, multimedia, multi-platform storytelling became the way to do this, but the folks at NYTimes R&D are calling on news organizations to think beyond just the form our stories take to consider how their platforms accumulate knowledge over time:

Watch: Radical Grace at Chicago International Film Festival

Posted by : Dakota Straub
11.05.15

Our fantastic interns Nikki and Avery attended the October screening of Radical Grace at the Chicago International Film Festival and had the opportunity to talk with audience members to find out what brought them out to see Radical Grace. They put together a video of the evening, and it was inspiring for all of us to see the footage of Director Rebecca Parish discussing the film and people continuing to talk, brainstorm, and laugh together afterwards. To us at Kindling Group, this is what grassroots engagement looks like.