On May 6, the Women’s Steering Committee meeting featured the panel discussion, The Art of Fundraising. During a conversation moderated by Director Kestrin Pantera, Producer Valerie Steinberg and Seed&Spark Founder and CEO Emily Best focused on strategies for packaging projects for investors, offering concrete examples of how to make “the ask,” and sharing tips for maintaining investor relationships for long-term success.
Pantera opened the discussion by outlining her approach to seeking funding. She introduced “The Four Vulnerabilities” in fundraising and their actionable antidotes, providing practical exercises, strategies, and language for understanding investor motivations and how to align them with a project’s goals. She also shared real emails and text messages that successfully secured financing.
Best spoke about her crowdfunding platform Seed&Spark’s mission to make entertainment more diverse, inclusive, connected, and essential. She outlined questions every pitch must answer and emphasized the importance of clarity before entering any financing conversation. She directed the attendees to The Distribution Playbook, a free online resource available to all creators.
Steinberg discussed her experience financing her films, breaking down the three technical aspects of film finance: private equity, soft money, and foreign pre-sales and provided a detailed explanation of how each component works and how they can be used in tandem. She also demystified deal structures such as negative pickups and backstop deals and offered strategies for connecting with executive producers and financiers at film festivals as well as practical steps to prepare for successful fundraising at such events.
ABOUT THE COMMITTEE:
The Women's Steering Committee (WSC) was created to advance the professional interests of its members, and to heighten their visibility and career opportunities in the entertainment industry. The WSC currently promotes diversity through sponsoring net-working events, screenings and seminars, and fosters relationships between the members to provide support, mentoring and networking opportunities.
