New Film: Dream Job
The short film that helped a non-profit raise over $600,000
For nearly eight years, I’ve worked with Delivering Dreams creating films for their annual fundraising gala. Every year the goal was essentially the same: help people understand the organization’s impact and inspire them to give.
And for years, that usually meant interviews.
Someone sits down and tells you their story. We explain what the organization does. We connect the dots. We build toward a moment of emotion and end with an ask.
There’s nothing wrong with that format. In fact, it works. But after enough years, I started feeling something I couldn’t quite articulate at first.
We were getting better at explaining the mission but I wasn’t sure we were getting better at helping people feel it. That thought sat with me for a while.
As filmmakers, we spend so much time thinking about communication. Is the message clear? Does the audience understand what’s happening? Are we giving enough context?
But some of the films that stay with me the longest don’t explain very much at all. They create a feeling and trust me to meet them there. When we started talking with Delivering Dreams about this year’s gala film, I kept coming back to that idea. What would happen if we stopped trying to describe the impact and instead tried to recreate the feeling of receiving it?
That question eventually became Dream Job.
The film premiered at their gala earlier this year and Delivering Dreams raised over $600,000, the most money in the history of the organization. I don’t think one film creates outcomes like that by itself. Years of trust, volunteers, staff, and real work make moments like that possible.
But I do think stories can change the way people connect to that work.
Check out Dream Job below and let me know if you think we hit the mark!
Book recommendation: Still the Mind by Alan Watts