Acra, NY—Wave Farm announced today eighteen grantees for the Spring 2025 round of the Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) for Organizations, a regrant program with the New York State Council on the Arts. MAAF for Organizations grantees are: Adirondack Film, American Documentary, Buffalo International Film Festival, Chicken & Egg Films, CultureHub, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Firelight Media, HUDSY, Institute for Electronic Arts (IEA), Jacob Burns Film Center, Maysles Documentary Center, Millennium Film Workshop, Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center, Third World Newsreel, Upstate Films, Women Make Movies, and Woodstock Film Festival.

The Media Arts Assistance Fund supports electronic media and film organizations, as well as individual artists, in all regions of New York State. For organizations, MAAF provides funds to support technical strategies for online development as well as to hire outside consultants to support organizational and professional development. MAAF prioritizes organizations that have missions specific to the media arts or dedicate the majority of their programming to technology as an art form. Multi-disciplinary organizations are considered on a case-by-case basis. All applicants must be current NYSCA grantees. Organizations are eligible to receive a maximum of $2,500 for each application opportunity. The biannual application deadlines are May 1 and October 1.

SPRING 2025 GRANTEES AND PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS
Adirondack Film (Essex County) - Strategic Planning and Fundraising Consulting
Adirondack Film will use MAAF funding to work with consultants in order to build and implement a new CRM database, expanding the capacity of the organization to modernize and professionalize fundraising strategies. Adirondack Film strives to build upon donor relationships, attain multi-year gifts, and diversify their fundraising portfolio in order to make a greater impact on the lives of their remote Adirondack community through the media arts.

American Documentary (Kings County) - Website Enhancement and Digital Strategy Consulting
American Documentary will use MAAF funding to complete a comprehensive redesign of its website. This design will modernize the website’s interface, enhance the user experience, and provide the AmDoc team with greater functionality and autonomy in managing content. This new design will improve communication and marketing of AmDoc’s mission, films, and impact initiatives to the public, showcase AmDoc’s 38-year legacy by highlighting archival footage and making it available to the public, and strengthen fundraising efforts.

Buffalo International Film Festival (Erie County) - Fundraising and Development Consulting
Buffalo International Film Festival will use MAAF funding to support organizational development through the engagement of an experienced fundraising and development consultant who will help assess and analyze BIFF’s budget, needs, and funding ecosystems in order to create a three-year Fundraising and Development Plan. The plan will improve and increase organization-wide fundraising efforts to help to strengthen BIFF's infrastructure and expand the impact of its mission-driven programming, improve efficiency, and deepen engagement with and support for the communities that BIFF serves.

Chicken & Egg Films (Kings County) - Organizational Development Consulting
Chicken & Egg Films will use MAAF funding to support the development of their first Theory of Change (TOC), a strategic internal project aimed at both deepening the equity vision for the organization and providing alignment and clarity for program staff. Chicken & Egg Films will hire a consultant to collaboratively refine the TOC draft with program staff and board members, in order to align Chicken & Egg’s organizational strategy to ensure an elevation of underrepresented voices in documentary filmmaking with intentionality and integrity.

CultureHub (New York) - Technical Strategies for Online Development
CultureHub will use MAAF funding to support the redesign of their website, including a transition from Squarespace to an open-source Content Management System (CMS). The project’s aim is to better communicate the organization’s mission and strengths to their audience, by using a platform with more design flexibility. CultureHub’s goal is to ensure that their 10+ year digital archive of past projects (including text, photos, and video) remains affordable to maintain in the long term. This project will also enable more creative, browser-based work on the site, integrating with their live streaming platform.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) (New York) - Strategy and Fundraising Consulting
Electronic Arts Intermix will use MAAF funding to support long-term strategy and fundraising efforts as they further develop the institutional reach and technological capabilities of their Educational Streaming Service (ESS), a pioneering digital resource for students and library users in the United States and worldwide that provides direct streaming access to EAI’s collection initially launched in 2013. Along with new UX and infrastructural developments, this plan includes a pilot project with the City University of New York (CUNY) educational system.

Firelight Media (New York) - Online Strategy and Engagement Consulting
Firelight Media will use MAAF funding to support a strategic initiative to strengthen digital infrastructure and audience engagement systems. As a leading nonprofit supporting nonfiction filmmakers of color, Firelight Media has experienced significant growth in recent years, expanding a suite of programs and community of artists. This project is an investment in expert-led technical development to keep pace with this growth—and to ensure that their online platforms serve both the organization’s mission and audiences effectively.

HUDSY (Ulster County) - Organizational Development and Cultural Sensitivity Training
HUDSY Community Project Inc will use MAAF funding to work with consultants to build organizational capacity to strengthen core competencies, support an environment that holds a diverse team of employees, and boost team cohesion, focusing on a comprehensive cultural sensitivity training for staff.

Institute for Electronic Arts (IEA) (Allegany County) - Experimental Media Arts Guidance & Future Planning, in partnership with Signal Culture
Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University will use MAAF funding to engage Signal Culture, an organization dedicated to experimental media, tool-building, and artist support structures. The consultation will contribute to organizational and professional development, training for staff, and guidance for the curation, collection, and physical layout of new media technology.

Jacob Burns Film Center (Westchester County) - Strategic Brand Identity Development
Jacob Burns Film Center will use MAAF funding to support a brand identity development initiative. As JBFC approaches its 25th anniversary, this project aims to more closely align the organization’s public image with the goals and values of their strategic plan.

Maysles Documentary Center (New York County) - Marketing and Design Development Consulting
Maysles Documentary Center will use MAAF funding to support Phase One of a development plan to improve marketing materials, branding, and overall public presentation. The consultant will help ensure consistency across the organization’s multiple platforms.

Millennium Film Workshop (Kings County) - Development of a Monthly Experimental A/V Performance Series
Millennium Film Workshop will use MAAF funding to support technical development in support of web and live streaming infrastructure and towards establishing a subscription with restream.io, which will expand their distribution network for live streamed programs.

Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center (Suffolk County) - Maintenance and Revisions of New Website Development
Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center will use MAAF funding to support a new phase of development for its website, to improve functionality, accessibility, and user experience, as well as communication and promotion of the organization’s special film programs and fundraising events.

Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (Erie County) - Technical Strategies for Online Development
Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center will use MAAF funding to hire a consultant who will propose options and plans for a new website for Squeaky Wheel based on research and interviews with staff and stakeholders. This process will help the organization move forward with a redevelopment of their website, improving functionality and expanding capacity for Squeaky Wheel’s wide range of programs.

Third World Newsreel (New York County) - Consultant for Organizational Development
Third World Newsreel will use MAAF funding to support organizational development by integrating their new website with a digital marketing strategy. Third World Newsreel will engage an outside consultant for a two-phase project, first evaluating the website and digital marketing channels to prioritize which channels to connect and interact with their website, and then implementing the resulting new digital marketing strategy.

Upstate Films (Dutchess and Ulster Counties) - Stronger Online Marketing Strategies
Upstate Films will use MAAF funding to support the creation of stronger online marketing to strengthen search-engine optimization practices. A consultant will review, reconfigure, and improve their website in terms of its interface with search engines. The intention of this work is to help inform the public about Upstate Films’ programs and to increase participation in programs.

Women Make Movies (New York County) - Organizational Capacity and Strategy for 2025 and Beyond
Women Make Movies will use MAAF funding to hire a consultant organization to assist with developing a fundraising strategy, locate and secure new grants, and advise on how to best diversify revenue streams and build capacity as an organization in order to integrate new revenue streams into their overall organizational plan.

Woodstock Film Festival (Ulster County) - Unifying Organizational Technology for Greater Efficiency and Impact
Woodstock Film Festival will use MAAF funding to engage a consultant to optimize the use of the project management platform Monday.com, further integrating and connecting various software systems into a cohesive, user-friendly platform. WFF’s goal is to improve efficiency across departments, ensure smoother onboarding for seasonal staff and volunteers, eliminate redundancies, and enable more accurate, real-time tracking of metrics, engagement, and donations.

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About the New York State Council on the Arts
The mission of the New York State Council on the Arts is to foster and advance the full breadth of New York State’s arts, culture and creativity for all. To support the ongoing recovery of the arts across New York State, the Council on the Arts will award $162 million in FY2025, serving organizations and artists across all 10 of the state’s regions. The Council on the Arts further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA's Facebook page, on X @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts.

About Wave Farm
Wave Farm is an international transmission arts organization driven by experimentation with the electromagnetic spectrum. We cultivate creative practices in radio and support artists and nonprofits in their cultural endeavors.

Based in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley, Wave Farm is a media arts center, media platform, and arts service organization. Wave Farm offers interdisciplinary outdoor installations, residencies and fellowships, and a research library. We operate FM radio station WGXC and host many online radio channels. Wave Farm provides fiscal sponsorship, consultation, and grants to artists and organizations. For more information, please visit wavefarm.org.