Greg Boustead shares Science Sandbox’s Grantmaking Strategy

Greg Boustead is director of Science Sandbox, a portfolio of strategic grantmaking at the Simons Foundation, focused on outreach and engaging new audiences with science.

He shared his strategy and grant-making process at Sunny Side’s Science-themed Meet The Executives session. We are publishing Greg’s very informative and engaging session as a podcast, though without clips and PPTs that he presented.

Podcast: Listen to Greg Boustead

More About Greg Boustead

Greg is the founding executive producer of Sandbox Films, an independent documentary film company with a
philanthropic / commercial hybrid model.
With a background in neuroscience, film, and journalism, Greg has dedicated his career to bringing sophisticated
science content to general audiences, across many platforms.
His film credits include the feature-length documentaries: THE MOST UNKNOWN, co-produced with VICE Media and released by Netflix in 2018; and HUMAN NATURE, co-produced with Dan Rather’s News & Guts Films and being released in cinemas in 2019. Greg attended Sunny Side with his colleague Jessica Harrop, Supervising Producer of Sandbox Films. They are based in New York.

New Award Recipients

(August 1, 2019)

The Sundance Institute, continuing its partnership with Science Sandbox, has announced nine new award
recipients for 2019.
These science-focused independent filmmakers will receive creative, financial, and production support, in addition to access to the Sundance and Science Sandbox communities through networking events.
Launched in 2018, the Science Sandbox Nonfiction Initiative aims to elevate the voices of independent artists working at the intersection of science and nonfiction storytelling, as well as to encourage critical thinking, promote educated discourse and highlight the overlap of science and art.

Grant Recipients

The nine recipients of the grants are:

•  Untitled black hole film directed by Peter Galison;
• “Edge of Time,” directed by Stephanie Spray;
• “The Eyes to See,” directed by Ian Cheney and Sharon Shattuck;
• “Fathom,” directed by Drew Xanthopoulos;
• “The Last Kidney Donor,” directed by Penny Lane;
• “Missing Microbes,” directed by Steven Lawrence and Sarah Schenck;
• “Raising Khan,” directed by Trevor Frost and Melissa Lesh;
• “Red Heaven,” directed by Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe;
• “Users,” directed by Natalia Alamda.

More information is available via the press release and on the Sundance/Science Sandbox partnership page.

Grants

Science Sandbox offers support to projects at all stages of development, production, post-production, and impact campaigns.
Average grant sizes are:

• Development ($10,000 – $25,000)
• Production ($35,000 – $50,000)
• Post-Production ($30,000 – $50,000)
• Impact/engagement ($20,000 – $25,000)

Sunny Side of the Doc – Science Executives Podcasts

Listen to all the Sunny Side’s 2019 Meet the Executives presentations. Learn what the buyers and funders are looking for, and how to reach them:

• Sue Dando, CBC Canada, The Nature of Things
• Chris Hoelzl, Smithsonian Networks
• Ricarda Schlosshan, ZDF / Terra X