A committed field-builder and educator, Helfand co-founded Working Films, one of the nation’s first non-profits dedicated to engagement in 2009, and Chicken & Egg Pictures, a non-profit film fund dedicated to supporting women documentary directors with strategic grants and creative mentorship in 2005.
Together with Robert West, I co-created Working Films in 2000. We realized there was a huge need at that moment for an organization to be a pioneer in the just then emerging landscape of audience engagement and impact work and to support and teach filmmakers how to do this work themselves.
I created ‘The Power of “I”: First-Person Storytelling in Times of Crisis’ – a three-day “The Power of ‘I’ ” workshop offering film screenings, hands-on instruction, expert analysis and in-depth conversation.
I designed this workshop for documentary filmmakers, journalists, essayists, podcasters, photographers, health and crisis communicators – or anyone who thinks their small story has the potential for enormous impact.
As part of our Parity Pipeline Program to support women filmmakers, The Athena Film Festival at Barnard College conducts a Works-in-Progress Program. It is an intensive pitch training and storytelling strengthening opportunity, that in addition to the training includes a live pitch in front of a panel of esteemed industry representatives, introductions to a network of potential supporters and partners, peer mentorship, and a cohort to grow with, all wrapped into a festival event.
Double Exposure is a project of the investigative news organization 100Reporters that celebrates the finest new films inspired by the investigative instinct. I presented a symposium for journalists and visual storytellers.
In 2005 I co-founded Chicken & Egg Pictures with Julie Parker Benello and Wendy Ettinger. We came from the worlds of filmmaking, teaching, funding, and impact producing and brought together a unique combination of skills, experiences, and access to address an urgent need we saw in the documentary industry. We recognized that the players behind the camera in powerful nonfiction filmmaking were not reflecting the world these films were shedding light on: women, women of color, and women from varying socioeconomic backgrounds were acutely underrepresented in the most crucial roles of the nonfiction ecosystem. We also saw a lack of consistent financial support for women directors, especially at critical moments of development and completion, and a need for fostering mentorship and community so that women not only enter but remain in the field.
Julie, Wendy, and I were convinced that in order for underrepresented women filmmakers’ voices to thrive, they need a dedicated space to experiment and to build authentic face-to-face relationships with industry leaders, funders, and other filmmakers. This is what we aimed to do through Chicken and Egg Pictures.
To date, Chicken & Egg Pictures has awarded $x million in grants and provided thousands of hours of creative mentorship to over XX filmmakers. Films supported by the organization have been nationally and internationally recognized with Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Peabodys and more importantly have resulted in quantifiable change on the issues they cover.
In 2013, Jenni Wolfson was hired as the organization’s first Executive Director. Under her leadership, Chicken & Egg Pictures has launched innovative programming with a focus on community building and cohort support; substantially grown its budget and staff; been recognized for its excellence in nonprofit management; and diversified funding streams to include the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and MacArthur, Knight, and Ford Foundations, as well as government funding including the NEA and NYSCA, and corporate funding from Clif Bar & Company.
In the last fifteen years Chicken & Egg Pictures has evolved and grown exponentially. But the philosophy that the founders launched the organization with still remains—a great woman and her perspective can help change the way we see and experience the world and more fully reflect the world we live in.