?Photocrati Fund? Offers $5000 Grant for Photographers

Boulder, CO (PRWEB) February 10, 2011

Photocrati Media, a leading provider of website templates for photographers, announces the 2011 Photocrati Fund ? a $ 5,000 fellowship for a pro or emerging pro photographer focused on environmental or humanitarian photography.

Powerful imagery awes, inspires and engages people in the world; it incites dialogue and often encourages action. Great photography brings humanity to statistics, faces to tragedy, connections to cultures far away, and life to dying species. Incredible images tell stories that we need to hear. But those stories are expensive and time-consuming to produce.

The Photocrati Fund bridges the gap for one photographer each year by providing a $ 5,000 photography grant to focus on a month-long environmental or humanitarian photography project. At the completion of the project, the grant winner?s images will be displayed as a photo essay on Photocrati.com.

The Photocrati Fund award winner will be selected by a prestigious panel of some of the world?s best-known environmental and cultural photographers including Steve McCurry and Michael ?Nick? Nichols. The grantee will be announced at the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in June 2011.

?The Photocrati Fund is important to us because we really believe in the importance and power of photography, but we know that it?s getting harder and harder to produce great photography due to funding limitations,? says Erick Danzer, president of Photocrati Media. ?We want to support photographers who have passion and a desire to contribute something positive to the world around them.?

By providing the funds and the space to display the resulting images, Photocrati can serve as a platform for both the winning photographer and an important issue, says Danzer.

The 2011 Photocrati Fund competition will run through April 1, 2011 (11pm GMT). Grant applicants should submit a one-page project statement and bio, along with a link to a coherent, themed, online portfolio of 20-30 images to: fund (at) photocrati (dot) com. For complete Photocrati Fund rules and guidelines please see visit the Photocrati Fund page at Photocrati.com. To view information on Mark J. Davis, the 2010 Photocrati Fund Fellow, and top finalists, please visit the Photocrati Fund blog post at Photocrati.com.

About Photocrati.com

Photocrati Media is a digital media company that specializes in WordPress themes for photographers, SEO for photographers, and other resources for photographers. Photocrati Media also runs Best of Wedding Photography an elite, invitation-only association of the best wedding photographers in the world. Photocrati Media proudly sponsors the Photocrati Fund ? a $ 5,000 grant to photographers working on important environmental and humanitarian projects.

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Ballroom Basix Puts The ?Fun? in The Fund!

New York, NY (PRWEB) November 30, 2011

This month, The Fund for the City of New York accepted the ?fun, fitness & fancy footwork? of Sid Grant?s Ballroom Basix? into its prestigious Incubator/Partner Project Program. The Fund created the Incubator/Partner Project Program in the early 90s to provide support to start-up organizations so they can concentrate their energy and resources on programming and fundraising.

The Fund's Incubator Program provides financial management services, including monthly expense and revenue reports and financial reports for funders and audits. It also provides insurance coverage and a comprehensive array of employee benefits. Being in the incubator program gives organizations access to a chief financial officer, comptroller, auditor, financial manager, payroll clerk, accounts payable department, human resources experts, lawyers and nonprofit coaches.

Here?s what The Fund?s president, Mary McCormick, had to say about Ballroom Basix?:

Ballroom Basix? is an example, to us all, of how to make a difference. Artistic Director Sidney Grant and his dedicated staff have stepped forward to share their talent and craft and in so doing they are changing the lives of hundreds of middle-school students in Harlem, the Bronx and beyond!

Last Spring, the program served over 400 students in Harlem, the Bronx and Queens -- and Grant hopes to triple if not quadruple that number this school year! ?Our concept, first and foremost, is that partner dancing is a social skill, not a competitive art form. Every child, regardless of shape/size, ability or popularity, both needs avd deserves the chance to experience connecting with his/her classmates in a healthy and respectful way. In this day and age of rampant bullying, Ballroom Basix? is the perfect antidote.?

Dr. Peter McFarlane, a prize-winning principal from PS 180, the program?s pilot school, offered this insightful feedback after four years of :

It?s really about the evolution of students who start out shy and blossom into beautiful flowers. I saw a level of maturity that was unmatched, unrivaled. I saw a level of concentration [that] translates to academics. Over 80% of the class that Mr. Sid taught for 6th, 7th and 8th grade passed the science and math regents, and that has a lot to do with being focused and staying focused, which their program provides. Most of all, the kids said we want [Ballroom Basix] back. When they start saying ?we want something back? you know it?s working.?

Working alongside The Fund?s Sara Kwak, their Program Officer, Ballroom Basix? is well-positioned for exponential growth. ?Ballroom Basix is, no pun intended, in step with other worthy causes that are among The Fund?s exclusive dossier of Partner Projects.? These include designer Dana Buchman?s charity The Promise Project, and WIPSEN, Leymah Gbowee?s award-winning peace building initiative in Africa. Ms. Gbowee, the author of Mighty Be Our Powers, received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for for her non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women?s rights to full participation in peace-building work". She is also the narrator and central character in the 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which took Best Documentary Feature in the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Having appeared in another award-winning documentary film, Mad Hot Ballroom, Grant was thrilled to meet someone with such comparable project passion. ?Meeting Leymah was an inspiration, as she?s demonstrated how steady faith in one?s mission can really make for lasting change -- and that?s exactly what we are doing among inner city kids.? And their mission is a powerful one:

The transformation of students' educational, social and fitness skills through the fun-filled Ballroom and Latin dance experience. By consistently reinforcing the etiquette and respect inherent in partner dancing, the program instills self?worth, physical well?being and cooperation among the children it serves, while simultaneously instructing them in the diverse origins of the dances they learn: historically, geographically and multi?culturally.

Grant, who?s also a published poet, graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers College, where he was valedictorian in the School of Journalism and Communication, minoring in Spanish -- all of which helped in creating the English and Spanish content of his unique syllabus. ?Spanish is the second most used language in the United States, with more than 50 million speakers. In fact, one piece of U.S. trivia few people know is that Spanish was the first language spoke by permanent European settlers in St. Augustine, Florida. Consequently, I want our program to reflect contemporary U.S. culture. I am very proud to have studied Spanish both here and abroad, and speak it among my Harlem kids.

Volunteer project manager and video director Waldo Tejada summed it up best, ?Mr. Grant?s concept captures the best of the multicultural American spirit.? To support this worthy cause, visit their website: http://www.ballroombasix.org

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