Need a Free Ad? Donate Some Money.

Who doesn’t like free? Whether your cre­ative effort ends up on broad­cast, cable, or shows up in a local movie house, find­ing a new way to save on ad dol­lars makes sense.

Well, the May­ors Office of Film, The­atre and Broad­cast­ing offers one plan to stretch that bud­get. If your pro­duc­tion shoots at least 75% in New York City, the MOFTB is pre­pared to turn over ad space on NYC-owned media prop­er­ties through­out the city val­ued at 1 per­cent of your local pro­duc­tion costs.
The catch? You’ll be expected to donate 0.1% of that bud­get to a local cul­tural orga­ni­za­tion of your choice via the city’s depart­ment of cul­tural affairs. Those city-owned ad spaces are mostly on bus shel­ters or air­time on NYC TV–so you have to deter­mine if that fits your needs–but the feel good oppor­tu­nity is there.
The pro­gram, part of the Made in NY Cul­tural Credit, has had some suc­cess, donat­ing $600,000 since its 2005 launch.

More than 50 local cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions have gar­nered fund­ing includ­ing Art Edu­ca­tion for the Blind, Bal­let His­pan­ico, Harlem School for the Arts, Hos­pi­tal Audi­ences, and Women Make Movies. The most recent dona­tion comes from Life­time Television’s com­edy series Sherri, star­ring Sherri Shep­herd (The View), which is shot at NEP Stu­dios at the Penn­syl­va­nia Hotel. The announce­ment took place at an event cel­e­brat­ing the pre­miere of Sherri at the Empire Hotel, hosted by Bar­bara Wal­ters and Andrea Wong, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Life­time Networks.

The Sherri pro­duc­tion decided to donate to Sprout, which offers pro­grams for peo­ple with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties liv­ing in New York City. Sprout plans to shoot two films through their Make-A-Movie Pro­gram, offer­ing adults and young adults with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties a chance to be involved with hands-on film­mak­ing. Another of its ini­tia­tives is the Sprout Film Fes­ti­val, an annual week­end event held at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art to show­case films fea­tur­ing peo­ple with devel­op­men­tal disabilities.

For more info on the pro­gram, visit the MOFTB site at www.nyc.gov/film.

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