Pop Culture Collab

We are thrilled to introduce you to the 45+ artists, producers, cultural strategists, and thought leaders who comprise the 2024 Becoming America “Big Sky” Narrative Network. First launched in 2020, the Becoming America Fundsupports pop culture for social change practitioners to immerse millions of Americans in narrative oceans of pop culture content that ignite passion, curiosity, and faith in our ability to create something truly visionary, together: a just and pluralist society.

When Emmy- and Peabody-winning journalist Imara Jones called for a “reimagination and an expansion of Blackness” in Time Magazine’s recent issue featuring voices of the “New American Revolution,” she did so with the goal of shifting the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in the United States. “Trans people, just through our existence, show the power and the resilience of change, and possibility of how we can do things differently,” wrote Jones.

We’re pleased to share that Pop Culture Collaborative was featured in the June 2021 issue of Inside Philanthropy: Some of the most enduring stories we tell each other on screen and on the page aren’t just entertainment. They’re empathy-generating machines. Late 1970s miniseries sensation “Roots” didn’t just bring the realities and horrors of slavery into homes across the country—it also forced white America to empathize with a Black single family across generations.

Do you remember what life was like one year ago? Let’s travel back in time: People around the world were just beginning to process the trauma, grief and loss created by a multiyear pandemic. A coordinated attack on the bodily autonomy and human rights of women, transgender and gender expansive people was gaining momentum. The white nationalist cultural movement’s systematic efforts to erase racial history, queer studies, and social-emotional learning from public education was underway.

In 2022, the Pop Culture Collaborative proudly made $2.2 million in narrative infrastructure grants to 27 inspiring field partners.

We are delighted to announce the Pop Culture Collaborative’s Spring 2023 grantee partners. We need intersectional BIPOC artists, cultural strategists, and movement leaders working at maximum capacity to challenge the onslaught of toxic narratives and unlock public imagination about our pluralist future.

After the early leak of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn fifty years of legal precedent around abortion access, the Pop Culture Collaborative, with support from an anonymous donor, activated our Becoming America Fund’s narrative-focused, rapid response grantmaking capacity.

2020 laid America bare. With the most consequential election of our lifetimes, the raging COVID-19 pandemic, and protests around the nation in support of Black lives, the events of the past year exposed a tug-of-war between pluralist belonging and nationalist exclusion—a conflict that has raged since the country’s founding.

The Pop Culture Collaborative is delighted to announce the 2022 Becoming America Fund narrative network, over three dozen grantee partners and Pluralist Visionaries who will work together to build the yearning in tens of millions of people for a just and pluralist future.