WHO WE ARE

We are a cooperative video production company telling human stories that catalyze social change. Our team of worker-owners and freelancers brings experience as filmmakers, photographers, writers, communicators, strategists, organizers, educators, musicians, and artists with deep professional and personal roots in the Philadelphia region.

DEMOCRACY AND EQUITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Bonfire is a worker-owned business. We strive to ensure fair pay, democratic leadership, and respectful working conditions in an industry that is plagued by low wages, inconsistent income, and long hours.

By sharing our resources, skills, and networks, we gain access to consistent work and opportunities to learn and grow. We offer our clients access to a team with a variety of skills and backgrounds and deep roots in movements for social change, all sustained by a nurturing and vibrant work environment.

There is no executive director or CEO of Bonfire. The worker-owners lead the operations together, with coordination and administrative support provided by one paid staff person who is also a worker-owner.

OUR STORY & MEDIA MOBILIZING PROJECT

Many of us came together for the first time as collaborators on community media productions with Media Mobilizing Project, a Philadelphia-based organization that creates grassroots media, trains media makers, builds coalitions and runs policy campaigns. MMP was founded in 2007 on the belief that “movements begin with the telling of untold stories.”  

In 2015, the growing pool of media makers that came together to work on MMP media projects realized that by creating a sister organization focused on video production, we could build more capacity for social change-oriented storytelling. This was the spark that would grow into Bonfire.

Bonfire was built by a community and would not exist without our team of worker-owners and freelancers, Media Mobilizing Project, and the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance. Our logo and graphics were designed by Gabrielle Patterson.

PAST & CURRENT CLIENTS

Past and current clients include 215 People’s Alliance, 1149 Cooperative, Asian Americans United, Asian Arts Initiative, Cut50, Food Moxie, Friends of Kendra Brooks, Greenpeace Canada, Hand in Hand, Leeway Foundation, National Domestic Workers Alliance, NESRI, One Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Head Start Association, Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, Philly Student Union, Philadelphia Writing Project, Rutgers University AAUP-AFT, SEIU Healthcare PA, Working Families Party, Youth United for Change, and more.