2026 CatchLight Global Fellowship

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CatchLight Global Fellowship Overview

At CatchLight, it is our mission to leverage the power of images to inform, transform, and connect communities. The CatchLight Global Fellowship awards visual storytellers who are poised to ignite social change through their photography, videography or leadership by leveraging the power of visuals to create impactful audience engagement and innovative distribution models. 

Check out the work of our past/current Global Fellows 

Central to the Global Fellowship goals and deliverables are sharing learnings and processes with the CatchLight community and wider field. Fellows are responsible for sharing outcomes and insights through three primary reporting mechanisms during the Fellowship year:

  • Public presentation of outcomes
  • Interview(s) with recipient and/or key stakeholders
  • Visual documentation and data collection

A CatchLight Global Fellowship is awarded for life. Fellows are encouraged to share expertise beyond their Fellowship cohort year, and CatchLight hopes that Fellows will offer and seek mentorship within the community throughout their careers. 


BENEFITS OF THE CATCHLIGHT GLOBAL FELLOWSHIP

  • $30,000 award
  • Personal development opportunities, including executive coaching
  • Impact strategy and networking support from CatchLight staff and our extended network. 
  • A community of like-minded Fellows and industry professionals with opportunities for mentorship, education, and speaking engagements. 


ELIGIBILITY

You may be the ideal candidate for a CatchLight Global Fellowship if you are a(n):

  • Long-form storyteller with a specific impact project
  • Leader with a plan to advance/or grow the field
  • Educator with innovative approaches to supporting upcoming storytellers

Proposals will be assessed on how they employ and strengthen new methods and potential solutions with an eye towards one or more of the following target outcomes:

  1. Innovative Distribution: Testing a new distribution method of an existing project to engage a specific audience through visuals effectively.
  2. Community Activations: Testing how visual storytelling can be leveraged to engage specific audiences and/or address specific community information needs
  3. Field sustainability: building systems and models that push the field of visual storytelling or media ecosystem forward.
     

TO APPLY, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO PROVIDE THE FOLLOWING:

  • A fellowship statement on how visuals in general and your work specifically ignite social change, who your work aims to inform and what human connections your work creates. 100 words
  • A thesis statement summarizing what you would like to do and why. 100 words
  • A description of the proposed work. 250 words.
  • A description of your distribution, engagement, and/or impact plan that identifies your target audience for this work. 250 words.
  • A plan to gather impact feedback. 100 words
  • A timeline for the work, which can extend beyond the grant period.
  • A budget estimate for the proposed work. This budget can exceed the award amount, but please note where CatchLight funds would be used
  • Three topic ideas for sharing learning with the CatchLight community
  • 5 -10 images for promotional use (these can be the same as the work submission) If selected for the fellowship interview round, the images submitted for promotion use are released for CatchLight to use for promotional materials.
  • Three professional references. Contact information must include both an email address and a phone number.
  • A short bio.
  • A copy of your curriculum vitae.
  • Please note: All applications must be submitted in English. We accept translated applications; however, if you are selected for an interview, those video interviews will be in English.
We use Submittable to accept and review our submissions.
Apply now