Working Together
To Tell Powerful Stories
Impact Partners is dedicated to funding independent documentary storytelling that entertains audiences, engages with pressing social issues, and propels the art of cinema forward.
When we fund a project, we also become advisors to the filmmakers and advocates for the film. We provide the creative mentorship to help make films the strongest they can be, and the strategic guidance to achieve the widest possible audience for each film.
150+ Films Supported
Explore AllOur MOdel
In 2007, Impact Partners pioneered a unique model of equity investing that brings together a community of investors with filmmakers to achieve mutually beneficial goals of telling powerful stories and raising awareness about critical issues facing our world today.
Committed to a dual bottom line approach, Impact Partners has forged a sustainable fund that is committed to supporting documentary filmmakers and the industry at large.
To learn more about how we work with documentary filmmakers, please view our Submissions page.
If you’re interested in learning more about investing through Impact Partners, please Contact Us.
The Team
Jenny Raskin
Jenny Raskin is the Executive Director of Impact Partners, a fund dedicated to supporting independent documentary films that entertain audiences, engage with pressing social issues, and propel the art of cinema forward. Her executive producer credentials include Going Varsity in Mariachi, Aftershock, Procession, Nuclear Family, Trophy, and Dina. Other credits include: Here Come the Videofreex (director/producer), Found (producer), Facing the Dragon, (producer), Motherland Afghanistan (producer), and On Hostile Ground (director/producer). She received a B.A. from Barnard College and an M.A. from the Culture & Media program at NYU.
Amy Augustino
As the COO of Impact Partners, Amy is responsible for all aspects of Operations, Financing, and Human Resources. With 25 years of experience in Operations, she has led process improvement, policy & procedure, and training initiatives at Blue Man Group, The Children’s Place, and Citigroup. Amy received her A.B. in English from Duke University where she was actively involved in the theater department. In 2017, her short film RICH MAN DAN premiered at the Independent Film Festival Boston.
Kelsey Koenig
Kelsey has worked in independent documentary for over a decade and is currently the VP of Production at Impact Partners. Since joining IP in 2012, she has been involved with the development of over 100 projects (recent titles include AFTERSHOCK, THE GRAB, PROCESSION and JACINTA) and has spoken on panels about funding, distribution, and impact at industry events around the world.
Chris Boeckmann
Chris Boeckmann is a documentary writer from Missouri. He worked as a programmer at the True/False Film Fest from 2009-2020 and at the Ragtag Cinema from 2010-2019. His story consulting credits include Procession (dir. Robert Greene, 2021), Mija (dir. Isabel Castro, 2022), and Flying Lessons (dir. Elizabeth Nichols, 2024). His bylines include Film Comment, Filmmaker Magazine, and IndieWire.
Chelsea Williams
Chelsea manages the submissions process, oversees IP’s web presence, reviews potential projects for financing, and provides general organizational support to the development team. Prior to her role in development, Chelsea worked in college access with high school juniors and seniors. Before joining the Impact Partners team, Chelsea transitioned from education to film and was a dispatcher for shows like 1883. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a B.A. in African American Studies and Creative Writing.
Skye Ward
Skye manages the day to day operations processes of IP including member relations, financial upkeep, and office management. She also assists with event planning, Sundance preparation, and reviewing submissions. Skye has worked in multiple facets of the entertainment industry including theater as a stage manager, film as a talent agency intern and production crew member, and management as Executive Assistant to the Tony-nominated Broadway actress Tovah Feldshuh. She also has experience in event planning, communications, and non-profit management. She received her B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Yale University in 2021.
Geralyn Dreyfous
Geralyn Dreyfous has a wide, distinguished background in the arts, extensive experience in consulting in the philanthropic sector, and participates on numerous boards and initiatives. She spent an early part of her career at the Philanthropic Initiative in Boston, which guides families of wealth in strategic giving opportunities, and taught Documentary and Narrative writing with Dr. Robert Coles at Harvard University. Geralyn is the Founder and Board Chair of the Utah Film Center, a non-profit that curates free screenings and outreach programs for communities throughout Utah.
In 2007, she co-founded Impact Partners Film Fund with Dan Cogan, bringing together financiers and filmmakers so that they can create great films that entertain audiences, enrich lives, and ignite social change. Since its inception, IP has been involved in the financing of over 70 films, including: THE COVE (2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); THE GARDEN (2009 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature); FREEHELD (2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film); and HELL AND BACK AGAIN (2012 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature) and multiple film festival award winning films such as E-TEAM (2014 Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award, US Documentary), THE OVERNIGHTERS (2014 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize), and ALIVE INSIDE: A STORY OF MUSIC & MEMORY (2014 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, US Documentary). In 2013, Geralyn became a founding member of Gamechanger, the first for-profit film fund dedicated exclusively to financing narrative features directed by women. Their first film, LAND HO!, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
Geralyn’s independent executive producing and producing credits include the Academy Award winning BORN INTO BROTHELS; Emmy nominated THE DAY MY GOD DIED, Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award winning THE SQUARE, Academy Award nominated and Peabody Award winning THE INVISIBLE WAR, and multiple film festival winners such as MISS REPRESENTATION, MEET THE PATELS, ANITA, IN FOOTBALL WE TRUST, THE HUNTING GROUND, DREAMCATCHER AND ALIVE INSIDE. Her works in production include: WAIT FOR ME and BE NATURAL. Geralyn was honored by the International Documentary Association with the Amicus Award in 2013 for her significant contribution to documentary filmmaking. Variety recognized Geralyn in their 2014 Women’s Impact Report highlighting her work in the entertainment industry.
Dan Cogan
Dan Cogan is the Academy Award®-winning producer of Icarus and the Co-Founder of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film.
Since its inception in 2007, Impact Partners has financed over 100 films, including: Icarus, which won the 2018 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which won the 2019 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary; Of Fathers & Sons, which was nominated for the 2019 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival; Dina, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was named Best Feature by the International Documentary Association; The Eagle Huntress, which was nominated for the 2016 BAFTA Award for Best Documentary; How to Survive A Plague, which was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature; The Queen of Versailles, which won the U.S. Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; Hell and Back Again, which was nominated for the 2011 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature and won the Grand Jury Prize and Cinematography Awards at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival; and The Cove, which won the 2010 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature.
In 2013, Cogan co-founded Gamechanger Films, which was the first for-profit film fund dedicated exclusively to financing narrative features directed by women. Its films included The Tale and Land Ho!
Cogan received his B.A. from Harvard University, magna cum laude, and attended the Film Division at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts. In 2014, he was awarded the Leading Light Award at DOC NYC alongside filmmakers Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker, as well as the America Abroad Media Award in Washington, D.C.
Founding Members
Diana Barrett
Diana Barrett is President of The Fledgling Fund, a New York based private foundation that supports films and other creative media, primarily through finishing funds and community engagement programs. She co-financed the 2004 Academy Award-winning documentary BORN INTO BROTHELS and recently served as Executive Producer for Rory Kennedy’s HBO documentary, THE GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB. She supported the 2007 Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning film FREEHELD, in addition to A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL and THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO. She was the Executive Producer of DEATH BY DESIGN, a current IP film. Diana was on the Faculty at Harvard University for many years, where she taught at the School of Public Health and the Harvard Business School. Her special areas of interests were Public-Private Partnerships around complex global issues such as HIV/AIDS and poverty reduction. She received her M.B.A. and Doctoral Degrees from Harvard Business School. She is particularly interested in innovative forms of storytelling, including virtual reality, photography, short form web based work in addition to long form documentary film.
Jim Swartz
Jim Swartz is a Founder of Accel, a prominent global technology venture capital firm. Entering a fifth decade in venture capital, he has been closely involved as lead investor in numerous industry pioneering technology companies. An industry leader, Jim is former Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and the 2007 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a graduate of Harvard University (Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics) and holds a M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.
He is Chairman of the Swartz Foundation and Co-Chairman of the Christian Center of Park City, Director Emeritus of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation (established the Borgen-Swartz Education Endowment), Trustee of the Sundance Institute, and a member of the Board of Advisors of Tepper School of Business. Jim is a Founder of the Deer Valley Music Festival, the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard, MVYouth and FairSport. He served on the Management Committee of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympics of 2002. He holds a Honorary Doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, its inaugural Founders Medal, the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from its Tepper School of Business, and an Honorary Doctorate from Western Governors University.
Together with his wife Susan, Jim founded Impact Partners, a financing and advisory firm advancing independent cinema that addresses pressing social needs. As Producer of the documentary Icarus, Jim won the Academy Award in 2018 and received an Emmy nomination.
Jim is a keen competitive sailor and has won numerous World and National Championships with his yachts Moneypenny and Vesper.
Susan Swartz
Susan Swartz is a landscape painter inspired by the natural world and its intersection with spirituality. She explores this union through potent colors and richly layered large abstract canvases.
Swartz has been recognized with numerous solo museum exhibitions most recently with her Personal Path at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Hungary in December/January 2016. Other solo shows include the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, Germany (2015), the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg, Austria (2014), the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C (2011), the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah (2010), and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, Utah (2008). Her works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Springville Museum of Art; the Utah Museum of Fine Arts; and the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 2005, Swartz was published in the Gibbs Smith collectors book Painters of the Wasatch Mountains alongside Wasatch Mountain School artists Maynard Dixon, Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. The same year she was honored by the Harvard Divinity School for a career that blends artistry and faith. Swartz was the Official Olympic Environmental Artist for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Her commissioned painting Soldier Hollow was featured in the fall 2013 exhibition Painters of the Wasatch Mountains at the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah.
Swartz’s decade long struggle with mercury poisoning and Lyme disease transformed her as an artist and as a citizen. She actively supports environmental campaigns that advocate for clean water and air. Swartz also supports the vision and production of documentary films through Impact Partners.
Swartz serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Dean’s Council of the Harvard Divinity School and is the founder of the charitable organization Christian Center of Park City. She is a co-Founder of Impact Partners and is on the board of the Utah Film Center.
Swartz paints regularly from studios in Park City, Utah and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. She exhibits regularly in London, New York, Palm Beach and throughout Europe. In January 2016 she opened her first direct gallery at 260 Main Street in Park City.