The Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI), the creative innovation lab and research center based at American University School of Communication (SOC), announced $1.1 million in new grants to support the center’s innovative programming that studies and leverages comedy’s role in human rights, social justice, and bridging polarization.
Funding comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ($969,000 grant), which aims to transform health in our lifetime, and Open Society Foundations ($200,000 grant to the Yes, And…Laughter Lab), which focuses on strengthening civil society and democracy. Both foundations see CMSI’s humor programs as integral to their narrative change work, given the focus on lifting up and collaborating with traditionally marginalized communities through comedy, including LGBTQ+, people of color, women, and the disability community.
CMSI’s executive director, SOC’s Provost Associate Professor Caty Borum, serves as principal investigator and lead director of its programs; CMSI operations director, Varsha Ramani, directs all business and grant operations; and CMSI creative director of comedy initiatives, Bethany Hall, acts as creative architect and producer for comedy programs at the center, including serving as co-executive producer for GoodLaugh at CMSI. Since 2018, in collaboration with civil society and arts organizations, CMSI has co-created, launched, and co-directs several multi-faceted national comedy and human rights programs, designed from Borum’s peer-reviewed research about comedy’s utility in public engagement with social and civic issues. They include:
- Yes, And…Laughter Lab (YALL), co-founded and co-directed in 2018 in partnership with cultural strategy group Moore+Associates and co-founder Mik Moore, with launch support from Comedy Central, is a competitive incubation lab and fellowship that lifts up diverse comedy writers and performers creating new comedy about topics that matter, designed to introduce and integrate them into the entertainment industry, social justice organizations, philanthropy, and social justice activism. YALL serves diverse comedians and operates with an unprecedented partnership alliance network with more 40 entertainment industry and social justice groups, alongside prominent comedians. In 2024, YALL won an Anthem Award (Bronze) for Purpose & Mission-Driven Work, recognized as an outstanding community organization in the “Education, Art & Culture” category, selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Webby Awards.
- YALLFest, expanded from the Yes, And…Laughter Lab, is the first and only comedy festival that celebrates the power of humor to change the world. The three-day eventl launched in April 2024 in New York City, highlighted by The New York Times. Plans are underway for the 2025 festival. YALLFest and YALL are managed on a daily basis by Clare Kenny, YALL Program Director.
- The Climate Comedy Cohort, co-created and co-directed by CMSI and clean energy nonprofit Generation180, brings together diverse comedians from around the country to flip the script on the way we think about climate change, by working together with leading climate scientists to help shape their new comedy work. The ultimate aim: to leverage humor as a strategy to change the climate narrative from doom and gloom to “we’ve got this!”—and shift how people see their role in clean energy. In 2024, the Climate Comedy Cohort won an Anthem Award (Gold) for Purpose & Mission-Driven Work, in the “Sustainability, Environment & Climate” category, selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Webby Awards.
- Comedy Saves Democracy: In this hour-long comedy show and interactive audience engagement program hosted at the Kennedy Center (October 2023), comedy is at work to cut through ideological divides and create space for civic dialogue. Is the solution to America’s polarization problem… jokes? A cast of prominent comedians from around the country shared their funny stories about America to teach us about finding human connections through humor.
- The Great American Punchline Comedy Tour (summer 2024) brought people together to play, laugh, and register to vote in a nonpartisan live comedy show and interactive experience. In this five-city tour, comedians from all corners of the United States shared funny stories about American life and reminded us of our messy and hilarious shared humanity. (This experience is in post-production as a feature-length documentary that spotlights the role of comedy in promoting civic connection in the United States.)
CMSI has also collaborated with premier human rights organizations to co-create new comedy in collaboration with professional comedians, including the Domestic Workers Alliance and Paid Leave Network, IllumiNative, Color of Change, E Pluribus Unum, Caring Across Generations, Hip Hop Caucus, and others.
Past and present funders of CMSI’s comedy programs include the Doris Duke Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Carmack Collection, Argosy Foundation, McNulty Foundation, Comedy Central, Pop Culture Collaborative, Luminate, Gates Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy, and Surdna Foundation.