Ellen

Drawing on decades of hands-on experience, Ellen Schneider has pioneered strategies, frameworks, and other resources that have helped shape the sphere of creative “social impact media.” Her executive producer credits include the PBS series POV (where she introduced models that measurably increased the power of independent documentary in public life), "Free For All: The Public Library" (2024), and the Tribeca Festival award-winning "Runa Simi" (2025). In 2000, she founded Active Voice/Lab, one of the first teams to leverage story-based media to put human faces on complex social and policy issues, such as racial equity, immigration, and juvenile justice. Ellen is currently focused on enhancing creative partnerships among storytellers, funders, issue experts, and others dedicated to social justice, and has shared this expertise with media-savvy clients such as Sundance, the Ford Foundation, and Participant (RIP).