Family Foundations

Capturing a family foundation’s history or giving philosophy is an incredible gift not only for future trustees but also potentially for future grantees. The drive and determination of a family – often through a family-owned business – to create such wealth that they can give it back to others is a significant achievement that should be documented and honored.

Few companies specialize in creating legacy films and coffee table books for family foundations and can connect giving and values with stories. Working with varying family dynamics and multiple generations while respecting privacy concerns requires the experience, patience, and know-how of a company like DMB Pictures. We have worked with over 70 families and have insight and understanding into the human dimension of legacy work. We offer personalized, customer-driven service with incredible results.

The DMB Approach

DISCOVERY

Telling your family foundation’s story can feel overwhelming. Discovery is where we listen, learn what matters most to you, and shape a clear, thoughtful plan so the process feels easy from the start.

PREP

Preparation is at the heart of meaningful storytelling. We connect with each participant in advance to understand their perspective and prepare them for filming — allowing us to ask deep and impactful questions on filming day.

FILM

We typically film in our interviewee’s home and work with the space you have. Depending on the length of the interview and the number of interviewees, we might be there a half-day, full-day, or multiple days.

EDIT

We will assemble a first cut of the film for your review. With your feedback, we will finalize the film and provide copies on flash drives and privately in the cloud. We can also help you figure out how to make a shorter public version of your film if desired.

For more samples of our family foundation work
that we can only share with future potential clients, please contact us directly.

We hired DMB Pictures because we wanted a way for our founder to share his outlook on philanthropy and make sure the next generations understand what it means to be a good steward of philanthropy. DMB’s experience with other family foundations and engaging samples helped us overcome the fact that they weren’t local to us, which proved to be a non-issue. We loved how they helped us understand the process of filmmaking, stuck to the budget that we came up with, and were flexible and balanced in their approach and willingness to take feedback. We are thrilled with the final video, which perfectly matched the vision we had for this project. We highly recommend them to any family foundation looking to capture their family and philanthropy stories.

Capturing our family, business, and foundation history was something we had wanted to do for a long time, but the project felt overwhelming and burdensome. How could we ensure we got all the information into a video without it being boring? Working with Debbie & DMB Pictures made the whole process easier right from the beginning. They helped us make a concise, efficient, and fun legacy project. In sharing ideas and some wonderful conversations along the way, DMB took the time to get to know us so that our personalities came across in just the right way. Together, we created an hour-long video, a five-minute public-facing video, and a coffee table book that we love! I would highly recommend DMB Pictures to any family foundation looking to embark on a legacy project.

DMB Picture's storytelling process was seamless - from the pre-interview experience to the delivery of the final product. The Foundation was very pleased with their attention to detail, consistent communication, preparation ahead of filming in Tulsa, and their ability to make the interviewees feel comfortable. The videos captured the personal values of Anne and Henry Zarrow and their family, as well as the grantmaking priorities of The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation.

I highly recommend DMB Pictures for their professionalism, creativity, hard work, talent, and insights into families, nonprofits, and storytelling. They did a fantastic job weaving together the story of our family foundation in preparation for our 40th anniversary year, creating a documentary film that preserves the legacy of our founders and brings the foundation’s mission and history to life. I cannot thank Debbie and her team enough for developing such a meaningful communication tool for our family foundation!

Debbie at DMB Pictures walked me through the entire process of documenting my family history. She was always professional and orchestrated this emotional journey for me and my family by asking the right questions while capturing the highlights. She treated the interviewees, and the local sound and video crew with respect and professionalism. Family and friends were astounded when viewing the finished video. I would highly recommend DMB Pictures to anyone wanting to document their life experiences.

Our Clients