The 2025 CatchLight Global Fellowship to award $30,000 grants to three innovative visual storytellers
CatchLight has opened the call for submissions for its Global Fellowship. The program supports innovative visual storytellers seeking to engage broad audiences and amplify the impact of their work through inventive distribution strategies.
The application is free and open until December 14, 2024.
CEO, CatchLight
“In a world where traditional ways to produce and distribute in-depth visual storytelling have become far less reliable, our Global Fellows embody the innovation and commitment needed to shine light on critical issues and activate audiences,” says Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO of CatchLight. “They are at the forefront of defining the future of our field.”
The CatchLight Global Fellowship fills a critical gap in the visual storytelling industry by empowering visionary leaders. Acting as an incubator, the program provides $30,000 grants, promotes professional development, and fosters valuable networks and collaborations. This initiative cultivates a vibrant community of creative thinkers, allowing them to influence the future of visual storytelling through impactful, long-form projects that engage and inspire audiences.
Being a CatchLight Fellow has meant having a real community of support and engagement that continues to help me develop my ideas … and provide knowledge and information that assists me in my journalistic and artistic practice.
Bayeté Ross Smith, 2022 Global Fellow
CatchLight welcomes applicants from all nationalities who are eager to leverage visual storytelling for social change. The Fellowship emphasizes creative leadership, innovative distribution methods, and meaningful audience engagement—essential components for shaping the future of visual communication. An international jury will select the 2025 Global Fellows, who will be announced at the annual Visual Storytelling Summit in May 2025.
The 2024 CatchLight Global Fellows included Johanna Alarcón who uses photography and education to amplify the voices of indigenous women defending their land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, promoting environmental conservation and social justice; Harlan Bozeman whose photographic practice combats the erasure of Black legacies and identities through long-term, community-engaged projects based in the American South; and Anastasia Taylor-Lind who focuses on civilian experiences of war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since 2014, in an ongoing collaboration with Ukrainian writer and anthropologist Alisa Sopova.
“After decades feeling adrift within the photojournalism community the CatchLight Fellowship has given me a sense of belonging,” said Anastasia Taylor-Lind. “It is exciting to be part of a group of people who are challenging visual stereotypes and aspiring to move the world of photography forward with core principles of justice and tenderness. CatchLight are supporting me as I develop my practice around social impact and audience engagement, enabling the pictures I make to thrive beyond legacy media publications.”
“Being a CatchLight Fellow has meant having a real community of support and engagement that continues to help me develop my ideas, amplify what I am working on so I can get additional support from other sources, find new audiences, and provide knowledge and information that assists me in my journalistic and artistic practice.” said Bayeté Ross-Smith, 2022 Global Fellow and 2024 Impact Fund recipient, a financial support only open to CatchLight Fellows. “Many organizations use the word ‘community,’ but CatchLight truly creates it in a way that is relevant to a daily lived experience. I have been able to meet people through CatchLight that have led to future projects, and it is great to be invited to CatchLight’s various events where I know I will connect with new people and current colleagues about ideas that are pertinent to understanding how we can use images to improve our world.”
Program Timeline
November 9, 2024:
Application opens
December 14, 2024:
Application closes
May 2025:
Public announcement of the 2025 Global Fellows at the CatchLight Visual Storytelling Summit in San Francisco, California.
Media contact
Myrtille Beauvert myrtille@sisterscommunications.com
(347) 295 7694