It's nearly impossible for fresh voices and new talent – who have stories that can change the world – to break into Hollywood. The system is completely opaque, and there are all kinds of barriers: geographic, financial, legal, racial – not to mention the fact that most people don’t even know where to start.  If you’re a creative who doesn’t know anyone in the industry, who do you call or email? Where do you send your material for it to be reviewed, in a town where no one accepts “unsolicited submissions”? How do you get access to a system where the players intentionally make themselves inaccessible to the public?

The entertainment industry and the business of storytelling has a profound influence on global culture. If the major studios, streamers, and networks that drive the business want more diverse storytellers and better representation across all races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientations, and countries, then the system itself has to change. And since every movie, TV show or scripted piece of content starts with a writer, that is where Impact started as well.

Impact combines successful principles from startup accelerators with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s 35 years of codified knowledge and industry experience to create new technology and systems that are capable of discovering talent at scale. With the ability to evaluate over 2,000 writing submissions per week, Impact is democratizing access to Hollywood and breaking down barriers for fresh, diverse creators from around the world. 

Those who are selected for an Impact accelerator are paired with world-class mentors, who they work with twice a week in an intensive, eight-week program to write a complete, polished, sellable script and take it to market in just eight weeks – lightning speed compared to the pace of traditional development, which can take many, many months, if not years. Impact writers are given everything we believe they need to succeed – a stipend, creative structure, community, and a speaker series from industry luminaries to educate them on the industry and inspire their journeys.

In less than three years, Impact has built a network of over 60,000 writers across 125 countries and developed 71 projects – 35 of which have been sold to or set up at major studios and production companies including: Netflix, Sony, FX, Amblin, Village Roadshow, Legendary, and many more. We’ve helped launch the careers of 86 diverse writers, consisting of 44 men, 42 women, 33 BIPOC, 10 LGBTQIA+, representing 11 nations – many of whom have rocketed to the upper echelons of the business making six figure sales and being hired onto high-profile TV & film projects. 31 previously unrepresented writers have been signed by top tier management companies and agencies, including CAA, WME, UTA, Verve, Management 360, Lit Entertainment, Grandview, 3Arts, Writ Large, Underground and many more. 

The evidence-based success of Impact writers and their projects was recognized by Netflix in 2020, who made a groundbreaking deal with Impact to source and develop original IP for feature films across four genres for the next year, seeing Impact as an innovative solution to augment their content pipeline. Since then, Impact has also partnered with Skydance to source television content for global audiences, and also with Imagine Entertainment to find a writer to hire for a new feature film project. Impact also launched its first international accelerator in 2020 – Impact Australia – in partnership with Screen Australia, Film Victoria, and other Australian government agencies, who sponsored the program.

There is nothing more powerful than stories. Stories have the ability to shape our global culture, launch movements, shine light on important issues, transport us to thrilling new worlds, make us laugh, make us cry, open our hearts, and change minds. But most of all, stories inspire us. They inspire us to dream, to persevere, to overcome, and even to change the world. For that reason, we believe that we have a duty to create access to opportunities for storytellers from all around the world.

That’s our mission.