Our programming focuses on advocacy, culture change, capacity building, inner resilience, and strategic partnerships with Hollywood leaders. Together, we mobilize collective power for a more just future.
Our Approach:
Advocacy
Monthly calls to educate the HARNESS community on the most pressing issues of our moment from the leaders in impacted communities, and to inspire collaboration and action.
Economics
A virtual salon series that will offer knowledge, tools, and insights on the systems and structures of business and money to empower the community to embrace their agency and not just survive, but thrive.
Culture
A series of workshops designed to help the HARNESS community better understand approaches to shaping and influencing culture, and inspire them to collaborate towards this work.
Resilience
An arc of programming designed by a HARNESS community member Practitioner in Residence offering spaces of belonging, practices of inner fortification, and tools to build relationships and communities of care.
Industry Impact
Piloted programming to support community members in creating and distributing diverse stories from audiences often overlooked by industry systems.
Programming Hilights:
HARNESS Retreat
In 2017, HARNESS launches its Retreat program and hosts 100 activists and artists for a three-day retreat to build meaningful relationships, learn more about the issues pressing our communities, and discover ways to collaborate.
To date, HARNESS has hosted 5 retreats convening over 300 organizers and artists.
Coldplay and Criminal Justice Reform
HARNESS partnered with Grammy award-winning Coldplay for a special two-night sold-out benefit concert series at The Palladium in Hollywood, raising $500,000 in support of two pivotal organizations in the HARNESS community advocating for prison reform.
HARNESS Mainstage
In 2017, we convened over 400 leaders and influencers for a conversation around protecting our most vulnerable communities. The event featured 10 organizations, 20 speakers, 5 performances, and ultimately ignited over 130+ collaborations and reached over 110 million people globally.
To date, HARNESS has convened and nurtured a community of over 800activists, artists, and industry leaders across three Mainstage events.
Every Vote Counts
HARNESS co-produced Every Vote Counts: A Celebration of Democracy on October 29, 2020, five days before the end of the 2020 election, on CBS. The major broadcast was viewed over 7 million times.
Industry Impact
In 2017, NBC invited HARNESS to curate a panel of activists for NBC’s Showrunners Convening to speak on the importance of representation on television. As a result, several shows committed to writing characters from these communities into their storylines – most notably, This is Us featured a Sikh character inspired by our conversation. The episode aired to 8.4 million viewers.
Over the past eight years, HARNESS has also advised on cultural strategy for Netflix’sGentefied series, has hosted several narrative change panels for Netflix and Paramount, and has convened showrunners and decision makers at its Industry Power Gathering.