Population Media Center, Inc.

Population Media Center’s vision is a sustainable planet with equal rights for all. We want to transform societies by transforming relationships. Population Media Center (PMC) understands that with current population growth (more than 220,000 people per day) and constantly increasing consumption, people are destroying the planet. Climate change, ocean levels, increased natural disasters – they all demonstrate the increasingly volatile nature of our world.

Population Media Center focuses on global sustainability – not only to prevent devastating losses for people and planet from staying this course – but also to build and celebrate the possibilities presented if we are able to change this story.

Our worldwide team of scientists, artists, and advocates turn popular entertainment – wisely, compassionately, and always justly – into a force for global good. The world we’re working toward is equitable and flourishing. People have the power to change their lives and communities for the better.

The stories we create change the way we see ourselves and each other. We focus on women and girls because empowering women and girls is imperative for their own rights and well-being and it will also stop population growth. It will also enable powerful new ideas and implementors to get involved and contribute to the global sustainability movement.

Celebrating girls around the world – recognizing their dreams, their potential, their value – will fundamentally change the fabric of our society. Imagine a world not threatened by their greatness, by the unknown potential that begs to be discovered within them. Imagine a world drawn to that greatness. This is the transformation, piece by piece, we undertake with our shows. We reach huge audiences, striving to make sure that women and girls can make their own decisions, determine their own futures.

Trained in the art and science of storytelling for social impact, we are working to build a world where all people are valued. A world where extreme social and economic disparities are understood to be detriments and mindfully and immediately remediated. A world where everyone has their basic needs met and people can live in harmony with each other and the natural world. We make the shows that remake our world, beginning with the treatment of women and girls, focused on equality and global sustainability.

We’re raising global sustainability through community empowerment on the most human level—by telling transformative stories.

Our award-winning, locally produced radio and video series—featuring transformational characters, familiar communities, and very real choices—have inspired planet-positive behavior change. Trained in the art and science of storytelling for social impact, we partner with local talent and production teams in countries around the world to create award-winning, popular entertainment for TV, radio, and the web that is life-changing.

Humans have always told stories as a way to understand, share, and shift beliefs and behaviors. Since 1998, PMC’s award-winning, locally produced radio and video series have combined behavioral theory, media industry insight, and character-driven, culturally relevant storylines. Our transformative approach empowers by entertaining—at scale, by popular demand, and for global good.

Our Theory of Change is a reproducible formula for creating hit entertainment works across people, places, and media environments and it’s designed to impact multiple social, health, and environmental challenges. We engage audiences, change ideas, and empower people to make better-informed decisions.

Our theory of change is based on extensive formative research that allows us to work with in-country production teams made up of individuals from that community to build an entertainment property that truly centers the audience. We build in multiple pretests — including the first episodes, marketing materials, and the show's brand — to get feedback before launch. During broadcast, which often extends over many months or years so that the audience can grow and change at a reasonable rate of change along with their favorite characters, we create multiple channels for audience engagement. We want to continuously learn from the audience to understand how the show is being understood, how the characters are resonating, and where the audience is in what is called the "stages of change." We must understand and track the audience's progress in order to understand what is needed and correctly model within the show.

To date, we have entertained people across more than 50 countries, in more than 30 languages. Our scientifically proven approach to transformative storytelling has helped more than a half billion people — and counting — change their lives, communities, and environments for the better. We have worked with schools, clinics, crisis and help hotlines, and other service providers to drive people toward essential resources that prior to our show were "taboo" or "not trusted." We work collaboratively alongside fellow nonprofits, foundations, governments, and UN agencies.

As we've said before, addressing the most pressing, fundamental threats to global sustainability where it matters most—in human hearts and minds—we inspire entire communities to choose a healthier, more equitable, and flourishing world for all.

We have worked across 30+ languages, 50+ countries, and impacted 500+ million lives. It’s a good start, but it’s not enough. Population Media Center (PMC) is dedicated to continued and increased impact — learning from every project, every failure, and every success. Our staff, at headquarters and in the writing and production teams around the world, are incredibly talented. And our theory of change, which drives our entire methodology in creating our powerful entertainment that transforms lives, is reproducible and successful across people, places, and media markets. These three things make up the heart of our organization and our ability to succeed: a dedication to constantly learning, talented people, and a powerful intervention. We've been telling stories and creating impact for more than 20 years.

Population Media Center's niche — impacting hearts and minds — builds a clear understanding of how and where to work. We work on social norms. All people are immersed in, and contribute to, the dominant social norms of their community. PMC works on deep-seated, harmful norms and behaviors. We specialize in catalyzing change with long-running entertainment, effecting change where isolated service provision or direct messaging cannot. All too often, many or most times actually, a school or a clinic or some other important service already exists within a community — but people do not use it.

What we do is not easy. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes a deep curiosity and humility. Every place, every audience, and every issue is different. But our learning, our people, and our formula for social impact entertainment allows us to understand an audience, a media landscape, and service provider landscape to determine how we can impact interpersonal relationships and social norms. We can help make it "normal" for women to have a say in how many children she has with her husband. We can help make it "normal" to use a clinic.

PMC produced East Los High as a Hulu original series and the show rose to be one of the top five shows on hulu.com during its first season and received six Emmy nominations. Because PMC hires producers, writers, and actors from the community we’re trying to reach, East Los High was Hollywood’s first and only series with an all Latino cast. It drew more than one million unique visitors to Hulu’s Latino page each month and was written about in publications like the American Journal of Public Health for its impact on issues like adolescent sexual and reproductive health. StayTeen.org’s website traffic doubled on the day East Los High launched and 22 percent of Planned Parenthood’s total “the check” widget visits during the first season were accessed through the East Los High website.

For over two decades, PMC has partnered with like-minded organizations to amplify diverse social and environmental change efforts in service of a single, shared goal: a healthier, more equitable, and more flourishing world. Working collaboratively alongside fellow non-profits, foundations, governments, and UN agencies, our scientifically proven approach to transformative storytelling has helped more than 500 million people change their lives and communities for the better. Acting together, with integrity, transparency, and the highest ethical standards, PMC and our partners continue to deliver measurable, meaningful community empowerment through the power of popular entertainment—program after program, year after year. And we don’t plan to cut to the credits anytime soon. There’s more work to be done.

We continue to entertain audiences around the world – assessing where we’re the most needed and where we can have the biggest impact. We work in complicated media markets, like the United States, and simpler media markets, like Burundi. We’ve garnered Emmy nominations and awards, but more importantly, we’ve improved lives. Communities have rallied around children to prevent child marriage, citing Population Media Center characters, shows, and values. Husbands and wives have come to discuss childbearing, giving women a say in how many children they have. Fathers have been shocked to find themselves labeled after negative characters by their children, realizing their behavior is harmful.

These are the types of impact PMC shows can have: fundamentally impacting our most precious relationships and our deepest held beliefs. And these shows can accomplish this at a cost-per-impact of as little as $0.30 USD.

Imagine what we can do in the decades to come.

We are dedicated to continued learning and application as more and more is understood about social norms, how to create impact that stands the tests of time, and behavior change theory. We're also dedicated to constant learning and application of new and evolving storytelling platforms and strategies. We know that whatever the future looks like, we need to adapt and be adept. We need to maintain our creativity. And we know time is of the essence. There are people out there not being given the opportunity to determine their own future. And global sustainability becomes more distant with every day where there is not dramatic change.

Cent for cent, measure by measure, Population Media Center hit shows generate community-empowering, planet-positive behavior change for every dollar donated. We're working for a flourishing tomorrow.