Volunteer of the Week: Pauline Zalkin

Safe Passage, January 4, 2016


Paulinephoto

Pauline Zalkin is the Founder and Creative Director of Fineas Media, a digital storytelling agency for social impact. Fineas raises empathy and drives social action through film, photography, and social media.

In 2015, Fineas Media launched the Fineas Storytelling Grants, awarding pro bono short film projects to showcase the work of small but highly innovative and impactful organizations in New York City and New Orleans.

 

Safe Passage was chosen as one of the grantees in 2015, in recognition of its incredible achievements in effectively advocating for hundreds of immigrant children. Pauline also appreciated its service delivery model, leveraging the time and talent of pro bono attorneys. Immigration also happens to be an issue close to her heart, having come to the United States from Moscow with refugee status as a young child with her family.

 

For Safe Passage, Fineas Media produced a video to aide in their recruitment of additional pro bono attorneys. This video will be released in January 2016.

As a social enterprise, Fineas Media’s theory of change is that by pushing the boundaries of art, storytelling and media, we can raise the empathy needed to fuel meaningful social action in solving the world’s most pressing challenges.

 

Pauline started her career in startegic communications and digital strategy for social impact organizations. She began her first serious photography project while on an extended consulting trip in Latin America. Very quickly she began to see the enormous power of telling stories visually, which almost immediately brought her to film. Her obsession with personal, emotional, and highly cinematic visual storytelling has only grown since then, and led her to start Fineas Media.

 

Safe Passage looks forward to working with Pauline and Fineas Media in the future. We cannot thank her enough for all the hard work she has done telling the Safe Passage Project story. She is a true professional with amazing creativity and she and her team do absolutely incredible work.

 

You can follow Pauline @storypau. Twitter.com/storypau** or visit her website at Fineas website