UNCHARITABLE: Director Stephen Gyllenhaal Talks About His New Documentary

Introduction

A new truly eye-opening documentary UnCharitable, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, is an illuminating look at how, in our ever-changing world, corporations are still consumed by the bottom line and charities are left to solve our world’s greatest issues while routinely facing pushback every step of the way.

UnCharitable features the humanitarian activist Dan Pallotta, the brainchild behind the AIDS Ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which he then expanded to nine other major cities across the US. He also created the three-day walks for Breast Cancer beginning in 1998, which raised money for the cause more quickly than any event in history. Additionally, his groundbreaking Ted Talk “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong” called out the double standard that drives our broken relationships to charity.

The Talk has been viewed more than six million times and has inspired conversations about how charities can be more effective and how we can support them. UnCharitable looks at the five points Dan addresses in his Talk and includes conversations with the CEOs and founders of notable charities. What if charity could be transformed from a gesture to an answer— to solving the world’s greatest problems? What if everything we’ve been taught about charitable giving is wrong? What if it’s undermining the very causes, we love the most? “Uncharitable” is a one-of-a-kind movie that shows how our charitable traditions and prejudices have suffocated the charitable sector and prevented it from leading the charge to truly change the world.

Based on the book, “Uncharitable,” by Dan Pallotta, which became one of the most talked-about TED talks of all time—changing everything from charity watchdog standards to the giving practices of America’s biggest foundations — UnCharitable follows the stories of four iconic American charitable efforts that were crippled or destroyed by old ideas. Step-by-step, and with a chorus of leading voices in the field, the movie shows how charity’s real power has been misunderstood and undermined by anachronistic ideas about frugality and deprivation and takes the viewer on a journey from sach-cloth and ashes to a place where unleashed, charities can play the leading role in creating an unimaginably beautiful world that works for everyone.

No topic is more crucial or timelier as we confront a world with increasingly complex problems, with the least of us left behind, and with the growing revelation that we are all interconnected and that our fate lies in our willingness to turn away from old ideas that have not worked and embraced radically new ones that can.

Offering an opportunity to address our own bias and reevaluate the way we think about charities, UnCharitable expands the conversation including interviews with Dorri McWhorter (President and CEO of YMCA of Chicago, Advisor First Women’s Bank), Scott Harrison (Charity Water) Steve Nardizzi (Wounded Warrior), Jason Russell (Konni 2012) and Edward Norton (CrowdRise), among others. The film leaves one with hope and a roadmap for the future.

Awesome, awesome, awesome! The only thing I’d change is taking out ‘documentary’. I prefer ‘movie’. It’s kind of like a Marvel movie.

Glen Dower:

I obviously really enjoyed it, not just because I am a movie geek, but also because of my experience within the industry of marketing, being a not-for-profit, with our minimal premises as we could not afford to be in the city where our target audience was. We were trying to build something. But as you say in the movie, people just aren’t willing to spend or invest their time, their money unless they get some kind of immediate return on that investment.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:

You have to wonder why. And I think the movie does, and Dan lays it out really clearly why it’s not because people are stupid. It’s a little bit because people weren’t stupid in the 1600s when the world looked to be flat. It’s like it doesn’t make any sense.

Glen Dower:

Let’s talk about Dan. What was the chain of events that led to him becoming your leading man, so to speak?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:

I knew him. I knew him as a friend. We were just buddies and we really saw the world in the same way and we didn’t really understand what the other one did. We were never really interested in what we did. If you do something in your life, you don’t think you’re that good at it ever. So if you’re actually doing stuff, you kind of feel like I’m screwing up half the time. So we didn’t ever really talk about what we did. He knew I made movies and he was kind of cool and I knew he did something in charity, so we just hung out and talked and really were really just good friends and it’s been that way all along.

And so then the first time I knew clearly what had happened. I was scouting locations in Canada, right near the coast. I remember I was driving down the coast, and came out of the production van. This whole thing had collapsed. Now, I kind of knew it was a big deal by then. I mean, I just had no time because I had two kids and I was raising them. They were a pain in the neck. They didn’t turn out very well. My two kids. I’m really disappointed!

When I would call him (Dan), it usually was a couple of days later, he was a busy guy. I called him, and he picked up and I said, what’s going on? He said, it’s all over, it’s done. I said, whoa! He said, ‘You’re like the third person who’s called me all day’ and said I’m now totally a pariah. That was my first real hint that there was something there because movies are dramatic. They have to be dramatic…It’s like a Marvel movie.

But then he went on with his life and I went on with mine and he moved to Boston. I stayed in LA and we would meet for lunch every once in a while. Then I made a documentary called In Utero, which has still been very impactful in the perinatal, prenatal…Still a very, very important movie and really has shifted some things in major ways. In some ways, it’s been one of the movers and shakers about trauma being the major thing that’s going on in the sector. I’m very into all that stuff too.

So he said, well, you just made this movie, you think there’s a movie about what happened to me? And I went, I don’t know. So, we’re having lunch, and I said, there’s something there, but it kind of feels like maybe a home movie with all this stuff in it. But then he told me…he began to lay out all the stories of other people, and I began to realize there was a systemic issue here that began
to feel interesting intellectually. But more importantly, from a filmmaker’s perspective, the stories were dramatic. I mean Jason Russell’s story, is very dramatic. But in each of the stories, the destruction of major successes was to me, the stuff of real movie-making.

So I began to kind of put it together and that was seven years ago. And I was thinking it would be while putting it together, I’ll do some other work, blah, blah, blah. Seven years later, I went from ‘I’m going to make a little movie’ to being totally committed, to understanding that, in a certain way, this movie has had…Lemme tell you a quick story. So I have these donors. I couldn’t get anybody to invest in this and I mean, it was like charity! So, I wanted to go to sleep and I don’t want to talk to you. You’re finished in this business, let your kids run it all. You’re done and you’re an idiot. So I couldn’t get any investors. I had to get donors.

I got some donors. Some really, really, really interesting donors and I am totally grateful for them because a movie is utterly overhead. There’s nothing about it that’s anything but overhead. I’m overhead. Any place I go, it’s overhead. Any video stuff I get, it’s overhead. The whole thing is
overhead. So it was a real break from tradition. Anyway, I took forever. From everyone’s point of view, everyone can make a movie better than you. That’s one thing I’ve learned early on. If they can watch a movie, can they then make one? Can you make a skyscraper? Can you go up in an
elevator? No, but I watch movies. Well, so I understand now.

People go, Steven, why is it taking you so long? Are you an adult now? Are you too old? You’re a grandfather? Should you get out of the business? And I’m going, well, no, I can’t figure out the ending and I can’t figure out this. And I got to shoot some more stuff and I’m having some technical problems. Then we had some issues with the Supreme Court decision that changed a lot of things we thought we had rights to and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It goes on and on forever.

So there was a point when I had a real rebellion among my donors. Two of ’em, in particular, were going, ‘We are really upset with this.’ They’re also functioning in the charitable sector where you go, ‘I’ve given you a lot of money.’ And they did. We raised almost $2 million to make the movie and to market it to where we are now. And I’ll tell you the next little step I’m playing with. Actually, my credit card is maxed out right now, the way it is with all independent makers. And I’m sort of hanging on by my fingernails. I haven’t been doing dramatic films.

So I was really in trouble and I went to where a couple of the donors were and showed, not a finished version of the film, but it was close. And in one second they went ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ I went back to Salt Lake, which is where it was, about six weeks later, again, trying to raise some more money. And there was a dinner. At the dinner, we asked one of the donors, Deloy Hanssen who said, ‘How has that movie impacted you?’ Then he said, ‘I want to tell you a story’ and I’ll tell you about it right now.’ So he said that about three or four days after I saw the movie, someone came to me from Ukraine and said, I want to build some homes outside of Kyiv.

And he said, before seeing the movie, I would’ve said ‘What about this? What about infrastructure? This and that.’ I said all I asked her was how do you scale it? How do you scale it? And she told me, and this was six weeks later. She said ‘Yesterday, one hundred thirty homes on trucks went out into Kyiv and around Kyiv and families moved into ’em.’ And I burst into tears. I’d never had a movie ever do anything like that.

Yesterday, I was talking with them. Two thousand homes are now around Kyiv, and that’s before the movie has even been released. Why am I having fun now? Because I think we’re going to turn this sector upside down and that people like you are going to have their offices in London where they should be because we’re talking about saving this planet. Well, the planet’s going to be fine, but the species deserves not only to survive but to thrive. And the potential of that when we are kind to each other, when we are charitable to each other is exponentially beyond comprehension as far as I’m concerned.

Glen Dower:

That’s what you want to hear, absolutely. As I said, I’m in education right now. I’m teaching business studies and teaching including corporate social responsibility, but what message should I be giving on your behalf to the future business leaders of tomorrow? What message should I give them apart from going to watch this movie?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:

Where are you now? Where are you now?

Glen Dower:

I live in Doha, Qatar. I’m from Ireland, I lived in London for 10 years. I lived in UAE for five, Spain for five. Now I’m in Doha with my family.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:

Cool. So I’d say, first of all, yes, watch the movie. Secondly, I don’t know, I’ve talked with so many people today. One of the things about charity is it helps people in need, rich people, middle-class people, and poor people, all in need of changing their minds about charity. So, we are a charitable culture, and what we’ve been doing with this is letting people see this movie for free in theaters and we’re setting up. If you live in a town, it’s now in thirty-four cities in the United States. I don’t know about Qatar, but I think we’re going to be in the UK. We’re going to be in Australia, we’re going to be in Canada. We’re sort of spreading out internationally.

As the movie kind of comes out, I think you can probably find a theater or two in Qatar. We’re playing around with four-walling it, which just means we can buy out the theater for a couple of screenings and give away free tickets because we’re getting that many donations. I’m trying to raise a million dollars. We’re doing three premiers, one in New York, one in Chicago, and one in LA. And they’re going to try and raise a million dollars to give away tickets to everyone.

Now, the interesting thing about it is, I’m not sure what cut of the movie you saw. Oh, you saw the movie a little while ago. You saw it before it was done. So there’s now a video at the end where Dan says, please donate so others can see this movie. And we’ve been finding, actually, the money we’re using right now is from doing two screenings, one in Toronto and one in Salt Lake where we raised enough money to pay for tickets in New York for the week. So the idea is to see the movie for free. A charity helps you, now you help other people. So all you have to do is go to the website. We have a team that’ll help you find a theater in Qatar. We can figure all these pieces out!

So, see the movie in a theater with other people. Even do a fundraiser there. I think one of the things I’m going to play with because I’m going to be in New York where we’re opening for a week and I’m there for part of it, I think I’m going to get up at the beginning of each screening (because I’m going to be at every single screening), even if there are only six people there, and say ‘before we do anything, turn to everyone around you and talk to each other for a minute.’ Just talk.

I have an eight-year-old and I talk to everybody now in the street and I discover that fifteen percent of the people say, ‘You are a crazy person.’ And eighty-five percent of the people are all in, all in. And there’s so much fun in talking to people. We have to just start talking to each other. So that’s the first part. The second part is to go to the website and sign the Uncharitable Pledge.

We’re trying to get thousands of people, which, really, after you see the movie, it’s supporting what the movie is talking about. The five things that are talked about, are the ‘Five Discriminations’, which we’re now calling the ‘Five Freedoms.’ It’s what all charitable organizations should be supporting. The freedom of doing those things. And somebody, who’s in the for-profit business, who really, in a Q and A, just went after me about this and that, and then, later on, donated a big chunk of money, said that charitable pledge is the roadmap that for-profits have used to scale. 

So, it’s about getting involved, thinking it through, signing the pledge, and then getting involved with organizations at scale. And then use the movie to go to your donors and say, you have to pay me decently, and if you pay me decently as the CEO, I will then be able to pay the people underneath me decently. And you need to let me do marketing. You let me take risks. And I don’t care what part of the world you’re in. This is an engine for really making a difference. So that’s all they have to do.

Glen Dower:

You have my word on that. Well, Sir, I know my time is up and it’s been an absolute pleasure to meet you. The film is excellent and I will be an advocate in any way I can.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Directed by Stephen Gyllenhall, UnCharitable was given a limited theatrical release starting on September 22, 2023. The film is being distributed by Abramorama.

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