Participant (company)

Participant Media, LLC was an American independent film and television production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change. The company financed and co-produced film and television content, as well as digital entertainment through its subsidiary SoulPancake, which the company acquired in 2016.

The company was originally named Participant Productions and went on to become a well-known independent financier. The company's name descriptively politicizes its basis on currently topical subjects presented to induce awareness of problematic social aspects.

The company produced, financed, or co-produced 135 films and five television series. Its films have been nominated for 73 Academy Awards, and have won 18, including Best Picture for Green Book and Spotlight.

Participant, which earned B Corp certification in 2017, was the largest company that exclusively produces and finances social impact entertainment.

On April 16, 2024, Skoll announced that the company would be ceasing operations after two decades, with nearly all of its staff being dismissed and development of new content shutting down entirely.

The company was founded in January 2004 as Participant Productions by Jeffrey Skoll, the "second employee" of eBay, with $100 million in cash from his personal funds. Its goal was to produce projects that would be both commercially viable and socially relevant.

Skoll was the company's first chief executive officer, but stepped down in August 2006. The firm's initial plans were to produce four to six films per year, each with a budget of $40 million. It focused on films in six areas – the environment, health care, human rights, institutional responsibility, peace and tolerance, and social and economic justice. It evaluated projects by running them past its creative executives first, only then assessing their cost and commercial viability, and analyzing their social relevance last. Once the decision was made to go ahead with production, the company asked non-profit organizations to build campaigns around the release. In some cases, the studio has spent years creating positive word-of-mouth with advocacy groups, which are often encouraged to use the film to push their own agendas.

The new company quickly announced an ambitious slate of productions. Its first film was the drama film American Gun (2005), with equity partner IFC Films. Two weeks later, the company announced a co-production deal with Warner Bros. on two films – the geopolitical thriller film Syriana (2005) and the drama film Class Action (later re-titled North Country) (2005). Participant Productions contributed half the budget of each film. Its fourth production, a documentary film, was announced in November 2004. Titled The World According to Sesame Street (2005), the film examined the impact of the children's television show Sesame Street on world culture, focusing on Kosovo, Bangladesh, South Africa and El Salvador. At the same time, the company began to implement an environmentally friendly strategy: Syriana was the company's first carbon-neutral production, and the company created carbon offsets for the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (2006).