Major gifts filmmaking
Film that wins
£500k+ gifts.
We do major gifts filmmaking: documentary built to win six and seven figure donations and partnerships for charities. Made for the person in the room. Priced against the gift.
Thirty minutes. No slides, no pitch. Your gift calendar on the table.
01 · Why now
The money moved.
given by the British public last year, down from £15.4bn. The first fall since 2021.
fewer people give to charity than a decade ago. 69% of adults gave in 2016. 55% give now.
a year: growth in giving by wealthy individuals since 2020.
given by people with £1m or more in investable assets in 2024 alone.
Fewer people are giving, and the ones who stop tend to stay stopped. If you run fundraising, none of that is news. Here is the part that gets said less: exceptional gifts have been the biggest driver of charity income growth four years running.
Year after year, when a charity's fundraising income grows, the reason is the same: an exceptional gift. Not a better appeal. One large gift, from one decision, made by one person.3
3 Status of UK Fundraising, 2023 to 2025: share of income-growing charities crediting exceptional gifts
02 · Two languages
The appeal speaks to everyone.
The ask speaks to one person.
Winning the public and winning a seven figure donor are two different languages. Nearly every charity, and nearly every film company serving them, is fluent in the first language. We work in the second.
Made for everyone.
- Speaks to the crowd
- Measured in reach
- Wins £65 at a time
- Starts from zero every campaign
Made for the person in the room.
- Speaks to one person, in one room, making one decision
- Measured against the gift
- Wins six and seven figures at a time
- Compounds: the evidence from this gift wins the next one
If the board keeps asking what replaces the grant money, if there is a campaign target on the wall that mostly has to come from a handful of donors, if your corporate partner's renewal case is currently a PDF: that is the room our films are built for.
03 · What holds a donor back
Confidence, not generosity.
of wealthy donors say difficulty seeing a charity's impact is a barrier to giving more.
the average wealthy donor now gives a year, more than double 2019's £5,500. The money is there.
4 Bayes Business School × Barclays Private Bank, October 2025
The same research found wealthy donors are most motivated to give when a charity shows them its goal, its approach and its impact, clearly. That is the whole game.
What holds a wealthy donor back is confidence: clarity about the organisation, proof of delivery, impact they can see. A documentary builds that in a way no written case ever has.
04 · The briefing
Read the transcript
Last year the British public gave fourteen billion pounds to charity. The year before, it was fifteen point four. Over the same stretch, giving by wealthy individuals has grown around eighteen percent per year. If you work in fundraising, those statistics shouldn't surprise you.
My name is Matt Benn. I make films that win the second line: six and seven figure gifts, that are decided by one person, in one room. Give me two minutes and I will show you why most charity films do not work in that room, and how working with us could change how you and your team fundraise.
There are about six million fewer donors in Britain than a decade ago. Meanwhile, exceptional gifts have been the biggest driver of charity income growth four years running. So that money did not disappear. It just moved.
Winning the public and winning a seven figure donor are two different languages. A broad appeal speaks to everyone. Our method speaks to one person, in one room, making one increasingly vital decision. Nearly every charity, and nearly every film company serving them, is fluent in the first language. Almost nobody works in the second.
You will know if this is your room. The board keeps asking what replaces the grant money.
We call this method, major gifts filmmaking. The year is planned off your gift calendar, not a social media or content calendar. Every film is made for the person in the room rather than the crowd. And we keep filming after the gift lands, so the second gift comes easier than the first, and the renewal of major gifts becomes second nature.
Our prices are public, and the first shoot of a residency carries a money-back guarantee. As far as we know, no other studio in our field can say either.
Bring us your gift calendar. Thirty minutes, no slides, no pitch. Everything else is at majorgiftfilms.com.
The prices are published further down, in the menu. The calendar call sits at the foot of the page.
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05 · Who we are
We have spent ten years filming inside charities, from Nairobi to Antarctica, spending real time with the people in front of our lens, so the films sound like the people in them.
That craft now points at one job: major gifts filmmaking. Film built to win six and seven figure donations and partnerships.
A collective, not an agency.
Major Gift Films is led by Matt Benn, and every project is crewed by a hand-picked circle of filmmakers, photographers and editors we have worked with for years. You meet the exact people who will shoot your film before anything is signed, and there is no account manager between you and them.
Meet us over lunch. It's on us.
06 · How it works
Built from inside the
fundraising team.
Major gifts filmmaking has a method, and the method is why it cannot be bought by the project.
The gift calendar
The year's work is planned off your gift calendar, never a content calendar. Which campaign case closes this quarter, which donor meeting is in November, which partner renews in spring. Every shoot exists because an ask exists.
The audience of one
Mass fundraising films are made for everyone. Ours are made for the person in the room: the film a campaign director plays a named donor over dinner, the evidence cut for one foundation's criteria, the re-pitch built around what one corporate board cares about.
The evidence loop
The work runs past the gift, documenting what the money did in the faces of the people it changed, so the second gift and the renewal come easier than the first.
Accountable to the ask. Priced against the gift.
07 · Selected work
The craft is the part
we can show you.
Films play through Vimeo. The player loads only when you press play, and we load it with Do Not Track switched on. Our cookies policy explains what it stores.
Every one of these films had a job. Tell us about the ask yours needs to win.
Book a calendar call08 · The gift math
Priced against the gift.
A year of the Residency is £8,500 a month: £102,000, pointed at asks worth £500,000 each. Slide the gift you are pursuing and see what the year costs against it.
Arithmetic on our published price. The first shoot carries a money-back guarantee.
10 · The practical details
Insurance
We carry £5m public liability and £1m professional indemnity cover. Certificates are available on request.
Safeguarding
Crew filming with children or vulnerable adults hold enhanced DBS checks, and we work to a written safeguarding policy.
Consent & dignity
We follow Bond's ethical storytelling guidelines. Contributors see how they are represented, and their wellbeing outranks the edit.
Who owns the films
You do. The finished films are yours to use forever. We keep the raw footage safely archived, so future cuts and the evidence loop never start from nothing.
Billing
Prices are fixed and agreed in writing before anything is signed. Retainers are billed quarterly, and we are used to working with procurement teams.
The process
You enquire, we meet over lunch, and then you get a written treatment with a fixed price. We only shoot once both sides are sure.
11 · Got an ask?
Bring us the ask.
The first call is thirty minutes: your gift calendar on the table, what each ask needs, and whether we are the right people to build it. If we are not, we will say so.
Matt Benn
Founder · Director
Your enquiry comes straight to him.
Thank you. Your enquiry is in.
You'll hear from us within one working day, usually today.