Questions about the Magnum Cultural Foundation

I’m posting up some questions again that were posted a while back by iamnotasuperstarphotographer (note I said that quietly) about the Magnum Cultural Foundation. They originally appeared in response to this post of mine. David Alan Harvey, who insists he is notasuperstarphotographereither, has said he will answer any questions around the MCF. Hopefully we can have a discussion around this, and maybe crowd funding here and on the Burn blog. If you have any questions for David about the MCF or crowdfunding, whack them up here ( in less than 1000 words please ;)) and hopefully David will provide the burning duckrabbit with answers.

Questions from the original post:

1. How do you get invited… do you have to lobby your contacts? Go to the right private views? Know the right people?

2. Lets say duckrabbit get invited to submit a proposal. You spend loads of time on it. Given the proposal will be for “10 to 20 photographers—based on the strength of their proposals and the importance of the issues they propose to address—to support.” – what are you going to feel about giving your time through an invitation and not be in the 10 to 20 out of 100?

Would your proposal not be strong enough, or important enough?

3. Would there be any conflict of interest if Magnum photographers get many of the grants?

4. How is it going to be held accountable if it is based on the opinions of a very small amount of people (say if a story is chosen that is culturally controversial for example)?

5. What is the criteria for success given there appears to be no mention of audience building or public participation?

6. Without the ability to know if a closed top down structure is working or not, how can you get the information to change and adapt to be more effective?