Talmage Cooley

Background

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Cooley worked as a bond trader at Morgan Stanley in New York. In the mid-1990s he left Wall Street and began directing television commercials, including some for prominent social mission organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Partnership for a Drug Free America. Through this work, he began researching how large-scale social messaging efforts could successfully shift cultural norms and launch grassroots movements. This led to his founding of The Gun Violence Project, a collaboration with The Creative Coalition, and then co-founding The Center to Prevent Youth Violence (originally called PAX). In 2012, Cooley graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School with a master's degree focused on democratic inclusion, social network theory and movement building. This research informed the launch of Democracy.com, an online platform for civic engagement that "empowers every citizen to take action on the issues and elections they care about in under 60 seconds".

Social Entrepreneurship: Center to Prevent Youth Violence & Democracy.com

In 1994, Cooley founded The Gun Violence Project, a non-profit organization with the mission to reposition the gun violence issue as an urgent matter of public health rather than the seemingly intractable political wedge issue it had become. In 1996, The Gun Violence Project, in collaboration with The Creative Coalition, created its first campaign (voice-over by Alec Baldwin), which focused on the dangers of kids taking their parents' guns to school. In 1997, The Gun Violence Project merged into a new organization called PAX [1], founded by Cooley and Daniel Gross, an advertising executive whose brother was wounded in the shooting atop the Empire State Building in 1997.

By 2000, PAX had become the largest non-lobbying organization working on gun violence prevention as a result of the success and rapid expansion of its ASK and SPEAK UP campaigns. These campaigns pioneered a new approach to the gun violence issue, designed to have immediate impact on the frequency of gun deaths and injuries while also shifting the national dialogue around guns to a prevention-driven, public health and safety orientation. This innovative, non-partisan approach to gun violence prevention represented a stark contrast to the politics-based framing which had dominated the issue for many years without significant success. In 2011, PAX officially changed its name to The Center to Prevent Youth Violence to better reflect the youth and family focus of its prevention driven campaigns. Cooley resigned as co-CEO of The Center to Prevent Youth Violence in 2004 but remained on the organization's Board of Trustees until its merger with the Brady Center in 2012. By 2017, the ASK and SPEAK UP campaigns had been active for over 17 years, and remain the leading public health and safety campaigns dedicated to gun violence prevention in the US, with over 19 million Americans signing the ASK Pledge (www.askingsaveskids.org) and over 31 million parents reporting that they ask their neighbors about guns where their kids play.

In 2012, Cooley founded Democracy.com as a result of his master's degree research at the Harvard Kennedy School. The company launched its proof-of-concept site in 2014, which connected candidates and civic organizations with citizen supporters. The site was awarded "Best Technology Innovation" by the American Association of Political Consultants, "Best Fundraising Platform" by Campaign and Elections Magazine and "Top Campaign and Organizing Tool" by Campaign Workshop. The company's proof-of-concept site achieved over 30% month on month growth in 2014-2016 and reached over a million users. The company's second generation site is now under construction and scheduled for late 2017 launch. The second generation site will introduce a "full-scale marketplace model for civic and political engagement that connects every citizen with every public official, candidate and civic organization." Democracy.com's stated mission is to "make citizen action as easy as buying a book online", and the site is built upon the largest ever database of civic and political engagement opportunities, with over 10 million engagement opportunities in the US.

Photography

In 1999, Cooley co-authored a photo essay book with Kate Spade Fashions and Partners & Spade co-founder Andy Spade entitled Public Love, published by Chronicle Books. The book documented first person accounts of amorous acts conducted in public spaces, juxtaposed with Cooley's photographs of the spaces when empty. Paper Magazine's review of the book said: "The subjects' plain words convey the spontaneity of desire, as well as the apprehension and fear (of getting caught, perhaps, but sometimes of one's partner) inherent in an act that blurs the boundary between public and private."

Cooley's editorial photography has been featured in The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Independent and other newspapers, magazines and books published in the US and Europe. His fine art work was shown in the former CBGB art gallery "CB's 313" next door to the now demolished club on the Bowery in New York City.

Film

In 2004, Cooley wrote and directed his first film, Pol Pot's Birthday, a short satirical comedy which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, won numerous Best Film awards at festivals worldwide, and is included in the Sundance Collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). The film was featured in American Cinematographer magazine for its evocative use of digital cinematography. The film's style of awkward comedy has been compared to the BBC television series "The Office".

In 2005, Cooley directed a short documentary, Dimmer, about a gang of blind teenagers who roam the streets of the bleak industrial neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York. Featuring a score by the band Interpol, Dimmer premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary, and won numerous international Best Film awards as well as being exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and included in its Sundance Collection.

Cooley's first feature film was the comedy Patriotville (renamed Taking Chances by Lions Gate Entertainment), featuring Justin Long, Rob Corddry, Nick Offerman, Keir O'Donnell and Emmanuelle Chriqui. The film, a satirical take on greed and corruption in small town America, was shot in South Carolina and West Virginia and was released by Lions Gate Entertainment in 2009.

Cooley's films have won over 20 Best Film and other honors, and he has been profiled in a number of magazines, such as The Fader [2], Create, and RES Magazine. He was selected for the "RES Magazine 10 Top Talents" issue and named by Screen International as one of "10 Talents to Watch"

Filmography

Source: IMDB

Film awards

Sundance Film Festival—Premiere (2 films)
2006 Academy Awards—Short Documentary Shortlist
Worldwide Short Film Festival (Toronto) -- Best Film
Curtas Vila Do Cordo Festival (Portugal) -- Best Short Documentary
Seattle One Reel Festival—Best Film
Asian American Film Festival—Best Short Film
Nashville Film Festival—Special Mention
Aspen Film Festival—Silver Prize
NY Museum of Modern Art—Sundance Collection (2 films)
Hammer Museum LA—Special Exhibition
RESfest—Best Film
RESfest—Special Jury Prize
RiverRun Festival—Best Documentary Short
Dubrovnik Film Festival (Croatia) -- Best Short Film
Newport Beach Film festival—Best Screenplay
Filmstock Festival (UK) -- Best Film
Filmstock Festival (UK) -- Best Concept
Grenada Film Festival (Spain) - Best Cinematography
Silverlake Film Festival—Festival Director’s Prize
St. Louis Film Festival—Best Short Film

Source: Footnotes