Our Team
Founded by the Global Director of Impact for the award-winning film Unrest.
laurie jones
Laurie Jones is an impact producer and artist who is passionately committed to stories that drive social change. Laurie was the Global Director of Impact for the Sundance awarding-winning film, Unrest, which led to her work with #MEAction. The impact campaign won the 2019 hi5 award. Read the case study here.
Laurie worked for five years organizing outreach and educational screenings for Brave New Films, particularly the film Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA where she helped secure over 1,000 screenings of the film. She also designed educational materials and organized screenings for dozens of films for audiences including Senator Cory Booker, Harvard University and the University of Chicago. These films included Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, This is Crazy: Criminalizing Mental Illness, Racism is Real, and To Prison for Poverty.
Most recently she ran the impact campaign for Exclusion U along with Sara Mountjoy-Pepka about Ivy League exclusionary acceptance policies. She has a BA in Production Studies from Clemson University and an MA in Applied Human Rights from the University of York.
co-founder
sara mountjoy-pepka
Sara Mountjoy-Pepka began impact work with Laurie Jones in 2021, most recently collaborating on the impact campaign for Exclusion U, a documentary film about Ivy League exclusionary acceptance policies.
Prior to Filmpact!, Sara majored in Social Policy at Northwestern University. She spent four years as Director of Action for @Advocacy, crafting action strategies for grassroots organizers and everyday voters and working with political campaigns to build their contact lists. During her four years at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she served as Assistant Manager, Annual Fund, executing a $4 million annual fundraising campaign, and later contracting with the Special Events team on multi-million dollar galas and opening nights. She co-created and managed Under-35 Boards at both The Chicago Chamber Musicians and the YMCA of King/Snohomish County to cultivate and invigorate the next generation of philanthropists and change-makers, and has managed more silent auctions than she can count.
As an artist, Sara has also directed and produced dozens of theatrical runs in Seattle and Los Angeles, including the smash-hit immersive Jane Austen UnScripted tea party experience at the Garry Marshall Theatre. She is deeply invested in using art and supporting fellow artists to create positive change in the world, and date-nights with her husband regularly include a good documentary and discussion for days.
co-founder
KATIE jones
Katie Jones is arts educator committed to connecting art and communities for over twenty years. At major regional theatres Asolo Rep, Northlight Theatre, and Steppenwolf, she produced arts curricula, study guides, teacher workbooks and dramaturgical packets to increase audience engagement, and also directed programming for adults with developmental disabilities and seniors. At American Theatre Company, Katie worked in conjunction with BEHIV (Better Existence with HIV), Safe Harbor Family Crisis Center, Alcoholics Anonymous, The Center on Halsted for the LGBTQ+ community to create theatrical safe spaces, organize field trips, and cultivate specialized talkbacks, putting art into tangible action. She was also a curriculum creator and artist for Chicago Communities in Schools, bringing arts into the classroom to address issues such as truancy and bullying. In Colorado, Katie worked on the 7/20 Project at Naropa University, addressing gun violence via interviews from the 2012 Aurora movie theatre shooting, and also utilized Theatre of the Oppressed to address the intersection of immigration and Denver Health System.
Now living in Asheville, NC, she works with a variety of arts organizations including Asheville Creative Arts / Hood Huggers International, the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, Immediate Theatre Project and The Magnetic Theatre. In 2023, in conjunction with the North Carolina Arts Council, Katie directed and produced Da Classroom Ain't Enuf by Charles Payne, addressing the systemic racism and achievement gaps prevalent in American schools, including workshops and talkbacks with local community centers, schools and churches.
She has a BA in Production Studies from Clemson University and and MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University.