Some people assume I’m a wealthy Hollywood producer, flush with cash to fund a little hobby-film about growth addiction. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Producing the documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth has turned out to be an exercise in involuntary simplicity. The first few years I continued taking on corporate film projects — to keep the lights on and to support the non-profit film. I also ran through my retirement savings. This year I mothballed the corporate work to devote full attention to finishing GrowthBusters – so we can release the film in the first half of 2011.

It’s not easy to attract major funding for a film project that questions the most fundamental beliefs powering our current system. Most people or organizations with money got that money by operating successfully in our growth-based system. It’s a pretty small slice of the universe of potential funders (both individuals and foundations) who are visionary enough to support a project this radical. . . .

Some visitors to GrowthBusters, and maybe even many of our fans, may not realize we are depending on financial contributions (tax-deductible in the U.S.) to produce our non-profit documentary, Hooked on Growth. 

A glance at the fundraising thermometer upper right will show you we’re making progress, but we have a long way to go. We’ll finish the film even if we fall short of the goal. But the closer we can get to $250,000, the fewer important ingredients we have to leave out of the film and the distribution plan. The film can have a lot more impact if we can afford an original music score. Stock footage? Costs money. Color correction? Money. Animation? Serious money (though we’re trying to get some of this donated to the project). Then, it would be a shame to have a great film but no money to spend on publicity to make sure millions see it. You get the picture.   DONATE HERE! . . .

Submit your creative design in the Growthbusters ad design contest to help develop ads for use by organizations, bloggers and other supporters on the web. You and other supporters will vote, and we’ll use the best to spread the word about the Growthbusters Hooked on Growth documentary project.

To enter, email your ad to community@growthbusters.org. Entered ads will be posted to the Growthbusters Facebook Page for voting by our fans. All submissions are due on or before September 24th.

By submitting an ad you give Citizen-Powered Media all rights to use your ad as we see fit, and you warrant that you own the rights to use all elements of your ad. We’ll try to give winners we use plenty of acclaim. Ads must be able to fit into standard web advertisement sizes in terms of pixels into one of three categories to be entered in a jpeg format: . . .

A few weeks ago I got a phone call from Australia. A gentleman named Dick Smith was on the line and he was very complimentary about our film project. Quickly I was brought up to speed on this man and his new, noble effort to get the world talking about limits to growth and into a recovery program for growth addiction.

$1m cash to save civilization

That was the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald last week as Mr. Smith announced his one million dollar Wilberforce Award – a grant to be awarded to someone under 30 “who can impress me by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.” . . .

That’s my line in the opening tease for this recent conversation on Peak Moment TV. If I do say so myself, this is a good metaphor to explain how we’re fiddling around at the margins while we fail to recognize we’re participants in a growth-seeking system that has us locked on a collision course with limits to growth.

Janaia Donaldson interviews Dave Gardner on Peak Moment

I’m happy to share this interview produced by Janaia Donaldson and Robin Mallgren of Peak Moment TV. They gave me an outstanding opportunity to explain the what and why of my upcoming documentary, Hooked on Growth. If you want to understand what the non-profit GrowthBusters film project is all about, watch this interview. . . .