Participant Media, LLC was an American independent film and television production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change.

[34] The company also began its first socially relevant outreach project, helping to finance screenings of the biographical film Gandhi (1982) in the Palestinian territories for the first time as well as in the countries of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

[35] In support of its upcoming film, An Inconvenient Truth, the studio negotiated a deal for distributor Paramount Classics to donate five percent of its U.S. domestic theatrical gross box-office receipts (with a guarantee of $500,000) to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

[38] In June, the company announced it would partner with New Line Cinema (a subsidiary of Warner Bros.) to produce The Crusaders, a drama about Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States which ended racial segregation in public schools.

[42][43] Finally, in December, the company agreed to finance and produce the documentary film Man from Plains (2007), directed by Jonathan Demme, that followed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as he promoted his political-science book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006).

[60] The same month, the company hired veteran Showtime producer John Moser to oversee development and production of original programs for television and home cable.

[7] In April, it closed a deal with Warner Independent to turn Randy Shilts' biographical book, The Mayor of Castro Street (1982) into a film,[62] but the project entered development hell, as well as the feature-length documentary about the 2007 Live Earth concert later.

[65] Participant then signed a co-production deal with State Street Pictures to finance the biographical drama, Bobby Martinez about the eponymous Latino surfer in November.

[66] The film entered development hell for nearly two years but hired Ric Roman Waugh to rewrite and direct in April 2009,[67] with supposed production by the beginning of 2012.

On January 16, 2008, it joined and made a financial contribution to a $100 million United Nations-sponsored fund which would provide backing for films which combatted religious, ethnic, racial, and other stereotypes.

A month later, the company announced it and Groundswell Productions were co-financing The Informant!, a comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon about the lysine price-fixing conspiracy at Archer Daniels Midland in the mid-1990s.

The company had only three films released during the year (Every Little Step, Pressure Cooker, and Standard Operating Procedure), and none of them was nominated for an award from a major arts organization.

In January, it announced that it would produce Paul Dinello's Mr. Burnout (about a burned out teacher seeking to rekindle his love of teaching)[83] and Furry Vengeance (a comedy starring Brendan Fraser about an Oregon real estate developer who is opposed by animals).

[84] In April, the company hired screenwriter Miles Chapman to pen an untitled environmentally themed action-adventure script about the hunt for a mystical gem in the heart of Africa.

The same month, the company agreed to co-finance (with Krasnoff/Foster Entertainment) a biographical drama titled History on Trial—which was intended to document the true story of Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish studies who was sued by Holocaust deniers David Irving for libel.

[96] The studio's hit documentary, Waiting for "Superman", garnered media acclaim, and Participant inked a worldwide distribution deal with Paramount shortly before its premiere at Sundance.

[100] It signed a deal with Planet Illogica (a website collaboratively produced by artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fashion designers) to generate a social action campaign associated with its documentary Oceans (which was released by Walt Disney Pictures).

[104] Based on the success of its Twilight Saga film series, Summit Entertainment announced on March 8, 2011, that it was making a $750 million debt refinancing with cash distribution to its investors, which included Participant Media.

[105] On June 5, The New York Times ran a major story about the studio, declaring: "Participant Media, the film industry's most visible attempt at social entrepreneurship, turned seven this year without quite sorting out whether a company that trades in movies with a message can earn its way in a business that has been tough even for those who peddle 3-D pandas and such.

[106] The company's biggest success to date, the newspaper noted, was 2007's Charlie Wilson's War ($66.7 million in gross domestic box office revenue).

[106] The advantage came in three areas: home video sales, the company's long-term attempts to build social movements around its films, and its stake in Summit Entertainment (which allowed it to win more favorable distribution terms).

[106] The company hoped that it would change this attitude about its films (and make money) with 2011's The Help (about racial reconciliation in the American South during the 1960s) and Contagion (a Steven Soderbergh picture about the outbreak of a virulent, deadly disease).

[114] In January 2012, Participant Media made its first investment in a non-English-language film, the forthcoming Pablo Larraín motion picture No (starring Gael Garcia Bernal).

These included Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Tony Kushner).

Pete Saunders, a survivor who was appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and who arranged the February 4th screening, was asked to take a leave of absence shortly thereafter.

In 2018, Participant Media also expanded its virtual reality experience, "Melting Ice" featuring Al Gore, into a four-part series titled, This is Climate Change.

[152] Participant's 2019 film Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo in the true story of a corporate defense lawyer waging an environmental lawsuit against a chemical giant, and Participant's accompanying impact campaign influenced water protection legislation at the state and federal level in the U.S., as well as the E.U.’s pledge to ban “forever chemicals” in 2020 and 43 multinational companies’ pledges to stop selling them.

In 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced a first-ever drinking water standard[155] to limit forever chemicals and Mark Ruffalo issued a statement saying to the communities affected by pollution: “Your voices have been heard.

[159] Participant's impact campaign for the Academy Award-nominated 2022 documentary, about artist and activist Nan Goldin's personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis, raised more than $130,000 for harm reduction organizations.

The decision was attributed to changes over time in content creation and distribution, especially difficulties in developing successful streaming business models and suspension of production on multiple projects due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes.