CommonSpirit Health has awarded the university a $450,000 grant to support Neumann Productions, a film production company housed in the School of Business under the direction of Sara McDermott Jain.
The grant provides $150,000 per year to support Neumann Productions in 2026-27, 2027-28, and 2028-29.
According to McDermott Jain, the company's goal is to partner with external organizations to create films about their history, mission, expertise, or impact while generating internship opportunities and revenue for the university.
“We are open to working with clients on all types and all lengths of films,” she says. “We also offer audio book production.”
The new grant covers the director’s salary and benefits as well as the cost of producing three short films for CommonSpirit Health (one each year of the grant) on a tenet of Catholic social teaching for them to use in their work with the community.
Some of the funding will be used to create new music for No Risk, No Gain: The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a documentary about the congregation, which McDermott Jain produced over a two-year period. Original music is required for wider distribution of the film, which debuted at the Neumann Inspires Film Festival in April of 2025.
CommonSpirit Health is a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to delivering exceptional patient care and ensuring every person has access to quality health care. CommonSpirit operates 158 hospitals and more than 2,200 care sites across 24 states.