PARK CITY, Utah — Impact Lounge first appeared in 2024 as a non-profit partner of the Sundance Film Festival. This year, Heather Mason, the past president of the Utah State University (USU) Alumni Advisory Board and a current member of the USU Foundation Board, brought 10 USU students as volunteers.

Heather started down this road herself in college. At USU, she majored in communications and journalism when Leigh Von Der Esch, then Head of the Utah Film Commission, came to speak to the students. Heather Mason had always thought film would be amazing to go into, but never thought she, a kid from Idaho, had a chance. After she learned that all the films were being shot in Utah, she hounded Von Der Esch until she was hired as a summer intern. Back then, the Utah Film Commission ran the press office for the Sundance Film Festival, and Heather Mason was invited in 1994 to volunteer there. She took two weeks off school, came to Park City, and lived in a dorm, where she met some of the people who would go on to run the festival. “Robert Redford used to come by every year and greet us, which was always really special,” she remembers from her first encounters with Robert Redford.

She worked with Robert Redford again after founding Caspian Agency in 2005, and he was a guest at the University of Oxford’s World Forum alongside Jeff Skoll, one of the agency’s biggest clients. Heather thinks getting to work with Robert Redford was a complete and utter treat. He is one of her heroes, thinking about him, his heart, his mindset, his environmentalism; she looks up to him, and that is part of why you’ll see that every room at the Impact Lounge is named after his films. “I love what he created, and what he created gave me my launching pad, and I will always give him credit for that,” adds Heather Mason.

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She decided to start the Impact Lounge with the idea of bringing changemakers and filmmakers and creators together so they can each amplify one another. People who are trying to do good in the world can have stories told about why some of those initiatives are useful or beneficial. Funders, large-scale Foundation funders, social impact investors can then engage.

Impact Lounge is open to the public, but you must pre-register. You have the option to donate to this organization as you register. Currently, over 5000 people have pre-registered. Heather Mason’s advice is: “If the panel you were planning to attend is full, consider it serendipity. You were meant to go to a different panel.” The Impact Lounge is open Jan.23 through Jan. 27 at 2175 Sidewinder Drive in Park City.