How The WGA Strike Impacted The Writers Guild Foundation: “I’ve Never Worried About Money The Way I’m Worrying Now,” Says Exec Director

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Katie Buckland has been experiencing a lot of firsts lately as the executive director of the Writers Guild Foundation. When the WGA strike kicked off in May, she and her small staff were asked to manage the “forlorn and sad little” picket line outside of Universal Gate 8 on Barham Boulevard, where they experienced brutally hot days and the not-so-pleasant development that’s come to be known as Treegate. “I felt like I lived there for a couple of months, but my staff did a tremendous job of keeping it as entertaining as possible,” Buckland says proudly. “I don’t know why, but every time we pushed the button for the stoplight at that corner, it said ‘change password.’ We never figured it out.” Now that the strike is over, she’s facing an unprecedented chapter in her 10 years of managing the non-profit that offers support and training programs for aspiring screenwriters: her operating budget is at 0.

The five-month-long work stoppage dried up any and all donations to the foundation that is a separate legal entity from the WGA, even though they rent space inside the guild’s building and do occasional projects with the union. “The studios fund some of our pipeline programs, particularly a program called Writers Access, which is amazing and has trained brilliant young writers to be script coordinators and writers assistants as a stepping stone to a career in writing,” explains Buckland. “There’s also some studio funding for a screenwriting program we run for veterans.

The [studio people] felt very bad about it, but the second day of the strike they called and said, ‘we’re so sorry. We cannot give you the money that we had promised you.’ Writing a check to us was the same thing as writing a check to the Guild, which they