Our Vision
Founded in 2008, Green Wish began as a non-profit organization funding local, green organizations through customers’ small donations at local retailers. Put simply: We were a charity that helped fund green projects in local neighborhoods. Much was accomplished by opening local chapters around the U.S.
In 2018, Green Wish expanded our mission. Our efforts to create media that carried a message forward, had been met with great success. A partnership with PBS, an EMMY® nomination and other awards, along the growing awareness that using media with humanist values, can have profound impact, and help be the impetus for positive change. We know from our collaboration with our production company, Wishing Well Entertainment, that documentary filmmaking can be a powerful tool to engage and inspire.
Therefore, instead of solely fundraising, our work now focuses on the use of film and media to address environmental, economic and cultural issues. Whether it’s the restoration of the LA River, the effects of male sexual abuse, or the importance of movie theaters, we are concerned with issues that impact the world around us.
We are confident that our approach, touching on issues that address our deepest humanist values, can help create positive change through powerful, well produced media. After receiving five nominations, our series 10 DAYS IN WATTS received an EMMY® Award, and after six nominations, an LA Press Club Award. Other projects we have worked on have also received awards, and critical acclaim. We are encouraged by what we have accomplished, and are advancing our mission, “Creating Content with a Conscience.”
Raphael Sbarge, founder, on the evolution of Green Wish
I started Green Wish in 2008, inspired by one thing: the birth of my daughter. As a parent looking out into the world she would inherit, I saw a planet beset by environmental challenges. Inspired by a fatherly instinct to do whatever I could to make the world a better place, but at a loss for what could be done. It is easy to become overwhelmed almost immediately, simply because—environmentally speaking—there is just so much need out there.
How could one person make any significant difference with so many challenges?
So I set out to create an organization that did maximum good, forming Green Wish. This was a non-profit that raised money and distributed it to local, environmentally based non-profits that were already doing important work in their communities. We set up chapters in cities around the country, set up local boards in those cities, and then helped them raise money to support their local non-profits’ core missions.
So, giving to Green Wish was not just a donation, it was about making a difference— locally.
In 2011, we received a generous grant from The California Institute of Contemporary Art to expand the Green Wish educational program. We set out to make a film about one of our donor groups in Los Angeles, called FRIENDS OF THE LA RIVER (FOLAR). Their mission was to restore the LA River and its natural habitat. This film explored the history of the river (called A CONCRETE RIVER) and gave context to FOLAR’s mission. They use it as the centerpiece of their giant mobile education center that they took to events around Los Angeles.
KCET-PBS, big supporters of the river, discovered the documentary, acquired it, and began airing it during its fund-raising pledge drives. The film was successful for the network, and KCET then acquired another film we made on climate change, Is There Hope for Planet Earth?, shot entirely at Caltech with Dr. Jess Adkins, a renowned climatologist.
From there we created the project, LA FOODWAYS, a six-part digital series, and then a one-hour broadcast movie, about LA’s storied agricultural past, as a way to understand food waste and Food Deserts. This project was well received and was nominated for an EMMY® Award.
With the success of all of these films and others, and with a growing awareness that we were being most effective with our film and media work, Green Wish’s mission changed. No longer focused on fundraising for non-profits, we pivoted to focus on creating socially relevant content. In an effort to inspire and engage people to want to effect real change, our motto became, “Creating Content with a Conscience.” In alliance with the production company Wishing Well Entertainment, we hope is that the ideas and ideals of Green Wish will continue to do maximum good.
