Good Work
Atlanta, Georgia | Series
Comedy
A disgraced political fixer hijacks a failing library campaign to salvage her career, only to learn that doing good requires fraud, forgery and at least three felonies. Good Work is a digital comedy series from Documentaries Don't Work - a media studio that produces narrative climate content.
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This campaign raised $6,970 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
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A disgraced political fixer hijacks a failing library campaign to salvage her career, only to learn that doing good requires fraud, forgery and at least three felonies. Good Work is a digital comedy series from Documentaries Don't Work - a media studio that produces narrative climate content.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
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Logline
A disgraced political fixer hijacks a failing library campaign to salvage her career, only to learn that doing good requires fraud, forgery and at least three felonies.
Summary
After losing her job over a borderline-illegal political stunt, Cali inserts herself into a small volunteer campaign operating out of a church, convinced that proximity to “real community work” will repair her image.
Inside the collective, Cali clashes with:
- Rishi: a local journalist, hot in a "has a job" kind of way
- Christina: a wellness-coded divorcee with barely-suppressed rage
- Austin: a vibes-driven himbo who reads Chomsky for Babies. Love triangle!
- Brandon: court-ordered community service turned accidental profundity
- Miss Maxine, a full-blown conspiracy theorist who is probably not wrong
As Cali pivots from politics to PR and reality to delusion, each episode challenges her to confront something she has absolutely no interest in - the truth.
Creator Statement
Good Work almost didn't see the light of day.
A comedy about an objectively terrible person in power? I turned on the news a few weeks ago and that idea suddenly hit too close to home. I hesitated. Is this the wrong moment to tell a lighthearted story about a bad person?
Well, no.
We’re living in a time of extremes. On one end, objectively terrible people in power. On the other, the morally immaculate. The monks on a peace walk. And then, there's all of us in between.
There are more of us than there are of both of them. We may not be on the front lines drafting policy or leading protests but collectively, we decide the culture. Culture is power. Soft power. That's what I aim to activate through film, TV and digital content.
Audiences are looking for civic stories that don’t demand outrage, trauma or despair, but still feel honest about the world we’re living in. Good Work offers a different kind of relief: one rooted in humor, mess, and the conviction that showing up at 20% is better than not showing up at all.
Cali is a wildly overconfident, wanna-be Olivia Pope, except not good at her job. She’s trying though and she might just get the job done. Or not!
Kim Steele
Email: [email protected]
CAST
Location - Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta sits at the intersection of climate vulnerability (heat, flooding, environmental justice) and cultural influence (music, film, sports, youth), making it a natural home for a story about power, organizing, and optics.
Key Location:
- Church Sanctuary: Main workspace and comedic pressure cooker where spirit meet logistics and power. The center of the movement.
Timeline & Release
Production: March 2026
Post-production: Spring 2026
First episode release: Spring/Summer 2026
Digital-first and built to travel, Good Work is designed for high shareability and real-time conversation. Short episodes make it easy to watch, easy to share, and primed to build momentum across platforms in 5 seconds or 5 minutes.
Budget
The total production budget is roughly $14,600. We are raising $8,500 of that with this campaign.
IMPORTANT:
We are crowdfunding on Seed&Spark, which means we must raise at least 80% of our goal to receive any funds. If we don’t hit that mark, we get nothing. Your support makes all the difference!
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Donate! Every dollar gets us closer to bringing this story to life. Paying cast and creative, locations, equipment, food, props and post-production. Backers receive exclusive perks; check out the Incentives tab for details.
Help us reach more people! You can ask others to follow our campaign on Seed & Spark (500 followers unlocks $100s of festival submission waivers for our team!) and share this fundraiser link on your social media!
Have skills, platforms, or connections? Collaborate! Your involvement amplifies this story and this movement.
CONTEXT
So far, we have:
- Written and refined all 7 episodes (micro-budget, SAG New Media scale)
- Assembled a cast, creative and production team
- Designed a production plan optimized for scrappy, high-impact digital release
Where we’re going next:
- Shoot and release the full first season
- Use Good Work to test our thesis that climate narratives can reach audiences who would never voluntarily watch a climate documentary
- Build measurement infrastructure around engagement and behavioral shifts (no thoughts and prayers about climate action here)
- Expand the DDW slate into larger narrative projects, including our feature climate rom-com Happy Burn Day
Traditional climate documentaries preach to people who already agree. We want to expand who's telling the climate story and who's listening. Join us in doing something different for a change.
Good Work is project #1 of many.
STRETCH GOAL - DIGITAL IMPACT HUB!
If we exceed our goal, every extra cent will go toward building an online impact hub with educational resources inspired by the series. The hub will make it easy for audiences to move from watching to doing. Whether that’s supporting local libraries, hosting conversations on climate and environmentalism, or organizing around issues in their own neighborhoods.
This campaign funds the show; exceeding it funds the call to action.
Thank you and GOOD WORK!!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Location - Mount Welcome Missionary Baptist Church
Costs $1,000
This is a fantastic Atlanta church that has held climate and environmental events in the past.
Food
Costs $500
We are shooting the whole series in over three 10 hour days. I'm hungry just thinking about it!
Cast Salaries
Costs $3,000
We always pay our actors!
Creative Team Salaries
Costs $4,000
Couldn't do it without our creative team, I'm so serious.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
PROJECT MANAGERS
Creator, Co-Writer and starring as CALI
Kim Steele moved from the Broadway stage to climate advocacy, founding Documentaries Don't Work, an impact media studio focused on narrative-driven climate content. Her theater background includes performances on Broadway in Hadestown, Lincoln Center's My Fair Lady and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical as well as off-Broadway in Jerry Springer the Opera. She approaches storytelling with both a performer's discipline and a producer's sharp focus, crafting work that explores where ambition, ethics, and performance converge.
Co-Writer
Jessica Riches is a screenwriter, filmmaker, and campaigner working at the intersection of climate, AI, and culture. She has features and sitcoms in development across the UK and Europe, supported by BBC Writers, Film London, and Climate Spring, and is a Churchill Fellow researching the impact of climate narratives on screen. She also leads global engagement campaigns, consults on media and AI ethics, and trains storytellers, including at the BFI Future Film Festival.
Director of Photography
Casey Newell is a cinematographer working across narrative shorts and high-impact digital media. He frequently collaborates with Jessica Riches; their short Single People at the End of the World screened at Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals including Nashville, Austin, and Norwich, and Goosebumps screened at HollyShorts Comedy. He has shot over 15 productions, including projects for Passion TV with 100M+ organic views.
Co-Producer
Annemarie McDaniel is a queer director, producer, and storyteller exploring the emotional complexity of human connection. Her debut short, Happy Freaking Friday, centers queer friendship, mental health, and sobriety, and has been above-the-line leadership in 5+ other shorts. She has led 30+ global campaigns for TikTok and helped social impact clients raise $6M through story-driven work.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Logline
A disgraced political fixer hijacks a failing library campaign to salvage her career, only to learn that doing good requires fraud, forgery and at least three felonies.
Summary
After losing her job over a borderline-illegal political stunt, Cali inserts herself into a small volunteer campaign operating out of a church, convinced that proximity to “real community work” will repair her image.
Inside the collective, Cali clashes with:
- Rishi: a local journalist, hot in a "has a job" kind of way
- Christina: a wellness-coded divorcee with barely-suppressed rage
- Austin: a vibes-driven himbo who reads Chomsky for Babies. Love triangle!
- Brandon: court-ordered community service turned accidental profundity
- Miss Maxine, a full-blown conspiracy theorist who is probably not wrong
As Cali pivots from politics to PR and reality to delusion, each episode challenges her to confront something she has absolutely no interest in - the truth.
Creator Statement
Good Work almost didn't see the light of day.
A comedy about an objectively terrible person in power? I turned on the news a few weeks ago and that idea suddenly hit too close to home. I hesitated. Is this the wrong moment to tell a lighthearted story about a bad person?
Well, no.
We’re living in a time of extremes. On one end, objectively terrible people in power. On the other, the morally immaculate. The monks on a peace walk. And then, there's all of us in between.
There are more of us than there are of both of them. We may not be on the front lines drafting policy or leading protests but collectively, we decide the culture. Culture is power. Soft power. That's what I aim to activate through film, TV and digital content.
Audiences are looking for civic stories that don’t demand outrage, trauma or despair, but still feel honest about the world we’re living in. Good Work offers a different kind of relief: one rooted in humor, mess, and the conviction that showing up at 20% is better than not showing up at all.
Cali is a wildly overconfident, wanna-be Olivia Pope, except not good at her job. She’s trying though and she might just get the job done. Or not!
Kim Steele
Email: [email protected]
CAST
Location - Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta sits at the intersection of climate vulnerability (heat, flooding, environmental justice) and cultural influence (music, film, sports, youth), making it a natural home for a story about power, organizing, and optics.
Key Location:
- Church Sanctuary: Main workspace and comedic pressure cooker where spirit meet logistics and power. The center of the movement.
Timeline & Release
Production: March 2026
Post-production: Spring 2026
First episode release: Spring/Summer 2026
Digital-first and built to travel, Good Work is designed for high shareability and real-time conversation. Short episodes make it easy to watch, easy to share, and primed to build momentum across platforms in 5 seconds or 5 minutes.
Budget
The total production budget is roughly $14,600. We are raising $8,500 of that with this campaign.
IMPORTANT:
We are crowdfunding on Seed&Spark, which means we must raise at least 80% of our goal to receive any funds. If we don’t hit that mark, we get nothing. Your support makes all the difference!
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Donate! Every dollar gets us closer to bringing this story to life. Paying cast and creative, locations, equipment, food, props and post-production. Backers receive exclusive perks; check out the Incentives tab for details.
Help us reach more people! You can ask others to follow our campaign on Seed & Spark (500 followers unlocks $100s of festival submission waivers for our team!) and share this fundraiser link on your social media!
Have skills, platforms, or connections? Collaborate! Your involvement amplifies this story and this movement.
CONTEXT
So far, we have:
- Written and refined all 7 episodes (micro-budget, SAG New Media scale)
- Assembled a cast, creative and production team
- Designed a production plan optimized for scrappy, high-impact digital release
Where we’re going next:
- Shoot and release the full first season
- Use Good Work to test our thesis that climate narratives can reach audiences who would never voluntarily watch a climate documentary
- Build measurement infrastructure around engagement and behavioral shifts (no thoughts and prayers about climate action here)
- Expand the DDW slate into larger narrative projects, including our feature climate rom-com Happy Burn Day
Traditional climate documentaries preach to people who already agree. We want to expand who's telling the climate story and who's listening. Join us in doing something different for a change.
Good Work is project #1 of many.
STRETCH GOAL - DIGITAL IMPACT HUB!
If we exceed our goal, every extra cent will go toward building an online impact hub with educational resources inspired by the series. The hub will make it easy for audiences to move from watching to doing. Whether that’s supporting local libraries, hosting conversations on climate and environmentalism, or organizing around issues in their own neighborhoods.
This campaign funds the show; exceeding it funds the call to action.
Thank you and GOOD WORK!!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Location - Mount Welcome Missionary Baptist Church
Costs $1,000
This is a fantastic Atlanta church that has held climate and environmental events in the past.
Food
Costs $500
We are shooting the whole series in over three 10 hour days. I'm hungry just thinking about it!
Cast Salaries
Costs $3,000
We always pay our actors!
Creative Team Salaries
Costs $4,000
Couldn't do it without our creative team, I'm so serious.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
PROJECT MANAGERS
Creator, Co-Writer and starring as CALI
Kim Steele moved from the Broadway stage to climate advocacy, founding Documentaries Don't Work, an impact media studio focused on narrative-driven climate content. Her theater background includes performances on Broadway in Hadestown, Lincoln Center's My Fair Lady and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical as well as off-Broadway in Jerry Springer the Opera. She approaches storytelling with both a performer's discipline and a producer's sharp focus, crafting work that explores where ambition, ethics, and performance converge.
Co-Writer
Jessica Riches is a screenwriter, filmmaker, and campaigner working at the intersection of climate, AI, and culture. She has features and sitcoms in development across the UK and Europe, supported by BBC Writers, Film London, and Climate Spring, and is a Churchill Fellow researching the impact of climate narratives on screen. She also leads global engagement campaigns, consults on media and AI ethics, and trains storytellers, including at the BFI Future Film Festival.
Director of Photography
Casey Newell is a cinematographer working across narrative shorts and high-impact digital media. He frequently collaborates with Jessica Riches; their short Single People at the End of the World screened at Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals including Nashville, Austin, and Norwich, and Goosebumps screened at HollyShorts Comedy. He has shot over 15 productions, including projects for Passion TV with 100M+ organic views.
Co-Producer
Annemarie McDaniel is a queer director, producer, and storyteller exploring the emotional complexity of human connection. Her debut short, Happy Freaking Friday, centers queer friendship, mental health, and sobriety, and has been above-the-line leadership in 5+ other shorts. She has led 30+ global campaigns for TikTok and helped social impact clients raise $6M through story-driven work.