Robert X. Fogarty is a speaker, advocate, and social entrepreneur. He facilitated the completion of evacuation landmarks -Evacuspots- in New Orleans and started the Dear World storytelling organization.
Robert X. Fogarty is a speaker, advocate, and social entrepreneur. He facilitated the completion of evacuation landmarks -Evacuspots- in New Orleans and started the Dear World storytelling organization.
Early life and education
Fogarty was born in 1983 and grew up in Nebraska. His mother was an artist, his father an attorney. His mother named him Robert Xavier after she had a dream the X would look good on a campaign sign. He earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oregon, where he graduated in 2005. In 2015, the School of Journalism and Communication inducted him into its hall of fame as the winner of the Eric Allen Outstanding Young Alum award.
His interest in New Orleans began in his final year at the University of Oregon, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and gulf south.
Career
Art and Evacuation Preparation in New Orleans:
AmeriCorps, Evacuteer and Evacuspots
After graduating university, Fogarty worked as a recruiter for financial institutions in New York City. In 2007, Fogarty abandoned corporate work and moved to New Orleans to serve as a volunteer coordinator for the City of New Orleans through AmeriCorps, a Federal volunteer service program. His first two years included writing a blog about his experience as a young person living in the city. While there, he helped organize the evacuation of New Orleans for Hurricane Gustav. After Fogarty’s contract with AmeriCorps expired, he co-founded Evacuteer.org, a non-profit that helps the city of New Orleans train volunteers to prepare the city for environmental disasters. He also organized parties and parades at the start and end of hurricane season to raise awareness for hurricane preparation. The organization concepted, fundraised and secured political and community support for a a public art concept to mark evacuation sites for residents without cars. Now known as Evacuspots, the statues have become well known in New Orleans and in global resilience and disaster preparedness circles. Fogarty and his colleagues raised more than $500,000 in cash and in-kind contributions over the life of the project and included guerrilla marketing and fundraising techniques to launch its initial support.
Interactive storytelling, speaking and global social entrepreneurship
Dear New Orleans, Dear World, Brain Tattoo and PRTRAIT storytelling methods
Fogarty started the Dear World storytelling movement during the 2009 Super Bowl, when he organized photographs of people with messages on their body regarding what they love about New Orleans. The effort, initially named Dear New Orleans took on more significance when a man asked Fogarty to do something different at a party where everyone else was sharing messages about New Olreans. The result was a photo with Cancer Free written on the man’s throat. He informed Fogarty that the doctor had called with the Cancer Free news earlier that week.
Fogarty renamed the series Dear World and created a company in 2011 to harness the power of integrated and interactive storytelling using photography, filmmaking and art.
Now, Dear World is storytelling organization that celebrates the power of personal stories inside workplaces, communities and for individuals. As of 2022, more than 500,000 people have participated in one of Dear World’s storytelling methods and the work has been published in more than 30 countries. Dear World credits Verizon, Accenture, UBS, Genentech and several other Fortune 100 firms as storytelling skill building clients and has also visited more than 150 college campuses. College basketball teams began using Dear World as a way for their players to spark deeper connection, the first team to use Dear World was Duke University and Coach Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K). In 2014, the first year they used Dear World, the team won the national championship and had their Dear World photographs in their lockers during the tournament run.
Philanthropic work
The Dear World Foundation, 501c3 organization, has produced series in Boston, Orlando, Newtown, Conn., Juba, South Sudan, Joplin, Missouri, Varanasi and Jaipur India, celebrating and sharing the stories of freedom fighters, survivors and victim’s families of terrorism and refugees fleeing civil war. Community and international partners for this work have included Oxfam, Care, One Fund Boston, the Joplin Spiva Arts Center, Orlando Health and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi.
Storytelling methods and interactive community experience design
The Brain Tattoo Method™
The Brain Tattoo Method is Dear World’s original storytelling medium. Its three step process ends with participants who share the first line to a story only they can tell in black marker on their bodies. Fogarty and his team at Dear World spent more than 6 years developing and fine tuning the method, which now allows people to create unique messages related directly to their story. Luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees and musical legend Annie Lennox have all participated and shared their Brain Tattoos.
The PRTRAIT Process™
Dear World’s second storytelling method utilizes the power of camera to connect people by allowing them to photograph each other. This process centers around the hypothesis that anyone can be an artist with a little technical assistance. People are led through a self portrait sketching exercise, take each others photographs and interview each other. The PRTRAIT Process publicly launched on the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting when 10 student survivors interviewed and photographed each other.
Corporate speaking and storytelling training:
He also became a public speaker and developed a storytelling curriculum for corporations and universities. For example, he given speeches for Stanford University and Harvard University and works closely with Accenture, Verizon, UBS and others.
Speaking and interactive storytelling method videos:
Brain Tattoo Storytelling Method Keynote
University of Oregon School of Journalism Commencement: Honor These Empty Seats
A CEOs’ Testimonial about the Brain Tattoo Method
Press
MSNBC: Sandy Hook: One Decade Later
WWNO: How a NOLA-based organization embarked on a storytelling project with Sandy Hook survivors
Associated Press: New Orleans health care workers’ heralded in ‘Dear Nurses’
ABC News: Take an intimate look into the world of COVID-19 front-line workers
ESPN’s SC Featured: Dear New Orleans
New York Times: New Orleans Group Promotes Hurricane Awareness
The Advocate: How a post-Katrina project grew into a global storytelling series
Omaha World Herald: How this Omaha Native tells stories with a black marker and a camera
Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien: Dear World: A collection of messages speaking out to you.