How can communities ensure that their voices genuinely shape the policies and decisions that impact their lives, their neighborhoods, their cities?

While participation is central to democratic ideals, meaningful influence in government, education, nonprofit, and especially corporate decision-making remains rare. Too often, “community engagement” is reduced to public relations—accessible primarily to those with time, access, and insider fluency.

This talk introduces Creative Instigation: an approach to authentic engagement that blends the field methods of documentarians and ethnographers, the strategic rigor of community organizers, the contextual depth of qualitative research and journalism, and the grounded imagination of socially engaged artists. The goal is not performative participation—but durable institutional and social change.

Drawing on complex, multi-year projects spanning rural Maui County, metropolitan Phoenix, activist communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the corporate landscape of a global biotech firm, Fern Tiger will describe creative efforts to rebalance power and confront social, economic, and political inequities.

At its strongest, Creative Instigation does more than inform decision-makers. It elevates historically marginalized voices, reshapes narratives, and catalyzes solutions rooted in lived experience. In a time of eroding trust in institutions and widening inequality, authentic engagement is not optional—it is foundational to democracy itself.

About Fern Tiger

Fern Tiger is the founder and creative director of Fern Tiger Associates (FTA), based in Oakland, California. The firm is grounded in the belief that “with reflective strategy and innovative design, positive and constructive social change is not only possible—it is inevitable.” 

Trained in art and media, with advanced study in human–environment relations, and art and cognition, Fern Tiger built a transdisciplinary approach to strategy and research—one that bridges creative inquiry with policy and systems thinking. Her work has led to professorships in diverse departments from art to public policy and urban studies; she has served on the faculties of Pennsylvania State University, Washington University in St. Louis, Arizona State University, and the University of Washington Tacoma. Fern has published and lectured broadly on topics related to the nonprofit sector, authentic community engagement, and the dynamic intersections of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. www.ferntiger.com

This event is offered by GWI in partnership with Radio Kingston & Rough Draft Bar & Books