Robert X. Fogarty is an American speaker, advocate, social entrepreneur, and “artist.” He is best known for founding Dear World, a storytelling organization that has helped capture over one million personal messages and portraits across the globe. Fogarty also facilitated the completion of Evacuspots in New Orleans, a system of public evacuation landmarks designed to assist residents during citywide emergencies. In addition to his public advocacy work, Fogarty is the founder of the Dear World Collection, a growing network of storytelling-centered spaces that includes the Mary Beth Hotel and the House of Rhythm & Greens. He is also the artist behind Son of a Ghost, a multidisciplinary project that explores themes of memory, resilience, and identity.
Robert X. Fogarty (born 1983) is an American speaker, advocate, social entrepreneur, and artist. He is the founder of Dear World, the creator of the Shape Your Future storytelling and coaching assessment, and the co-developer of Evacuspots, The Mary Beth Hotel, and The House of Rhythm & Greens. He is also the artist behind Son of a Ghost, an intergenerational art from beyond the grave project his mother Mary Beth Fogarty.
Fogarty’s work blends public art, storytelling, leadership development, and emotional intelligence, helping individuals, teams, and communities shape the stories they tell themselves — and each other.
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. In 2024, his high school alma mater, Omaha Central High school, also inducted him into their hall of fame.
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. Within in 48 hours of arriving New Orleans, he began answering the City Hall switchboard inside the Mayor’s Office of Public Advocacy. 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 2025, more than 1M 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.
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. More than 1,000,000 people have participated in Dear World experiences in person and online.
Shape Your Future: Story Coaching and Personal Development Assessment
In 2024, Fogarty introduced Shape Your Future, a personal storytelling diagnostic tool and coaching methodology designed to help individuals reflect on past experiences and shape future narratives.
Shape Your Future combines emotional intelligence frameworks with storytelling structures inspired by authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Brené Brown. Participants receive a personalized emotional graph, story archetype, color gradient, and coaching insights intended to foster resilience, leadership development, and personal growth.
Shape Your Future has been integrated into leadership trainings, keynote experiences, and one-on-one coaching programs.
Work with Stuart Scott, Oprah Winfrey, and the V Foundation
In 2013, Fogarty met ESPN anchor Stuart Scott while photographing participants for Dear World. Scott, who was battling cancer at the time, asked Fogarty to take a portrait. Later, Scott requested that the photograph become the cover image for his memoir, Every Day I Fight.
The book and its cover portrait gained national attention when Oprah Winfrey featured Scott’s story on Super Soul Sunday.
Following Scott’s passing in 2015, Fogarty collaborated with the V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization closely associated with Stuart Scott’s legacy. Through Dear World and independent projects, Fogarty has worked with the V Foundation on multiple storytelling initiatives to honor survivors, fighters, and families impacted by cancer.
The Dear World Collection: Mary Beth Hotel and House of Rhythm & Greens
In 2024, Fogarty and co-developer Beau Baudier opened The Mary Beth Hotel in New Orleans. The 19-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot property occupies three adjacent 19th-century buildings with Greek Revival architecture. The three adjacent commercial buildings were constructed sometime between the 1850s and 1870s, with Greek Revival-style facades adorned with cornices, dentils, and scored stucco resembling stone blocks according to the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
Named in honor of his late mother, Mary Beth Fogarty, the hotel incorporates storytelling and art throughout its design and programming.
Fogarty also founded House of Rhythm & Greens in Salt Lake City, a private club blending golf, music, and contemporary art. The club is designed to foster leadership development and creative community-building among executives, entrepreneurs, and artists.
Together, the Mary Beth Hotel and House of Rhythm & Greens are part of the Dear World Collection, a growing network of spaces centered around storytelling, creativity, and human connection..
Contemporary Art: Son of a Ghost
In this thought provoking and intergenerational collaboration, Robert X Fogarty explores his complex relationship with his late mother Mary Beth Fogarty. Son of a Ghost’s pieces have been called “mesmerizing, riveting” and “unlike anything the art world has seen before.”
When Mary Beth left earth by suicide after a short battle with cancer, she left behind more than 1000 original works in 2002. Fogarty was 18 and just finished his freshman year at university.
“For more than a decade, I’ve wanted to collaborate with her, “ Fogarty says. “I never knew it would turn into building an entire space to tribute her and creating an entirely new body of work, together.”
Son of a ghost is represented by Martine Chaisson gallery and a portion of sales will go to commission other artists to create works celebrating that it’s ok to make work and talk about mental health and wellness.
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.
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.