1M+
Stories shaped
Dear World has helped shape the stories of more than one million people, from CEOs and new hires to college freshmen and university presidents.
New Orleans / Katrina / Dear World
The city
writes back.
Dear World began in post-Katrina New Orleans when Robert X. Fogarty started photographing people and asking why they loved the city enough to stay. What came back were not captions. They were messages written on skin, and one unexpected moment made it clear this was not just about one city anymore.
From Robert
Love notes.
One question.
A new beginning.
The night that changed my life happened unexpectedly.
I lived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and I photographed people then asked them why they loved the city so much. They honored that by writing a short message on their skin about New Orleans. We called them love notes.
But one night, a man asked me, "Can I do something different?" Then he stepped back into the frame and his wife uncovered his bare chest. Written across him were the words: Cancer Free.
That moment was the turn. I realized this wasn't only about New Orleans. It could be about anyone, anywhere. That was the moment Dear New Orleans became Dear World.
Sometimes a story changes because one person asks for permission to tell the truer one.
Those early love notes traveled from phone to phone and from computer to computer. What started as a local act of honoring a city became a framework for helping people everywhere say something they needed the world to hear.
It was still raw and unpolished. But the signal was already there: people wanted more than a speech, more than a photograph, more than messaging. They wanted to be seen in a way that felt real.
From The Ivy To The World
Harvard said yes.
A Harvard student named Jonah, who loved New Orleans, invited me to speak at SECON, the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference. I hadn't formally rebranded yet, but I told him, "This is bigger. It's Dear World. I just need the right launch."
He said yes. At the closing session, I stood up, told the story, showed the photos, and Dear World launched officially from Harvard University.
A tip jar in New Orleans to a standing ovation at Harvard in under a year. That was the first proof that this work could travel, scale, and matter far beyond where it began.
What happened next
"They didn't just want a speech. They wanted the experience. They wanted their people to connect in a real way."
The Stories That Shaped Us
We kept listening.
The work kept growing.
Companies started calling. Universities, too. They wanted us to bring the cameras, the questions, and the Sharpies. They wanted their people to connect in a way that felt human, immediate, and unforgettable.
2010
New Orleans - Where it all began
We've since been to refugee camps in Jordan, spoken with survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting, and documented the resilience of communities in South Sudan. We are not trying to cover causes from a distance. We are bearing witness. We are saying: you matter. We see you.
We never stopped evolving. We created the Shape of Your Story test, launched immersive leadership retreats at the Mary Beth Hotel in New Orleans, built digital programs, and are developing AI-powered tools to help people tell the story only they can tell.
501(c)(3)
Foundation launched
As Dear World grew, the work expanded into the Dear World Foundation so the team could bear witness to communities facing crisis, change, and resilience.
Next
The future is being built
From the Shape of Your Story test to leadership retreats and AI-guided storytelling tools, Dear World keeps evolving while staying rooted in deep listening.
Write your future,
Robert X. Fogarty
There's a reason Dear World began in New Orleans. That city taught me that how we see ourselves and tell our stories is one of the most powerful ways we write our futures. To every participant, partner, staffer, contractor, vendor, and client who has contributed to the story of Dear World: thank you.