Creative Instigation: The Art & Strategy of Authentic Community Engagement

Exploring creative responses to community challenges

Creative Instigation is a collection of in-depth case stories focused on effective and innovative community engagement and policymaking in diverse cities across the western U.S. Each story reflects the history and uniqueness of the community, organization, or institution―providing grit to the importance of context to understand the why and the how of this work. It includes the successes and challenges, and the efforts needed to do this work well. Unlike “typical engagement,” where meetings are announced via limited venues with limited information, Creative Instigation describes engagement that is authentic, outreach that is expansive, and research that uncovers the soul of a community. No two approaches are alike.

This book is for those most likely to be responsible for community engagement work―city staff and elected leadership, community developers and nonprofit workers, architecture and planning students, scholars, and community activists, as well as people who care about their own community and the future of their city. The in-depth stories of multi-year efforts by organizations, institutions, and communities, working differently, and at times at cross purposes describe the unique, transdisciplinary skills required to bring these sectors together to solve shared problems.

Fern Tiger, founder and creative director of Fern Tiger Associates in Oakland, CA, has designed and facilitated scores of projects throughout the U.S. that have engaged communities, organizations, institutions, and public agencies in solving controversial issues and overcoming power gaps in strategic, innovative, and meaningful ways. Her transdisciplinary approaches to this work combine the creative, intuitive tools of the artist/designer with the practical, systemic tools of urban planners, the discipline of academic researchers, and the inspiration of community organizers and activists. Tiger has taught at several universities and most recently held professorships at Arizona State University, and University of Washington Tacoma.


Community Planning; and former Professor of Practice, College of Public Programs, Arizona State University.