Hi, I’m Carla Fernandez.

I help ideas that heal enter culture.

I’m an author and speaker, a community builder and impact strategist, and an experience designer and facilitator. I focus on projects that bring creativity, joy and connection to the roots of our most intractable problems.

I’m currently editing a book titled RENEGADE GRIEF, to be released in 2025 with Simon & Schuster, while consulting with The Rockefeller Foundation’s Convenings & Networks team.

More about my work:

My clients are foundations, government agencies at local and federal levels, coalitions and brands, united by their drive to repair or restore a part of their industry or community.

I am most proud of my work co-founding The Dinner Party, the world’s first nonprofit dedicated to solving the crisis of isolation at our most universal intervention point - grief and loss, for people in their 20-40s. From an idea started on our back deck, The Dinner Party is now active in nearly 100 cities and featured in New York Times, NPR, and Good Morning America.

Featured in

Writing / Talking  

• KPFK: Experience Talks: The Art of Dying and Dining

• KQED: The Forum with Michael Krasney

• Fortune: Will the ad industry's new Sheryl Sandberg-backed award go far enough on gender equality?

• Facing the Hard Stuff With Cheryl Espinosa-Jones

• Virgin Unite, 100% Human At Work: Creating Supportive and Inclusive Workplaces for People Experiencing Hard Times

• Classy Collaborative: Why You Need to Appeal to the Next Generation of Donors

• CMX Pro: How to Build Micro Community - A Webinar of Community Leaders

• Omidyar Network Tech and Society Solutions Lab - Grief of our Pre-Tech Lives
  

Honors / Affiliations

• NYU Reynold's Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship

• LA Weekly, Most Interesting People in Los Angeles

• USC Annenberg School of Innovation, Senior Fellow

• Nexus Global Fellow

• Nomadic School of Wonder, Wonder Bunny

Other projects near and dear:

• Census Accelerate: Partnered with the Federal Census Bureau’s Census Open Innovation Lab to design and roll out a national program bringing creatives and grassroots organizations together to get out the count.

• Civic Spirit: Designed and facilitated a convening of faith-based civics educators shepherding students into the gifts and responsibilities of citizenship.

• American + Jewish + Democracy: Designed and facilitated a convening of 12 leading Jewish foundations to discuss the future of giving in the protection of democracy.

• Cielito Lindo Retreat: Reinvented a home in Joshua Tree, CA to create a retreat space for creatives, activists, and feminists needing time in nature to refuel before keeping up the good fight.

• enso: Founding-team member of enso, a creative agency focused on brand impact and purpose. While there, I launched a network of 75 change makers to create an impact agency with no walls.