We don’t bring all the answers—we bring a process to find them.

Being process–not content–experts gives TYTHE a degree of flexibility when it comes to our client base. We seek opportunities with partners who align with our mission by valuing the amplification of community voices and the sustainability and future-proofing of their internal practices. 

Our work with Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) is an example of just that. CPC, a nonprofit mortgage lending institution, continues to be a thought-leader in the affordable housing sector by building the capacity of developers–specifically BIPOC developers–to ensure that housing stock is affordable, community-based, and environmentally efficient. Over the years, TYTHE’s role has been to support CPC in the development of materials that ensure the impact of what they do is more broadly beneficial. They see their role as a lender not just as financial, but as a capacity-builder. This is why TYTHE has collaborated with them for nine years and looks forward to continuing to do so into the future.

The most powerful solutions start with listening to the people we serve.

As a consulting firm, TYTHEdesign works with everything from intraorganizational projects to citywide initiatives, and when we’re really lucky, we get to embed ourselves into a single neighborhood to learn about its culture, community, and rich assets. We can talk to residents and understand their experiences. We can glean insights from folks of all ages and truly learn about the needs and hopes of a community.

In 2017, we had the opportunity to work with Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) on expanding internet access beyond the walls of the library building, which, in a post-COVID world, has become a priority for many. In addition to being on the ground ourselves, we also trained local youth to map the community and brought their insights back to BPL to design the program. What we truly celebrate about this project is the toolkit we created to share the plan with the public–showing that meaningful community engagement does not belong to any one organization. This model of building programs with community rather than just for them is one that TYTHE stands proudly behind and continues to reiterate in our client relationships.

We collaboratively design strategies where every voice matters.

TYTHE’s work in the strategic planning sphere has consistently focused on designing intentional strategic planning processes that are within the capacity of clients. We aim to equalize the planning process so that organizational hierarchy and seniority become irrelevant because every staff member regardless of years of service or expertise has something valuable to offer.

Our current strategic planning partnership with NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, focuses on defining and building a blueprint for a ‘Response Ready’ agency. We partnered with A Good Question and engaged over a thousand DOHMH staff at all agency levels to contribute to the development of a common definition of ‘response readiness.’ Then we developed an 18-week process to support their staffing in building agency wide blueprints to turn ideas into actions.

TYTHE strives to facilitate conversations about the value of collaborative planning processes where all voices are at the table–not just the ones at the top of the organization–because all voices are responsible for implementation.

In a time of distance, we built a toolkit to bring communities closer.

Alongside everyone else during the COVID-19 pandemic, TYTHE had to pivot. We sought ways to be useful to the community when we all felt so helpless. Enter the Community Engagement Almanac. This comprehensive public-facing toolkit shares many of TYTHE’s best practices for community engagement with specific accommodations as organizations emerged from the pandemic–including physically distanced events and hybrid or virtual gatherings. To ensure its continued relevance, we’ve updated the document since its 2021 release and included video guides to help maximize its usefulness across sectors. 

We’re proud to share many of our principles as facilitators and community leaders through this tool, showing that intentional community engagement doesn’t belong to any one firm. It’s necessary for all of us to build a stronger future. To that end, we created this toolkit as a resource for the community, sharing insights from a decade of TYTHE’s on-the-ground experience. We will continue to update the almanac as we collect new practices from our teaching and engagement with communities from New York City and beyond.

Real engagement means honoring the moment when a community says, ‘Not like this.’

In 2021, TYTHEdesign partnered with various NYC agencies (HPD, NYCEDC, LPD) to support the redevelopment of the Bedford-Church site, located in Flatbush, Brooklyn, into affordable housing, a multi-faceted community space, and a memorial. Honoring the site’s historical significance, TYTHE facilitated virtual meetings with the Flatbush African Burial Ground Remembrance and Redevelopment (FABGRR) Task Force, public workshops, and supported a multilingual survey. We were able to successfully amplify the voices of community members–regardless of the outcome. 

The resulting Community Engagement Report captured public priorities around memorialization, history, and development. The community members engaged in the process were able to say, “This plan does not work for us.” The agencies involved and other members of the city team listened and honored the needs of the community. Their voices changed the direction of the project. This type of community consultation and engagement is more important than ever as we continue to seek to close the gap between government bureaucracy and the people they serve.

We build capacity for civic action, dialogue, and resilience where it matters most.

As a mission-driven consulting firm, it is a true gift to get to partner with clients who share our vision for the future, and our 2020 contract with NYC’s Dept. of Youth and Community Development did just that. We spent three years working with afterschool program leaders across all five boroughs to develop intentional civically engaged curricula that allowed young people to amplify their voices, take action in their own communities, and foster meaningful dialogue around issues of importance. We looked at ways of deepening community service experiences and introducing participatory decision-making as a way of valuing students’ voice and choice. 

This partnership energized us to reimagine our trainings as a launchpad for fostering civic dialogue within government agencies and nonprofits. It allowed us to see our strength as a capacity-builder for folks on the ground in the community and to leverage that position to continue moving the needle toward more resilient cities–particularly against the backdrop of a volatile political landscape.

Parks are more than just green spaces—they’re living reflections of community resilience.

The truth is, working with New York City parks was a dream come true for TYTHE. As self-proclaimed ‘park nerds,’ we have a deep appreciation for green spaces—not just for their beauty and serenity, but for the vital role they play in the life of a city. A park can serve as a reflection of the community around it: a place where people gather, grow, and adapt over time. At TYTHE, we can’t help but connect the concept of a resilient city not just with the resiliency of its residents but also the resiliency of its physical spaces. Being part of the story of the city’s parks–helping to shape, support, and celebrate it–means everything to us.

We’ve worked across city parks in a variety of ways. The Partnership Lab, a collaboration between Prospect Park Alliance and Central Park Conservatory, allowed us to build the capacity of parks employees, while the Brooklyn Bridge Park Pool Talks needs assessment brought us face-to-face with community members in the area to find out their recreational priorities. Collaborating with The Nature Conservancy on its workforce development program granted us access to the bigger picture when it came to the future of New York City’s green spaces. 

These experiences have taught us not just about parks, but about people, place, and what it takes to build something lasting. We move forward with a deeper appreciation for the role parks play in shaping community life, and we’re eager to bring those lessons into whatever comes next.

When institutions come together, access becomes action.

As the world continues to barrel toward a fully digital future, we cannot ignore the many who will be left behind. TYTHE is proud to be part of citywide conversations with New York’s public libraries around bridging the digital divide. Having worked with libraries over the last decade, it’s been a gift to witness their ongoing discussions around what it means to be a third place–a familiar public spot where you regularly connect with others known and unknown, over a shared interest or activity. 

As libraries continue to redefine their ever-changing role in community, TYTHE is proud to collaborate across multiple agencies–Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development, Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and Queens Public library to co-create a program to help New Yorkers meet the digital future. The result of this partnership is the Neighborhood Tech Help initiative, providing one-on-one tech support outside the walls of library buildings–a testament to the power of cross-agency collaboration and thoughtful co-design, showing what’s possible when institutions come together with a shared vision to meet community needs in innovative, accessible ways. As TYTHE looks to the future, we’re carrying forward a clearer understanding of how public spaces and the organizations that support them can evolve to meet the changing needs of the communities they serve.

From sticky notes to citywide impact, TYTHEdesign has grown with CS4All.

TYTHEdesign has been with CS4All from the beginning. We’ve seen it grow from the seed of an idea to a thriving program leaving its mark on virtually every young person in New York City (1.1 million public school students), and we continue by their side in their transition into its newest iteration. The story of TYTHE’s relationship with CS4All is one of true partnership and co-design: one that began with sticky notes and questions about meaningful learning experiences; one that centers the expertise of educators on the ground, rather than just the administrators and consultants building the program model.

TYTHE continues to be a thought-partner for the CS4All team as we celebrate their success in truly co-designing their computer science initiative, rooted in equity and inclusion, with teachers, school administrators, students, and industry experts. We have collaborated with them on many aspects of their program from strategy to event planning, and are now working closely as they identify pivot points for a sustainable future.

Is it time to embrace arts and culture as powerful vehicles for connection and change?

As TYTHE evolves and reimagines how it engages with community, we can’t help but wonder, is it time for a change? Many tried and true engagement strategies have been implemented since the 1970s, and perhaps communities are in need of new ways to share their thoughts, needs, and opinions. Could it be that surveys and tabling are no longer as impactful as interactive placemaking and storytelling events? Is the future of community engagement in leveraging the power of arts and culture?

These are the questions that TYTHE is asking as we reflect on our decade and a half of work in this sector. Our 2018 partnership with NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs was moving the needle in this direction with its Building Community Capacity initiative. This project challenged communities to map existing arts and cultural resources in their neighborhoods–from institutional behemoths to smaller community-based organizations and individual artists. It imagines a world where arts resources are given the same power to impact communities as social service agencies. And why shouldn’t they? TYTHE’s placemaking workshops continue to offer this type of innovative community creativity across sectors. We believe the future of community engagement lies in meeting people where they are: through creativity, culture, and connection. 

We couldn’t have done it without you.

TYTHEdesign would not be where it is today without the individuals who have worked with us along the way. In each relationship with every consultant, employee, and team member, we have learned and expanded our practice. As an employer, I am grateful to have been a stop on the journey of each of our employees & collaborators over the last fifteen years, and seeing how their time at TYTHE is rooted in their future brings me great joy.

Thank you to each and every one of you for all that you have done to shape TYTHE into who we are today:

Alex Gerber, Allegra De Angelo, Alicia Lui, Aliza Sarian, Aly Miller , Andrew Lebowitz, Ashley Halsey , Christopher Ranjitkar, Claudie Mabry, Daniel Lim | Daniel Lim Consulting, Doug Knapton, Ellie Wendell, Erick Melendez, Grace Moore, Hans Callenbach, Hillary Clark, Isabel Saffon, Jess Perilla | JPD Studio, John Lepore, Josh Newman, Julie Behrens | Project Urbanista, Julia Marden, Kacie Lyn Martinez, Kena Hazelwood, Kitso Wangdi, Lina Cherfas | A Good Question, Margo Dunlap, Marta Aubia, Mary Kathryn Fisher, Michaela Kramer, Nayla Attar, Piama Habibullah, Sahar Ghaheri, Stephania Biagini, Sushir Kadidal, Tamara Streefland, Toby Gardner and Young Lui

In a world where equity and inclusion are under threat, TYTHE is choosing to reflect, resist, and reimagine.

When we began planning this birthday celebration six months ago, we never would have imagined a future where TYTHE might not be able to exist anymore–where the very concepts in which we root our practice–inclusion, equity, community–would be under attack. We never imagined that this 15th birthday celebration could mark a pivot point for TYTHEdesign, but here we are.

Looking back on all that TYTHE has accomplished since we began in 2010, we have done it. We have set goals for ourselves and reached them. We have relationships that began in the back of a coffee shop at our one year anniversary party in 2011. We’ve come a long way, and if we couldn’t go on, we would be proud of where we have landed. We don’t know what the future holds for TYTHEdesign in five, ten, or another fifteen years, but we know that we’ve left our mark on this world and are doing what we can to make it a better, more resilient place for all of its residents.