About Me

The People's Community Empowerment Institute (PCE Institute) is a "heart project" of non-profit Executive Director and former City Councilmember,
Krystal S. Marx.

That's me!

I've seen what happens when outside organizers who mean well come into town, get important legislation passed, and then disappear - leaving no structure for how to build community power... or when our local elected leaders start passing laws that strip agency, self-determination and success from their residents.

I have been teaching self-defense since 2013, and added Bystander Intervention in 2015, providing critical, practical knowledge where we need it most: our everyday lives and interactions. While a contractor with She Should Run, I led multiple cohorts of 20+ women from all over the country, helping them prepare for a run for elected office and then building up their skills in campaign management, fundraising and networking. Having just gotten elected to Burien, WA City Council in 2017, I experienced first-hand how difficult it was to 'break in' to those spaces.  After 15 years in the nonprofit sector (inaugural Executive Director of Seattle Pride (2019 - 2022) and current Executive Director of Real Change in Seattle, WA), I realized I had the skills to pull it all together and create a means by which to pass on what has worked and call out what hasn't. Finally, I've spent the last three years constantly shining a light on conservative corruption in local government - winning some, and losing some. 

In the end, I created the PCE Institute as a way to demolish the gatekeeping of skills and methods in activist spaces, and to inspire neighbors near and far to fight for their communities. I'm a bisexual, disabled woman, a mother of four (three of them teens, two of them trans), am married to / the caregiver of my husband James, an Army combat veteran, and enjoy spending time with my other partners as well. You can find me where there's coffee....