Are you a leader? Yes or No? Do you have stuff, your creative Superpowers — the thing that made you successful in your creative life, whatever that does, whatever that is that we need in our public life? And I say, “Hell, Yes!” ~Tom Tresser
I mainly think of myself as a civic educator and public defender – lifting up and protecting and extending our public stuff – the very concept of “public” – via grassroots organizing, training, civic engagement, and leadership development. I hate bullies and believe in the promise of the founding principles of America! ~Tom Tresser
Tom Tresser is a Chicago based civic educator, creativity champion, and public defender with over 50 years grassroots democracy experience.
He has started or led 14 nonprofit enterprises in the arts, community development, and civic engagement. He has taught civics, organizing, creativity, leadership. Public policy, and nonprofit management at six local universities. He is a former Shakespearean actor and Off-Loop theater producer who created the Chicago Young Playwrights Festival in 1986. He has been working to get power into the arts and nonprofit sector since his first training for artists to run for local office in 1991! He is the lead organizer for the 100K Project (www.100kproject.us), a national movement to inspire and equip our peers to lead in public life. His book No Games Chicago – How a Small Group of Citizens Derailed the City’s 2016 Olympic Bid was published by Routledge Press in 2024 (www.nogameschicagobook.com).
Organizing for The 100K Project – We seek to recruit, train, and propel 100,000 people from the arts, nonprofit, social services, education, and science sectors (and their supporters) to run for local office or help those with our values run as champions of service, science, justice, equity, peace, creativity, and the public sector. All permitted functions inside the 501 c 3 framework.
How does one build a movement? It often helps to begin with people who are already in one place, are easy to reach, and share the values and goals of your proposed cause or campaign. America Needs You!
Latest Book:
– Most relevant for our discussion is “America Needs You! Why You Should Become a Creativity Champion (and run for local office)” – from 2008 -> www.tinyurl.com/ANY-Issuu ($7) – image of cover attached
– My writing on the state of the nonprofit sector (it’s not good) at the Nonprofit Quarterly – https://tinyurl.com/Tom-NPQ-Writing
https://linktr.ee/tom.tresser –
https://www.instagram.com/tom_tresser/ –
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomtee