Tom Tresser
Title:
Adjunct Instructor
Programs/Classes Taught:
PPA 502 – Public Policy Analysis
Areas of Expertise:
Community organizing, social change strategy, leadership and social change, civic engagement, nonprofit policy formulation and advocacy, creativity and social change, civic innovation, peer-to-peer civic journalism, popular education around public policy, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) programming
Biography:
Tom Tresser (www.tresser.com) is a civic educator and public defender. His first voter registration campaign was in 1972. In 2008 he was a co-founder of Protect Our Parks (www.wesavedlincolnpark.org), a neighborhood effort to stop the privatization of public space in Chicago. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago (www.nogameschicago.com), an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. Tom co-founded The CivicLabin 2015 a co-working space where activists, educators, coders and designers came to work, collaborate, teach, and build tools for civic engagement. Located in Chicago’s West Loop. He is the lead organizer for the TIF Illumination Project (www.tifreports.com) that is investigating and explaining the impacts of Tax Increment Financing districts on a community-by-community basis. Tom is the organizer and editor for Chicago Is Not Broke. Funding the City We Deserve, which describes $5 billion in sustainable and progressive revenue solutions for the city (www.wearenotbroke.org). Since 2008 Tom has been invited to present at over 150 community meetings and public forums. Tom has designed and taught classes on community organizing, nonprofit management and advocacy, leadership for social change, arts and social change, and creativity and business for a number of local universities.
Education:
B.S., Antioch College
M.S., Spertus College
Certificate in Nonprofit Management, Roosevelt University
Certificate in Business Management, University of Chicago School of Business
Research and Interests:
I am interested in the “ladder of engagement” – that is, how to move people from being asleep and disinterested and unengaged to become leaders in and makers of public life. My work blends the arts and creativity with investigative journalism, new media technology and old school community organizing to reveal and explain public policy and to motivate and equip our neighbors to become active and effective players in public life. Over the past ten years I’ve done extensive research into the forces behind privatization, the Olympic movement, tax increment financing, space making, the maker/hacker space movement, crowdfunding and civic metrics.
Contact Information:
Tom Tresser
NLU email: ttresser@nl.edu
Personal web site: www.tresser.com
Current civic work:
The CivicLab: www.civiclab.us
The TIF Illumination Project: www.tifreports.com
The “Chicago Is Not Broke” Book Project: www.wearenotbroke.org
The POWER Institute: www.powerinstitute.us
Past civic work: No Games Chicago: www.nogameschicago.com
Protect Our Parks: www.wesavedlincolnpark.org
