Super proud to have done this interview with longtime civic and creative scholar Bill Cleveland.
Arts & Community Practice Expert Bill Cleveland Interviews Tom Tresser on the Work – Artists as Leaders…
Category Archives: Politics of Creativity
Tom Co-Designs New Leadership/Candidate Training for Cultural Workers!
I am super proud and excited to announce that I am co-designing and will be part of the delivery of an amazing eight-week leadership/candidate training program aimed at artists and cultural workers that is being delivered by a partnership between the 100K Project, the National Guild for Community Arts Education, and the Cleveland Arts Education Consortium.
This is a civic leadership program designed to equip artists, cultural workers, and creative organizers with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to campaign and build people power at the state, local, and national levels. The program is via Zoom for two hours, beginning October 9. Learn more.
Sign up to attend a one-hour info session on Thursday, September 11 at 1pm Central Time.
Tom Helps Launch the 100K Project!
Make a tax-deductible contribution to this work via Fractured Atlas, our fiscal agent!
We are doing our first online leadership/candidate training program for creative workers! Learn more. Watch the information session video below to learn all about this creative, interactive, and powerful learning opportunity.
Read my piece from the Nonprofit Quarterly, “US Nonprofit Sector Documents Its Own Powerlessness. but What Will We Do?” from May of 2025. Answering my own call to action from The Nonprofit Quarterly, I am helping to launch 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. Read this piece from The Nonprofit Quarterly “From Service to Power – Retooling the Nonprofit Sector.”
Subscribe to “CivicNotes” and Keep Up With My Work
Get a copy of “Chicago Is Not Broke. Funding the City We Deserve” via Issuu (view on your device) for $15. Get a hard copy mailed for $20 (+shipping). Order a copy of my book on the No Games Chicago Campaign (20% discount with promo code “AFLY03”). Make a non-deductable investment in Tom’s work via PayPal.
June 2023 – Dear Civic Comrades, Neighbors, Allies, and Supporters – After ten years of working on the CivicLab, I am stepping back from operations and much of the work of the CivicLab. I will stay involved with TIF training. Health issues have caused me to scale back my activities and I will not be updating this site. If you would like to stay connected and follow my new work, research, and writing (one book coming out in mid-2024 and another in the works), please subscribe to my Substack newsletter at http://tresser.substack.com. Thank you for all your support and interest over the years!
- My take on What Happened (Disaster Election) – Part 1. Part 2.
- My call to action for America’s progressive sector – from The Nonprofit Quarterly – What Now? It’s a call for a radical change in focus and behavior!
Tom explains TIFs and Illuminates the TIFs of Kane County and Aurora in his 225th public meeting since 2013. He was the guest of Aurora Alderman John Laesch and Working Families Auroura. They are working to stop the city of Auora from giving a billionaire casion operator $58 million in public TIF dollars! Sign the petition.
Book Time With Tom
Interview Reveals (mostly) All
Jim Jacoby of the American Design and Master-Craft Initiative and Jim Cohen of BeSparked interviewed me in July for this series of master designer podcasts. What, you may ask, do I have to do with design? Ah ha! You’ll just have to listen to this wide-ranging 47 minute interview where I talk about my background in the arts and the connections between design, space and civic engagement. If you do listen – please comment at the bottom of the podcast web page.
Tom Will PechaKucha on March 5
Tom will be presenting at the 25th edition of PechaKucha Chicago at Martyr’s on March 5 at 8:00pm. What is PechaKucha? “PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images. PechaKucha Nights are informal and fun gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, works, thoughts, holiday snaps — just about anything, really — in the PechaKucha 20×20 format.” Get tickets here.
Steve Jobs On Power Of Humanities
Another reflection on the power of the arts, creativity and the humanities. This time it’s from Steve Jobs, from his presentation on the iPad 2 in early 2011. Reflecting on the success of Apple (and his own career), he said “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.”
Let’s Talk About Power at “Creative Chicago Expo”!
The 2012 Creative Chicago Expo is this Friday and Saturday at The Chicago Cultural Center. I will be conducting a round table discussion on how the creative community might organize for power. The discussions will be held in Preston Bradley Hall (on the second floor of the Cultural Center) near the Chicago Artists Resource table. Anyone is welcome to attend and join the conversation. My session will be on Saturday, March 24 at 11am.
Stand Up For Creativity 2012: Time To Advocate for Power & Resources – how to get serious resources for the arts and artists in Chicago and the U.S.
Global CEOs Say Creativity #1 “Must Have”
Good Magazine made this two minute video illustrating the 2010 IBM Global CEO Report where over 1,500 CEOs from 63 countries said that creativity was the Number One trait they are looking for from their managers. That’s why I’m teaching a class on creativity and business at the IIT Stuart School of Business.
GOOD Magazine Illustrates IBM’s 2010 CEO Study from Kaldor on Vimeo.