Tom Tresser

Tom Tresser is an educator, organizer, creativity champion, public defender, and fighter of privatization. He has been doing civic engagement and grassroots democracy efforts for over 40 years. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago, an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. He is the lead organizer for the TIF Illumination Project that is investigating and explaining the impacts of Tax Increment Financing districts on a ward-by-ward basis. With Benjamin Sugar Tom co-founded The CivicLab in 2013, a co-working space where activists, educators, coders, and designers came to work, collaborate, teach, and build tools for civic engagement.

In July of 2016, Tom published a book of short articles by local experts on how they can save and generate $5 billion in sustainable and progressive revenues for Chicago, including the establishment of a public bank for Chicago. Chicago Is Not Broke. Legendary political organizer Don Rose calls it “required reading.” To date the book has triggered 66 public meetings around the book attended by over 2,300 people.