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INSTRUCTORS
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Lauri Alpern
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Lauri Alpern, president of Open Door Advisors (ODA) is a seasoned Chicago‐based social venture business adviser. Lauri started ODA to follow her passion – working with the new breed of entrepreneurs seeking both income and social impact. ODA helps entrepreneurial nonprofits and social purpose and green businesses achieve financial sustainability through strategy development, business planning and investments.
As a technical advisor for Illinois ResourceNet at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Lauri advises nonprofits on capacity building strategies with an emphasis on successfully securing federal grants. Lauri has extensive experience in the federal grants arena where she has led teams submitting complex, multi-year grants and served as a lead writer. She has been selected as an expert reviewer by a number of departments including the U.S. Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development and the Corporation for National Service. Most recently, she was an expert reviewer for the inaugural round of the Social Innovation Fund competition.
Prior to founding Open Door Advisors, Lauri was a partner in the strategy firm ROI (Return on Inspiration) Ventures, LLC, where she managed a diverse client portfolio centered on social venture strategy and leadership development for a range of highly innovative organizations.
Lauri has also served as Executive Director of The Enterprising Kitchen (TEK), a nonprofit social enterprise, which provided workforce development services to unemployed women through a manufacturing company that produced natural soaps and soap products.
Additionally, Lauri has held leadership positions in community relations and community development. She helped found the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she served as associate director creating new resources and partnerships between faculty, students and community and corporate partners all seeking to improve the quality of life in Chicago and other cities. Prior to her years at UIC, with a portfolio that centered on urban industrial development, she served as assistant commissioner for the City of Chicago Department of Economic Development in the administrations of Mayors Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer.
Lauri serves on the board of Growing Home, Inc., a nonprofit social enterprise, which provides job training through an urban organic agriculture business, the Capital Campaign Committee of Inspiration Corporation and the Business Advisory Board of Sweet Miss Giving’s. Lauri, a lifelong Chicago resident, lives in the Lakeview neighborhood with her husband, two teenage sons and their dog.
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Martin Berg
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Martin Berg, Director of Marketing and Communications for Community Investment Corporation (CIC), specializes in marketing, fundraising management and operations management. CIC is a nonprofit multifamily rehab lender creating affordable housing for the six-county Chicago area. Mr. Berg is a life member of the Publicity Club of Chicago and also belongs to the Public Relations Society of America, American Marketing Association, Independent Writers of Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild.
Mr. Berg has over 30 years of nonprofit public relations/marketing experience, beginning with his service from 1979 as director of community programs for the former St. Anne's Hospital on Chicago's West Side and continuing with his tenure as executive director of the North-Pulaski Chamber of Commerce in the mid-1980s. From 1988 to 2000 he was director of communications, member services and retail development for the Chicago Association of Neighborhood Development Organizations (CANDO) where he worked with that nonprofit citywide coalition to revitalize Chicago neighborhood retail and industrial areas.
Mr. Berg was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Saint Louis University and pursued a Master of Social Work degree at the Jane Addams Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Bob Brehm
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Bob Brehm has worked in community development for over 30 years, including 17 years as Director of Bickerdike Redevelopment in Chicago, and more recently in the Washington D.C. area. He has provided direct technical assistance to over 20 community organizations, focusing on organizational development, strategic planning and management, program evaluation and community organizing and development strategies. He has also been teaching in several venues, including the Urban Developers Program at UIC, the Masters of Arts in Community Development at North Park College and various workshops in Chicago. Mr. Brehm's interests lie in community empowerment – looking beyond the numbers and tangible results in community organizing and development to such things as individual growth, leadership development, changes in the power structure and the ongoing struggle for economic and social justice. He has always strived to manage in a way that is both inclusive and democratic and that prioritizes recruiting people from the local community for staff and leadership positions. Over the years, Mr. Brehm has found that good organizational management is not at all inconsistent with those principles. A well-managed organization can put more energy into its empowerment work than can a group that is struggling to maintain its people, finances or focus.
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Margo Deley
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Margo is Partnership Coordinator in the Office of Academic Enhancement at Chicago Public Schools, serving the district’s magnet and gifted schools and programs. She is responsible for developing relationships with external constituencies, a task that involves marketing, fundraising and strategic planning. Previously, at the Chicago-based Millennia Consulting and independently, she was a consultant to foundations, nonprofits and other public service institutions. Margo served for more than 11 years as a program officer at The Chicago Community Trust where she oversaw grants in two communities under the Trusts Children, Youth and Families Initiative, served as senior program officer for the Community Development program and directed the Chicago Area Foundation for Legal Services. While at the Trust, she worked with organizations in the fields of youth development, legal services, affordable housing, economic development, regional planning, workforce development, adult literacy, community organizing, leadership development, civic participation, civil rights, criminal justice reform and strengthening the nonprofit sector. In addition, she reviewed and evaluated programs of the Trust and worked with colleagues, Latino trustees, and Latino business leaders in the creation of Nuestro Futuro, a Latino fund at the Trust. Prior to joining the Trust, Margo held positions in the Office of Research Services at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Office of International Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She has published articles on French immigration policy and undocumented Mexican immigrant workers in Los Angeles, a study of community foundations in Mexico and a capacity-building manual for organizations of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Margo is fluent in Spanish and French. She currently serves on two nonprofit boards.
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Atanacio (Nacho) Gonzalez
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Atanacio (Nacho) Gonzalez specializes in nonprofit governance and strategic planning. He is a fellow at the Great Cities Institute and coordinator of the Great Cities Institute Community and Economic Development Research Cluster as well as Associate Director of the UIC Neighborhoods Initiative, which is based at the Great Cities Institute.
Mr. Gonzalez has a long record of work in community organizing, housing and economic development. He is very active in the Latino community of Chicago and nationally. As an organizer, Mr. Gonzalez utilizes popular education organizing, a methodology used in Latin American community organizing. He is treasurer of the Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, one of the most successful affordable housing organizations in Chicago and president of the Humboldt Construction Company, which is community staffed and builds low-income housing. He is also the coordinator of the Organizer Learning Network, a community-driven learning center for community organizers. He has been a consultant in organizational development and organizer training since 1982. He has authored or participated in numerous research projects on economic and community development with the UIC Center for Community and Economic Development, the UIC Voorhees Neighborhood Center and the UIC Neighborhoods Initiative. Mr. Gonzalez holds a Master in Urban Planning and Policy degree from UIC as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from California State University at Los Angeles and a Certificate in Business Administration from UIC.
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Ike Heard
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Ike Heard serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His primary subjects are environmental planning, transportation planning, community economic development and urban planning (practice and theory). He has operated as an economic development and planning consultant for community-based organizations and local governments since the late 1980s. Ike earned his B.A. at Dartmouth College, his Master of City Planning degree at Harvard University and his Master of Public Administration degree at UNC Charlotte. From 1999 until 2003 he was the Charlotte Office Director for the Enterprise Foundation, a national organization that works with partners to provide low-income people with affordable housing, safer streets and access to jobs and childcare. The Charlotte office provides technical assistance and $1 million in annual funding (core operating grants and project loans) to six Charlotte-area CDCs. From 1991 until 1999, Ike Heard was employed as the Executive Director of the Northwest Corridor Community Development Corporation. In that capacity, Ike Heard was responsible for: planning and executing a 55,000 SF shopping center; developing nearly 200 units of affordable housing stock (new, rehabilitated, rental and owner occupied); co-developing (with Volunteers of America) a 60-unit LIHTC project for fixed-income elderly; implementing leadership training seminars for volunteer neighborhood activists; and developing a 30,000 SF community-oriented services facility and office building (sold to the Carolinas Medical Center and operating as a free-standing medical clinic). In support of these projects, he raised more than $2 million in grant funds to support the core operations of the CDC and more than $24 million in loans, investments and grants to finance the various projects. Prior to 1991 Ike worked for local housing developers for four years and was on the staff of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission for 13 years.
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Mary Heidkamp
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Mary Heidkamp, President of Dynamic Insights International, specializes in strategic, operations, marketing management and nonprofit governance. Dynamic Insights International strives to inspire organizations and their leaders to become the best that they can be while discovering the best of who they are. Dr. Mary Heidkamp has 25 years of experience in leading organizations, including 10 years as the Director for the Campaign for Human Development in Chicago, Illinois. In her role as president of Dynamic Insights International, she has consulted with organizations as diverse as the Chicago Mayor's Office for Workforce Development, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Mercy Hospital's Comprehensive Breast Center, the Sargent Shriver National Center for Poverty Law, Catholic Relief Services and Sarah's Inn of Oak Park. Drawing on the experiences of eight years spent living in South Africa, Japan and India, she brings a cross-cultural and international perspective to the work of organizational problem- solving. Dr. Heidkamp has received numerous awards including the Harry A. Fagan Roundtable Award (1996), the Cardinal Bernardin Common Ground Award (1996) and the Clarke College Distinguished Alumnae Award for Humanitarian Service (1995). She teaches Strategic Management, Operations Management and Board of Director Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Organizational Change at McCormick Seminary. Dr. Heidkamp is also the author of numerous popular articles on topics including goal setting, time management and women's unique challenge in the workplace. She is the co-author, with Jim Lund, of Moving Faith into Action (1990, Paulist Press) “a guide for organizing congregational groups for social action.” She holds a Doctorate from McCormick Theological Seminary (1993) with a specialization in organizational change and executive leadership.
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Dottie Johnson
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Ms. Johnson has over 25 years of experience in accounting and financial management, working capital financing and consulting and training services for nonprofit organizations and small businesses. She currently functions as VP & CFO of Lawndale Business and Local Development Corporation where her client base is comprised primarily of nonprofit organizations and small business owners. At LBLDC, she leads the Social Entrepreneurship Program and the Small Business Incubator Program, an initiative designed to ensure the sustainability of new businesses. In her work, Ms. Johnson greatly emphasizes the importance of financial planning, market research and budget preparation and analysis. Drawing on her extensive experience in financial analysis, she helps organizations become proactive by providing them with the technical assistance to plan and project their finances, as well as make better use of business management and research tools, case scenarios and staffing models. Further, Ms. Johnson informs her work with her wide-ranging background in organizational analysis and development, policy formation and evaluation, on-site evaluation of client financial reporting and accounting software implementation. Prior to joining Lawndale Business and Local Development Corporation, Ms. Johnson worked for Lumity as Director of Financial Consulting Services, where she provided oversight to its financial management assistance program for the local nonprofit community. She has published articles in trade journals and has provided training and consulting services to nonprofit professionals in accounting, internal controls, financial management systems and reporting. In addition, Ms. Johnson is active member of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management and the Illinois CPA Society.
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G.Sequane Lawrence
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G. Sequane Lawrence is a community economic development, workforce development, and youth development practitioner. Mr. Lawrence is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and also serves on the board of directors of Chicago Jobs Council. He has been named a Chicago Community Trust 2011 Fellow.
Mr. Lawrence was previously the Safer Foundation Sheridan Project Director. The Sheridan Project is a national re-entry model for formerly incarcerated men whose criminality stem from addiction and who are incarcerated at the Sheridan Correctional Facility in Sheridan, Illinois. Mr. Lawrence was responsible for job preparedness inside of Sheridan and job placement assistance for Sheridan program participants when they return to the community.
Mr. Lawrence was formerly the Chief Executive Officer of Youth Service Project, a youth development organization that provides market driven workforce strategies, social services, leadership development, youth entrepreneurship, economic development and multi-media programs for Latino and African-American youth in the Humboldt Park community.
Mr. Lawrence was formerly the Director of the Elliott Donnelley Youth Center in Bronzeville. His former employment also includes the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Workforce Development as the Director of the Kulick Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP), a national mentoring/employment demonstration project funded by the U.S. Department of Labor for out-of-school youth between the ages of 16-24. He was employed at Shorebank Neighborhood Institute (SNI) a subsidiary of Shorebank, Inc. on Chicago's west side, where he was a principle architect of an innovative demand-side labor initiative designed to assist west side residents to succeed in the labor market and the Director of Choices for Fathers, a Paternal Involvement Program for non-custodial fathers, a program of the Chicago Institute for Economic Development. He is also the co-founder of Prim Lawrence Group a community economic development and real estate finance consulting firm founded in 1992.
Mr. Lawrence is a specialist in workforce solutions, youth-development, community economic development strategies, activist and organizer. He holds a Masters of Science degree in Community Economic Development from New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He has received numerous certifications including but not limited to the Intergovernmental Executive Training Program for fast-track executives sponsored by the City of Chicago and Harold Washington College, Leadership for Social Change from the Institute of Pan African Studies in Los Angeles California and Fundamentals of Manufacturing from the Network for Excellence in Manufacturing based in Detroit, Michigan. He has received training from the Institute of Cultural Affairs in group facilitation methods and strategic planning. Mr. Lawrence has received additional training in project management and bi-level case management.
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Valerie Leonard
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Valerie F. Leonard is a community development consultant, with a mission to strengthen the capacity of organizations to make a positive impact on the communities they serve through technical assistance, specialized workshops, resource and organizational development and project management. Her clients include the Illinois ResourceNet, After School Matters, Quad Communities Development Corporation, Greater Chicago Food Depository and the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance. Ms. Leonard’s projects span a wide range of community and organizational development, including comprehensive organizational assessment, developing organizational budgets, financial management systems, policies and procedures, strategic planning, proposal writing and resource development, preparing cash flow projections, performing regulatory compliance reviews, development of specialized workshops and providing technical assistance for organizations seeking federal funds. Ms. Leonard has considerable experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Prior to starting her consulting practice, she spearheaded the spin-off of a community-based grant making organization from a family foundation and became its founding executive director; managed site planning and development activities for Jewel and Osco stores in Chicago and the six collar counties; coordinated financing in excess of $100 million for construction, renovation and major capital equipment purchases for a healthcare system on Chicago's west side; and developed marketing strategies for New York City's $6 billion general obligation bond program. Ms. Leonard holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Master of Management degree with concentrations in finance and marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston, Illinois.
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Susan Munro
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Susan Munro is president of SBM Solutions for Nonprofits, which consults to foundations and nonprofit organizations in the Chicago area on strategic planning, communications, marketing, fundraising and program implementation. She works primarily with organizations that share her goal of positively affecting the lives of children and families. In working with nonprofits, Ms. Munro follows a philosophy that is asset-based, solution-focused, outcome-oriented and collaborative. From 2000 to 2004, Ms. Munro worked at the Steans Family Foundation, leaving as the associate executive director. At Steans, Ms. Munro was responsible for communications, administration and three program areas: housing, health and human services and family asset-building. In 2005-2006, she was director of communications and development for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at UIC. Before joining the nonprofit world, Ms. Munro had a successful career in publishing. For fifteen years she was director of the professional books division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., where she worked with many authors at the forefront of a new movement in psychotherapy toward a process that was brief, collaborative and solution-oriented. At Norton she was also in charge of an extensive direct mail marketing program. Ms. Munro holds a Master of Child Development degree from the Erikson Institute and is a graduate of Smith College. She has been a volunteer fundraiser for Smith and has served on the Alumnae Fund Committee. Ms. Munro has also been a housing commissioner for the City of Evanston, Illinois. She is co-chair of the board of directors of Literature for All of Us.
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Gina Orlando
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Gina Orlando is a certified wellness coach, consultant, educator, writer and prevention specialist. Since 19081, Gina has worked in the holistic health, natural foods and prevention fields. Gina has worked in the nonprofit, public and private sectors, helping people of all ages to make positive changes in their lives and health to help them prevent burnout.
Gina earned her Master of Arts degree from DePaul University in 1998 as an educator and consultant in holistic health promotion and complementary medical approaches to health. Gina is a certified hypnotherapist with additional training in the medical uses of hypnotism. She uses self-hypnosis, guided imagery, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), relaxation, other mind-body-spirit-energy techniques, wellness coaching and whole health education in her private and group work with a wide range of issues and conditions.
Besides teaching the online course, “Beyond Burnout,” at the Great Cities Institute at UIC, Gina teaches an undergraduate science course at DePaul University called “Energy and Health,” which is an overview of alternative medical modalities. Gina has a successful private practice in Oak Park, IL, and facilitates groups through companies, hospitals and community organizations in the Chicago area.
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Kate C. Pravera
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Kate Pravera, PhD, is an accomplished nonprofit executive, educator and consultant with more than 30 years of experience building partnerships across public, private and nonprofit sectors and working across disciplines. Her extensive knowledge of the nonprofit sector and management of nonprofit organizations has shaped the UIC Certificate in Nonprofit Management online program for more than 10 years.
Kate specializes in program and curriculum design for professional development initiatives that promote social change. Utilizing a highly participatory and results-oriented approach, Kate has shaped the successful design and facilitation of numerous professional development workshops, conferences, graduate-level courses, and online classes. She has served as founding executive director of the Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF) as well as the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF.) As a senior consultant at Millennia Consulting LLC, she established a practice centering on planning, design and evaluation services, including business planning, curriculum design for adult learning, program design and organizational development. In 2000, Kate established the Certificate in Nonprofit Management online program, the first online, instructor-led professional development credential for nonprofit practitioners in the U.S. Kate holds a PhD in social ethics from Northwestern University.
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J. Dennis Rich, PhD, is Professor of Cultural Management and Chairman Emeritus of the Arts, Entertainment and Media Management Department at Columbia College Chicago.
In addition to working as a professor, Rich has fundraised for new programs and positions at Columbia College Chicago and as a working arts manager. He was responsible for annually raising millions of dollars for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, BalletMet, the Atlanta Ballet and Studio Arena Theater.
He has also worked as a development consultant for many years, assisting nonprofits to develop boards of directors and to create and execute fundraising programs. His international work includes colloquia, workshops, scholarly presentations and lectures on fundraising in more than twenty countries. He is a contributor and co-author of several books including a chapter on fundraising in Marketing Culture and the Arts, which is published in twelve languages.
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Deborah Strauss
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Deborah Strauss is President of Deborah Strauss and Associates, Inc. She is a consultant working on projects involving fundraising, capacity building and board development. Clients include organizations in the fields of the environment, food safety, human services, journalism and technology access for underserved communities.
She was the Executive Director of Lumity (formerly the IT Resource Center) from shortly after its founding in 1985 until 2007. Lumity’s mission encompasses technology consulting and training for nonprofits, creation of internet tools such as NPO.net, as well as work to bridge the digital divide. Deborah was responsible for program development and management, and she was exclusively responsible for fundraising for most of the organization’s history.
Previously she was Director of Development and Public Relations for the Chicago Child Care Society. Deborah taught English at the college level before becoming a fundraiser.
Deborah was a founding member of the board of the national Alliance for Nonprofit Management and served on the boards of the Donors Forum of Chicago and the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She is currently a member of the Association of Consultants to Nonprofits and the National Technology Enterprise Network. She was named by the Nonprofit Times as one of the Power and Influence Top 50 in 2002, 2003 and 2005. She received the Capacity Builder of the Year Award from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management in 2007 and previously received the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Deborah has a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Chicago. She is a past member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and a current board member of the Friends of the Parks.
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Noah Temaner |
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Noah is a freelance research, planning, writing, evaluation and management consultant for nonprofits that are engaged in community and workforce development, social justice, poverty alleviation and higher education. She has written and edited documents for clients such as the Illinois Community College Board, Chicago Jobs Council, New York Academy of Medicine and the North Lawndale Employment Network. Since May 2002, Noah has helped clients, through her grant writing, to raise more than $4 million for workforce development programs, technology upgrades, ex-offender re-entry programs, community-based research, advocacy activities, strategic planning and other related activities. She teaches grant writing, evaluation, and community development courses at UIC. Previously, Noah worked in the Affordable Housing Division of LR Development Company and as project manager for a foundation-funded national evaluation of the federal Empowerment Zone program. She holds a Master of Urban Planning and Policy and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, both from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She has served as president of the UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs Alumni Association, currently serves as president of Friends of Downtown and recently joined the board of Southwest Youth Collaborative. Noah was born and raised on the south side of Chicago and now lives in downtown Chicago with her young daughter.
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Tom Tresser
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Tom Tresser is a consultant, producer, educator and trainer who works with individuals, companies and communities to leverage and amplify their creative assets in order to solve problems, create economic value and trigger civic engagement.
In 2007 he designed and produced training programs for the provincial government of Saskatchewan on how to use the arts and creativity for local economic development. He was director of cultural development at Peoples Housing, in north Rogers Park, Chicago, where he created a community arts program that blended the arts, education and micro-enterprise.
Tom has acted in some 40 shows and produced over 100 plays, special events, festivals and community programs. He was an arts activist, having organized support for pro-arts candidates and developed a cultural policy think tank at Roosevelt University in the early 1990s, where he taught "Arts & Public Policy." In 2003 he was appointed Visiting Fellow in Arts and Culture at the DePaul University College of Commerce's Ryan Center for Creativity and Innovation. Tom was elected to the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School's Local School Council and served from 2004 to 2006. He was a co-founder of Protect Our Parks, a neighborhood effort to stop the privatization of public space in Chicago. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago, an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid.
He has taught workshops on "The Politics of Creativity - A Call To Service" for arts service organizations in six states. He has taught a number of classes on art, creativity and civic engagement for Loyola University, School of the Art Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology and DePaul University. Tom also consults with arts organizations on strategic planning, audience development and peer-to-peer marketing. Tom has also published a web-based project, "America Needs You!" about the need for artists to get involved in politics.
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