I have been advocating that nonprofit organizations and their leaders, staff and constituents get deeply and strategically engaged in public policy, advocacy and voter education and activation since 1990.
In light of the woeful state of American civics, I now call out America’s nonprofit sector. It has failed miserably. Watch this 16 minute video of a talk I delivered at a national conference in February of 2022:
Here is the column I wrote in 1991 for a Chicago performing arts newspaper, PerformInk headlined “The Artist As Citizen” It is sadly prophetic. Download pdf.
I’ve taught many classes at the graduate level on nonprofit advocacy and public policy.
Here are some comments from students I taught at Adler University:
“Did you have Tom Tresser for Advocacy? He inspired me to join the League of Women Voters and I have started an evening chapter for those that can’t attend meetings during the day. Our League did and outreach at the local community college to encourage people to vote. The people’s reaction were very interesting. LWV is nonpartisan. It was interesting to see the overall resistance to voting and the pervasive attitude that it doesn’t matter anyway. Well, as you mentioned so well, YES it does. My selection of a meeting location is the local YMCA is intentional as there is child care available for a nominal rate ($8 for two hours for your children). Trying hard to remove any barrier that might prevent people from attending. Having not educated myself well in the past to vote, now I am on a mission… for myself and for others to have the opportunity to learn and see ways to engage.”
“I did have Tom Tressor. As a part of my advocacy work, I was able to run a social media campaign for Western Illinois University’s Board of Trustees to vote “no” on laying off 50 professors. The petition, also addresses to Gov. Rauner, received 1,000 signatures in five days as well as news coverage. It was easy for me to get involved in this because I had the passion but Tom was able to give me the tools to be successful. Unfortunately, WIU did lay off (some tenured) professors. It is an ongoing issue with no clear resolution. Although I did not impact the outcome of the vote, it was worth the time and energy to show the professors solidarity. I was so fortunate to be students of theirs and wanted to show them how many people felt the same way! You can check it out below! https://www.change.org/p/western-illinois-university-board-of-trustees-dontfiremyteacher”
Here is the workshop I gave on September 14, 2015 at Adler University on “Civic Engagement 101” (1 hour, 40 minutes):
I have been teaching a class I designed on Nonprofit Advocacy for Adler University ‘s M.A. in Nonprofit Management Program since September 2015. This eight week online class will give student’s a solid grounding in the WHYs and HOWs of advocacy for nonprofit practitioners. It also offers participants a number of STRATEGIC and CREATIVE assignments to build their advocacy MUSCLES.
Read my blog posts from Adler’s “The Socially Responsible Practitioner” – “Nonprofit Advocacy: It’s Time to Change Our Losing Strategy” and
“Nonprofit Advocacy: How It Works.”
I’ve been teaching classes on nonprofits for some seven years. A satisfied student from one of my classes said (two years later):
Your class was awesome. To this day, it helps to think back on the class because I’m finding my way career-wise and still want to lean on the need for social change; beginning inside our communities. Also, I see your posts on Facebook and am motivated by your work.
There are 1,448,485 nonprofit organizations in America, with total revenues of $1.8 trillion! These groups employ over 12.5 million people and they tackle every sort of problem and service that you can think of. Nonprofits are a unique legal construction, some would say, uniquely American in that they combine a free-for-all approach to solving social problems and providing needed services with an entrepreneurial spirit. This class will introduce students to the distinctions, strengths and weaknesses of the nonprofit organization and will pay special attention to those nonprofits with a social change mission.
This class will:
• Give students a foundation understanding of the scope and distinctions of the nonprofit sector
• Investigate the best practices of innovative and effective nonprofit organizations
• Expose students to strengths and weaknesses of nonprofit organizations as vessels for social change
• Explore career options inside the nonprofit sector.
We will learn about the practicalities, politics and imperatives of nonprofit operation. The class will design and lay out the foundations for its own nonprofit organization as a way of understanding how nonprofit organizations work.
Download the syllabus = Nonprofits+Social_Change.
The students in this class designed a nonprofit from scratch to serve the needs of the DePaul student body. They came up with S.W.A.P. – Students With Action Plans – a research and advocacy organization to improve services on campus. The students wrote the mission statement, designed a logo and created a marketing and board recruitment plan that could’ve actually been implemented.
Tom Tresser's Teaching 
