About GRU Founder - Tom Bacote

A graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA with a B.A. in International Relations, Tom Bacote has dedicated his professional career to building and leading teams that serve and empower working families. Throughout his career, Tom Bacote has written winning campaign plans and organizational proposals that have benefited thousands world-wide. He successfully managed the implementation of community-based programs & campaigns with budgets totaling more than 7.6 million dollars in federal, state and private funding in both the United States of America and throughout southern Africa.

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Tom Bacote worked for ten (10) years with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest Union then affiliated with the AFL-CIO. He rose from the position of an unpaid legal intern at SEIU Local 1985 in Fulton County, GA to Organizer, and then eventually serving as the international Union’s Southern Region Political Director. At Local 1985, he represented Union members in private and public sector contract negotiations, grievance and National Labor Relations Board hearings. As Southern Region Political Director, he served for more than four (4) years managing the implementation of local Unions’ political plans in seven (7) southern U.S. states.

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During that time, he authored and won institutional funding for the first of its kind, Student Political Organizer (SPO) Program. The SPO Program focused on recruiting and training college students to work in tandem with local Union members in order to reinforce the Union’s work and message during electoral and legislative campaigns.

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While at SEIU, Tom noticed it employed a 'sink-or-swim' method of internal leadership development. Young staff and new member leaders did not have a structured, mentored route to success within SEIU, the fastest growing Union in America. With two members of the Executive Board of SEIU, Tom wrote the Generation-S Program, a structured and systemic approach to mentoring new leaders within the Labor Movement.  The international President of SEIU, April Verrett elected in 2024 is a graduate of the SEIU - Generation S Program.

At SEIU, Tom Bacote was chosen, in the year 2000 to participate in a staff exchange program with the National Education and Allied Workers Union, (NEHAWU) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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In 2001, Tom along with two friends from Morehouse College founded Capitol Educational Support (CES) a community-based non-profit organization that provides academic tutorial and social mentoring programs for special needs and youth at risk of failure. In 2001, CES served one student referred from District of Columbia Department of Social Services Juvenile Division.  At its height, prior to No Child Left Behind Act defunding the organization served more than 2,000 students in seven (7) states.  Capitol Educational Support was the largest provider of supplemental educational services for public school students in the District of Columbia from 2006 to 2012.

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After leaving SEIU in May of 2004, Tom Bacote joined Rock the Vote (RTV) based in Los Angeles, CA. There he served as National Field Director, charged with writing the organization’s first national field plan. There he managed Rock the Vote’s on-line voter registration component as well as the Street Team field program within fifty-seven (57) cities across the U.S. By end of voter registration deadlines in 2004, RTV registered more than 1.5 million new young voters, more than 500,000 of which were registered in the field.

From 2008 to 2014, Tom Bacote served in a contractual capacity each summer as the Director of Training and Program Development for the Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s (CBCI) Annual Political Boot Camp, chaired by Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (MS-2). In this role, Tom coordinated and led a seven (7) day intensive campaign training, focused on the key components, strategies, and immersion into the tactics of running an effective political campaign, (both issue and electoral).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj-eGO7KO88

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During the 2008 Presidential electoral cycle Tom Bacote served as the Field Director for the Department of Civic Engagement at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), based in Baltimore, MD. Tom’s chief responsibilities included the development of new non-partisan programs and campaign tools focused on building membership political capacity within NAACP chapters. He wrote the plan and managed the day-to-day operation of the NAACP’s fifty (50) state electoral and legislative member based political program.

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Throughout the 2008 national electoral campaign, Tom directed the NAACP’s National Election Day Command Center manned by over 150 staff and volunteers. The National Command Center based in the NAACP’s Baltimore, MD Headquarters oversaw 115 state NAACP Command Centers. The National Command Center included seven (7) respective operational Desks focused on ‘Election Protection’ - Attorney Hotline, National Communications, New Media, thirty (30) station voter outreach Phone-Bank, Voter Relief RV, Faith Community Outreach, and National Get Out the Vote Desk focused on hourly tracking of voter turnout within the NAACP’s 1,037 precincts of interest in thirteen (13) states.

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Tom Bacote is a coach and lead trainer in the Marshal Ganz Interdependent Leadership Model of Organizing political and community strength. Interdependent Leadership is the proven effective method of training & engaging citizens to first understand their individual stories and power in the political process. From that understanding Tom trains team members and manages fully comprehensive field operations that depend on micro targeting, data analysis, and shared strategy implementation. The Interdependent Leadership model was utilized successfully to train the over 23,000 field volunteers that powered President Barak Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012.

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Tom Bacote led the field team that made history on May 17, 2011 by electing Alvin Brown Mayor of Jacksonville, FL. Having achieved this run-off victory Alvin Brown, (former student of Tom's in his 2009 CBCI Bootcamp class) became the first African American Mayor in Jacksonville history.  Tom led a team of over 50 paid canvassers in 8 offices all focused on educating and turning out supportive voters in 256 precincts within the largest geographically expansive city in the United States.  Tom established the campaign's direct voter persuasion strategy (in both rounds). He calculated and established the campaign’s voter universe targets and facilitated all regular team trainings, while managing all campaign Early-Vote and Election Day operations. 

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Tom's voter projections (35.7% forecasted turnout) submitted by him on April 1, 2011 was only 1.5% off of the actual voter turnout (37.28%) on Election Day May 17th. Even though Alvin Brown was outspent by his opponents more than 17 times. Within 3 months Tom was able to build a leadership team that trained and mobilized the strength of more than 250 volunteers and paid canvassers within Duval County, FL to work 7 days a week in order to elect the first Democratic Mayor in Jacksonville since 1995.   The ‘ground game’ was largely credited for Alvin Brown’s slim 1,662 vote margin of victory in the closest mayoral race in Jacksonville’s history.

See Florida Times Union article on the Alvin Brown for Mayor race:

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-05-22/story/alvin-brown-won-it-issues-advisers-ground-game

Mayor Alvin Brown in his own words discussing how he became mayor of Jacksonville, FL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjOqrk-vOvQ

In May of 2012, Tom was asked to serve as Lead Trainer for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies’ (APAICS) National Leadership Academy.  There he directed the two-day training and developed the political education program for the 113 APAICS participants from across the United States. 

In June of 2012, Tom Bacote began serving as the Country Program Director for the Southern Africa Office of the American Center for International Solidarity, AFL-CIO (Solidarity Center).  The Solidarity Center Southern Africa Office has worked for more than 30 years to provide internal and external capacity building programs to benefit labor unions within the Southern African Development Community (SADC). 

He worked with the Africa regional staff to develop and implement program priorities to benefit work in South Africa and sectorial Trade Union programs throughout the region. Consistent with the strategic vision of the Solidarity Center’s global and regional work; he worked with his Johannesburg based team to revisit those priorities as needed to reflect the fast changing national and regional realities on the ground in Africa.

In this role he represented the political interests and fair employment related issues of the various labor movements of Southern Africa.  He drew on his then 18 years of experience in building coalitions and collaborative programs & campaigns, and applied those skills to his daily work, all in an effort to advance worker rights internationally.

Tom Bacote introduced the methods and political campaign concepts he has used to motivate voters, campaign staff and volunteers to action in American cities to expand the work & reach of new African political leaders and Unions.  Tom trained leaders of the Congress of South African Trade Union’s (COSATU) and its affiliate unions, as well as COSATU’s Political Committee at the request of its President and Education Director.  He also provided regular technical advice to USAID, the US Ambassador to South Africa, and the US Department of State. He trained leadership of the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) and led the elected-leaders of the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU), Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) and Mozambique Workers’ Organization (OTM) in Shared Strategy development, Team Building and advanced Public Narrative Trainings.

From 2021-2024, Tom trained & assisted leaders of the Basotho Action Party (BAP) the new political party formed in 2021 to combat government corruption in Lesotho. BAP now has 6 seat strong minority voice in the Lesotho Parliament and is a leading advocate for fair & equitable rights of Lesotho citizens. While in Lesotho, Tom also assisted the Transportation and Allied Workers of Lesotho (TRAWULE), in acquiring seed resources, writing the union's new constitution, and developing their organizing strategy to become Lesotho's first taxi drivers' union, officially recognized by the Kingdom of Lesotho.

Tom Bacote is now back in the US and beyond committed to empowering a new generation of out-of-the-box political candidates & staff that will positively change America and the rest of the world. He has created and organized the team that has built GrassRootsUp.org, to give new leaders the practical tools needed to win in today's political environment.