Craig Dresang, an award-winning California artist and writer

For the past decade, Craig Dresang has served as CEO of YoloCares, one of California's first established hospice and community-based palliative care programs.

He is also a columnist for the Davis Enterprise and a board member for Joshua’s House, the first hospice residence for otherwise unhoused individuals on the West Coast. During his 20 years in palliative care he has chaired the Nonprofit Hospice Coalition of Northern California and raised $50 million for the design and construction of four hospice residences in the Chicago area. In 2020, his organization secured a $1 million research grant from the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation to better understand and address barriers to care for rural and indigenous populations. Two years later, his organization raised the funds to design and open a state-of-the-art adult daycare center in Davis, CA.

Over the span of his career, Craig has helped secure $250 million in funding for both capital and programming projects in higher education, social services, and healthcare. Nearly $100 million has been raised specifically for ARTS programs in healthcare settings, museums, schools and universities, and city government. Much of this work came to fruition through collaborations with dozens of arts organizations including Chicago's Harris Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, Chicago Lyric Opera, Human Rhythm Project, Giordano Jazz Dance, Chicago Botanic Gardens, and the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus.

Prior to settling in California in 2014, Craig received a mayoral appointment to serve as Chairman of the Cultural Arts Commission for eight years in Elgin, IL (Chicago area), and was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Illinois Arts Council as a panelist and grant reviewer for the State's Arts-In-Education Residency Program. In addition, he also served as President of the Board for Elgin Opera.

In those roles, he hosted and helped facilitate two Town Hall discussions with Randy Cohen from Americans for the Arts in Washington DC, and fostered a project between Artspace and the City of Elgin that resulted in the development of 80 live/work spaces for artists.

He holds two degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and has been a frequent guest instructor and lecturer at both the Kellogg School of Management and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.