United Way and Chicago Community Trust Report focuses on Challenges Facing Non Profits

In 2006 The Chicago Community Trust and United Way of Metropolitan Chicago co-sponsored a study to assess the current condition of the Health and Human Services system in the Chicago region and to assist in the creation of strategies that could address our greatest challenges facing the sector.

Both organizations are concerned about the many strains on the Chicago metropolitan area's nonprofit health and human services (HHS) system, caused by dramatic demographic changes in the region, growth in the need for services and at the same time increasing uncertainty about adequate funding. I encourage Tutor/Mentor Connection supporters to read this report. Every issue described in this report is a challenge facing volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region, and probably in every other major city in the country.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection has been focusing on these issues for the past 14 years, in its efforts to help small and mid size volunteer-based organizations throughout the Chicago region get the consistent resources they need to keep leaders and develop quality programs. In the LINKS sections of the T/MC web site we provide numerous links to articles that illustrated the funding challenges we face, as well as articles that show why non-school tutor/mentor programs are critically important to school reform, workforce development, etc.

The May and November Conference is an invitation for people who are concerned by the issues raised in the current report produced by the Chicago Community Trust and the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago to come together to talk about these issues, expand your network of supporters and peers, and look for ways to innovate solutions that distribute volunteers, operating dollars, and leadership more consistently into more places.