Monday, May 18, 2015

Mr. Mayor. I tried to give you these ideas four years ago.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was sworn in for his second tour of duty today. On my Twitter feed I saw quotes from his speech:

One said: "The young people that we are losing cannot wait for an endless political debate to be resolved."

Another said: "It is time we stop talking past each other and join together for solutions."

Mr. Mayor, In March 2011, I posted this article, and invited you to adopt this strategy map, showing a commitment to helping youth born or living in poverty be in jobs and careers by age 25.


You've launched a number of initiatives since 2011, such as ThriveChicago, but these are starting from scratch. The ideas I've shared with you have been developed since 1993, and are just waiting for a leader (or more) to embrace them. Here's one presentation from 1998.

This strategy is based on collecting a wide range of information, and engaging a growing percent of Chicagoland residents in using the information to support the growth of a wide range of age-appropriate youth supports in all areas of the city with high poverty and other indicators of need, such as high violence, poorly performing schools, health disparities, etc.

It calls on you to be the number one cheerleader, recruiter and arm-twister, getting leaders from business, religion, higher education, philanthropy, sports, and other sectors consistently involved, providing time, talent and dollars to youth organizations in all high poverty neighborhoods, not just to favored programs like Afterschool Matters.

It also calls on you to support the development of accountability and positive recognition tools that show where people are engaging with youth and communities, and in what ways. Below is one of many illustrated pdfs that are available for you and other leaders to learn from. This one shows how giving positive recognition for good work can encourage others to duplicate it.

Using Ideas to Stimulate Competition and Process Improvement - Concept Paper by Daniel F. Bassill



Collecting information, organizing and sharing it is step one of a four part strategy that I've encouraged you and others to support. I'd be happy to meet with you or any other leaders to guide them through this information. I hope I'm not making the same invitation four years from now.


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