Will any ML King, Jr. events include maps?

This weekend marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The important messages I've taken from this are "Just don't forget." and "There's a lot of work still to do."

I've written on this topic often in the past. Here are some articles I encourage you to revisit. If you look at January articles since 2005, you'll find a few more.

January 20, 2025 article - Notebook LM review of Tutor/Mentor Connection  (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011 - present) 

January 15, 2024 article - What if Dr. King, Jr. Followers Had Applied Spatial Thinking?

January 13, 2023 article - "I Have a Dream, too" 

January 18, 2021 article - Service Learning in Support of Dr. M.L. King, Jr's Dream.

January 20, 2019 article - How I'll Honor ML King Jr. Holiday

January 19, 2013 article - following my participation in a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. event at the University of Chicago.

October 11, 2012 article - General Powell saying "This isn't Charity."

Nov 11, 2011 article - "War on Poverty Continues"

July 4, 2011 article "Freedom is not Free"

Jun2, 2, 2005 article "Jesus or Martin Luther King, Jr. As CEO: Think about it."

Imagine if Dr. King, Jr. had had a projection screen at his events, on which he produced a map showing the high poverty areas of the US, with overlays showing racial demographics. What if he said, "This map shows all the places where people live in poverty, have less access to education and jobs, and have less chance for their children and grandchildren to share in the American Dream."

Then, imagine that he said "I'm going to check this map every 10 years from now for the next 50 years so I see a growth in learning opportunities, social justices programs, increased jobs opportunities, growing personal engagement from people who don't live in these areas, lending a hand to those who do."

With that he could have said, "Sharing this stage in 50 years will be young men and women of all colors who started life in one of these high poverty areas, but who now not only are well placed in jobs and careers, but are examples of leadership that is still working to fill this entire map with resources, talent, programs and opportunities that help future generations speed along this path to the American Dream."

He did not have those tools and I don't know if he ever thought this way. However, in 50 years we could see evidence of work done by many to create such a future.

After the prayer meetings, service projects, and other things you'll do today, dedicate some time to reading my posts and sharing them with others.  If you know of people using GIS maps, or Concept Maps, in their blog posts and/or events today, please share the links.

Use Internet Archive while my website is not opening

My Tutor/Mentor website has not been opening for the past week. I'm working to get that fixed.

In the meantime, you can view the site on the Internet Archive.  This link points to the last update in December 2025.  All of the internal links seem to be working.

As you celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, learn to use websites like mine as an on-going resource.

Use this resource to map and analyze your networks

My website has been crashing and people have not been able to see the new page that I launched to show work done by a team of students from the Information Visualization (IVMOOC) class at Indiana University. This is a project they had been working on for me since September 2025.  

I'm very impressed with the work they did. This visualization shows participation in one of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences held in Chicago between May 1994 and May 2015. You can see it in this article.  Open the Kumu map - click here

In the article and on my website I show several other views that I created from the interactive Kumu project. However, this was only a demonstration of what's possible.  On social media I've been encouraging youth and volunteers from Chicago tutor/mentor programs to dig into the map and find their own organization, then share a screenshot showing what conferences you were part of.

To understand the value of this project, I urge you to read the IVMOOC team final report (click here).

Then take time to study the "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. (click here).

Then look at the "How-To-Guide" that provides step by step information.

In the Project Overview the IVMOOC students wrote: "The Network Map is an event network visualization platform that helps event organizers collect participation and connection data, automatically convert it into network-ready nodes and edges, and explore insights through an analytics dashboard. Outputs can be exported to tools like Kumu.io and Gephi for deeper relationship mapping and network analysis." 

Then, look at the Git Hub page for the project. click here

On the home page you'll find this description. "Network Map - Event Network Visualization Platform. A full-stack web application for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing participant connections from events. Transform survey responses into interactive network graphs and analytics dashboards."

This is the third time since 2008 that the IVMOOC project has looked at the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which has been led through Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011).  Click here to read the 2015 project report.

I've been reaching out to universities for help since the 1990s. It's part of an on-going invitation to engage students, faculty and alumni of universities in Chicago and throughout the world.

Read this post and find a PDF that shows 30 years of engagement, yet also shows no strategic, long-term effort where a stream of students work on the T/MC project while in college, then when they are alumni, with the goal of creating long-term impact on the lives of people living in high poverty areas. 

I invite students and faculty to help me do that, by learning about the tool, and why it's important by reading articles on my blog and in my library.  Then, by creating your own event mapping project, perhaps showing how people at your university are connected around specific issues.

Please connect and introduce yourself to me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (see links here). 

Learn to use concept maps

Over the past few years I've provided a growing number of examples of how concept maps can be used to share information and to help people connect with each other.  I keep finding these on my LinkedIn feed.

Below is one that shows information about "main disciplines, foundations, tools, influences, and products" of a single ecosystem." It's called The Concept Art Map. click here to open

On the "about" page they wrote

"The Concept Art Map started from the struggle of trying to understand the concept art industry just by scrolling walls of text, posts, and random portfolio links. I never felt like I could see the bigger picture or where my own niche actually sat inside it.

So I decided to build a visual version of that picture. As an artist, seeing the whole system visually is the best way to understand how everything connects and how different roles, skills, and tools relate to each other.

I also believe the way we learn is shifting toward more interconnected, systematic presentation of information rather than static, isolated pieces of data and this map is my attempt to reflect that."

This pretty well summarizes my own reasons for creating concept maps.  I point to blogs and websites hosted by other people because most of the time they communicate an idea better than I do. 

I use my concept maps to help people navigate my library. Below is one example, which is showing the four sections of the Tutor/Mentor library. click here

If you compare the two maps you'll see that both are sharing information from a vast library, but in different ways. 

The first was built using Kumu.io.  In other articles I've shown how most Kumu maps are interactive, meaning you can move the nodes around.  And, you can turn layers of information on and off.  In the Concept Map Art map you can zoom in to more easily read the information in each node cluster.  You can also click on different nodes and see more clearly how that node is connected to others.  You can click on a node and get a side bar with descriptive information, often including a website address or social media link.

My map was built using cMapTools.  These don't have the interactive features that Kumu.io has, but at the bottom of each node are small boxes.  One includes links to external websites and the other has links to additional, related, concept maps.  Thus, while a KUMU map might show a vast ecosystem on one screen, the cMapTools map shows layers of information, as you move from one map to another. This section of the Tutor/Mentor library points to other visualization tools that you might use to do this work. 

One feature that I liked about the Concept Art Map was the "how to" page which you can open by clicking on the top right menu bar.

I'm just showing the first view of the "how to" page. You can actually scroll down through several sections that describe how to use the information they have collected.

In the "about" page the creator wrote,

Right now this is v1 of The Concept Art Map. It already covers the main disciplines, foundations, tools, influences, and products, but there are more features I’d like to add if there’s enough interest, things like a "personal niche" views and deeper paths for career development and artist networking.

If you’ve got thoughts, questions, or ideas for where this could go, feel free to get in touch!  

A feedback form is included.

I hope you'll take a look.

Students at every age level (6 to 96) could be learning to create information maps like these.  Volunteers could be helping them learn, and be learning themselves! 

In my "mapping participation" articles I show more examples and reasons to build such maps. 

One application might be mapping ICE activity, aggregating videos and written testimony showing where the law has been broken, and mapping information showing how citizens can respond to the growing Fascism in the USA.

Every day my social media is filled with more and more stories of attacks on democracy and harm to vulnerable people.  It makes it difficult to continue trying to draw attention to work needed to reach kids in high poverty areas with long-term programs that help them through school and into adult lives free of poverty  (and filled with opportunity).

This graphic shows the need for extra youth support in areas where poverty and structural racism mean kids have fewer supports and opportunities than do kids in more affluent areas.  One reason this problem persists over so many years is the random nature of interventions and funding.  I continue to post ideas like this, even in the middle of a full-blown crisis, because of the need for continuous support of programs that connect K-12 kids with extra adult and extra learning.

At the left is a photo of me providing a motivational speech at the annual year-end dinner for the tutor/mentor program that I led from 1975 to 1992.  I'm asking people to return for another year, and do more to help the kids and the program.

I'm still asking for this extra involvement.

Thanks for reading. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter (see links here).

If you value what I'm sharing please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills. 

Making Philanthropy Work Better

I've posted more than 100 articles since 2005 that focus on improving the distribution of philanthropic dollars to volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with multi-year support. 

I've used this graphic often to show the need for long-term funding.  You can find it in this article.

I've also written about the role of information-based intermediaries who collect and share information that volunteers and donors and policy-makers could use to help youth and families in areas of concentrated poverty.  Here's one example.

Furthermore I've shown my efforts over the past 30 years to create a map-based program locator that could help people better understand where youth and families needed more help, and what tutor/mentor programs existed in these areas, that also needed more help.

Thus, I was excited over the past two weeks to learn of an organization called Project 990, which is based out of Indiana University.   Visit their website and see how they are "Building a comprehensive data analytics platform that integrates information from millions of tax filings, grants, and other sources related to philanthropic giving."

This is far more extensive and sophisticated than anything I was able to do in the past.  View this Tableau site to see maps they have created from the data they are collecting. 

Then visit this Smart Charity page on LinkedIn and read the stories they are creating using this data.

I started connecting with Indiana University in the early 2000s when people from IUPUI began attending the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  Then in 2008 I began connecting with an Information Visualization program on the Bloomington campus of IU.  This 2012 article shows work done in 2008.  This article shows work done in 2015 and again in 2025. 

This Tableau map shows that part of their focus is on Bloomington, where the IU campus is located.  

I've introduced myself and hope that one or more of their students will dig into my blog, website and archives and begin sharing what they are learning via the Smart Charity stories.  My goal is that some of the strategies I've piloted, that focus on active, on-going communications intended to draw donors to existing non profits, and to places where more are needed, will become part of their own efforts.  The 2006-2015 articles on the Tutor/Mentor Intern blog show what's possible.

Furthermore, I hope their model is duplicated by universities in every urban area and in every state and that over time, this fixes the funding and staff retention problems that I focus on in my articles.

1-13-2026 update - Here's another example of mapping philanthropic data. Take a look at the Nonprofit Ecosystem Mapping Project on the GivingTuesday Data Commons. click here

When I was working with the IVMOOC team last fall I suggested that they create a map showing all of the programs at Indiana University that focused on helping people.   Here's one article where I show what's possible.   Here's another.  If such a map of the IU ecosystem existed I suspect it would connect the IVMOOC program and the Project 990 group, and maybe others who are doing related work.  

I am constantly reminded of how much great work is happening that I'm not aware of.  I add links to the Tutor/Mentor Library to share much of what I find.  So, if you're aware of programs similar to Project 990 at other universities, please share the links.

Thanks for reading.  Find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon. Find links here.

If you'd like to help fund my work, visit this page. 

Movement building - who's involved?

As we head into 2026 millions of people will be focusing on the fall elections and efforts to take back control of Congress from the GOP majorities, as part of a much greater effort to remove our current President and give him a new office in a Federal Prison. 

I'll be one of those millions of people. But I'll also spend time every day trying to help well-organized, volunteer-based, tutor, mentor and learning programs reach k-12 kids living in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other places, understanding that kids in these areas won't get extra support without intentional efforts of individuals and teams working throughout the country.

If you've read many of my past articles you'll see my use of visualizations and concept maps, with a focus on systems thinking and building blueprints that show "who needs to be involved" and "in what role" and "in what place" and "for how long". 

With that introduction please view this short video.

 

How do we get from "here to there?"

If you're an event organizer or youth program leader do you have a visualization showing the range of talent needed for you to succeed? Do you have a visualizations showing what networks need to be connected to you and each other?

Are you familiar with social network analysis? Do you already create visualizations that show who you're connecting with, or who your students are connecting with because of your intentional efforts?  Review articles in this section of the Tutor/Mentor website. 

I've written about this since the mid 2000s when I started this blog.  Look at articles like this, this and this to deepen your understanding of what I'm writing about.

Are you already doing this work?  Do you want to learn more?  Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, Twitter and other platforms (see links here). 

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to this blog and follow my newsletter. I'll be writing more articles on this topic and introducing a new open source mapping resource that I hope you'll use in your own efforts.