Missing Tutor/Mentor eNew for April and May?

If you are one of the 300 or 400 people who open and read my monthly eMail newsletters you may be wondering where the past two month's issues are.  I've been going through some personal struggles since April 1 so I've not been able to focus attention on the newsletters. I continue to post on social media, and you may notice, I've fewer blog articles, too.

I've tried to produce a monthly newsletter every month for the past 20 years to help draw attention and resources to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and elsewhere, while also sharing ideas that resource providers and program leaders can use to build great programs.

Each month's issue has focused on what's timely. So in July and August I'm focusing on volunteer recruitment, while in November and December I focus on fund raising and learning from each other.

With that in mind, you can browse my newsletter archive and open newsletters written in May-June for past years and find many of the same ideas that I'd be including in 2019 newsletters, if I had written then.  Below I'm showing part of the May-June 2018 newsletter. Click here to read it.

By now most programs that operate on a school year cycle have  held their year-end celebrations, or will do that in the next couple of weeks. Most well-organized programs already have been in the planning process, learning from what worked,or did not work this year, and from what they can see about work being done at other programs, then looking for ways to add new or improved ideas into the 2019-20 program cycle. Some are already recruiting volunteers for the coming school year.

I see posts from many Chicago programs on my Facebook feed, and a smaller group on my Twitter feed.  Many are showing success stories, of kids graduating from high school and/or college.  Not many are talking about the challenges they have faced of the past year or more to help kids have these successes.

Too few programs are actually sharing anything!  

If you look at the map in this article, and my list of programs serving Chicago, you'll see that there are nearly 200 organizations providing some form of tutoring and/or mentoring to kids.  Yet, less than 20% of these programs share regularly on FB and fewer on Twitter (unscientific observation!). 

They all might benefit from ideas in my newsletters so please share the link. I feel they also would benefit from connecting to me, and each other in on-line forums. I recommend Twitter for its ease of interaction more than I do Facebook or LinkedIN.

I hope to be back in circulation in a month or two.  In the meantime, please read and share my blog articles, past newsletters and help build the village of support kids in all neighborhoods need to connect with volunteers in well organized programs, and to move safely through school and into adult lives.

Make #GivingTuesday Every Tuesday!

Yesterday was #Giving Tuesday/#ILGive and my email, Twitter and Facebook pages feed were filled with photos of youth and volunteers and requests for support.

I hope every program that participated met or exceeded their goals, although I doubt this was true for most of the smaller organizations. 

I wrote this article last November asking if "All Chicago Tutor/Mentor Orgs Filled their Funding Tanks on #Giving Tuesday". The message is still relevant a year later.

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in Chicago in 1993 to connect people who can help (almost anyone) with youth tutor and mentor organizations operating in different sections of the Chicago region.  At this link you can find my list of programs and see how I've been plotting this information on maps.

While it's great that events like #GivingTuesday attempt to attract donor attention, we need donor attention so every Tuesday of the year is a day when volunteers and donors look at map-directories like mine and decide who they want to help, how, and how much.

In 1993 as we developed the T/MC we created a 10-point plan, which within a couple years was narrowed down to a 4-part strategy (described here). 

The cMap at the left shows the four parts of the strategy, but adds notes showing work that needs to be done and help needed to make each part of the strategy have the impact on Chicago neighborhoods, youth, and  youth serving organizations, that it needs to have.

Anyone can look at a map showing  poverty and other indicators of need and begin to ask what he/she can do to help fill each of those neighborhoods with a full range of needed programs and services, and what needs to be done to supply talent, dollars, technology and ideas to each program on an on-going basis.

I hope some of my blog articles and Tweets encourage you to do that.

If you're reading this, you can rewrite it and pass it on to people you know. You can create a video to show what I'm talking about. You can bring together a group at your faith group, business or school to ask "what can WE do to help great youth serving programs grow in all parts of Chicago?"

As you do this I hope a few will reach out to me and ask "How can we help you?" instead of starting a new organization aimed at the same problems, but perhaps without the same strategies in mind.

I look forward to hearing from you. Reach me on any of these social media platforms or email tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net.

If you can provide year-end financial support to help me continue this work in 2018, click this link to find a PayPal button to use.

New Year's Wish. Awards for Strategic Business Investment

If you've visited this blog I hope you've also visited the Mapping for Justice blog. This one provides a broader range of information and ideas intended to engage more people in support of organized, non-school programs that connect youth and volunteers in muti-year efforts. The Mapping for Justice blog focuses narrowly on the use of Geographic maps and visualizations.

During the last two months of 2014 I've posted a series of concept maps, like the one at the left, that illustrate strategies I hope are adopted in many places, that support the on-going growth and distribution of tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.

During the January National Mentoring Summit, several businesses will be recognized for their "outstanding contributions to advancing quality mentoring opportunities for young people". At the annual National Conference on Volunteering and Service , to be held in October 2015, the Corporation for National and Community Service provides this Award of Excellence to businesses with outstanding corporate volunteer engagement strategies.

In many articles on this blog I've used graphics to show the 12 years it takes for a youth to go from first grade to 12th grade, and the need for on-going operating support to organizations in every poverty neighborhood who have strategies to help youth succeed in this journey. I've pointed to challenges facing non profits, resulting from an inconsistent flow of operating dollars and an almost non-existing advertising budget, which makes it extremely difficult for high quality tutor/mentor programs to realistically be operating in every poverty neighborhood of any city.

Thus, my wish for 2015 and beyond is that awards be given to companies who form teams of volunteers who research ways their company can engage employee talent and company resources to provide on-going flows of talent and dollars to support youth serving organizations who show strategies aimed to help youth move through school and into careers. Such teams would use the maps I've pointed to here, and on the Mapping for Justice Blog, as part of their own research. Maps like the one below can be used as study guide, or to stimulate thinking on the benefits to adopting such strategies.

In this Shoppers Guide I show some indicators that I feel should show up on the web sites of non school, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs. As I talk to my peers I encourage them to create their own strategy graphics and blog articles, showing the challenges they face and encouraging business to support them, and all other, youth serving organizations in the city where they operate.

Companies might use this Role of Leaders PDF as a guide for launching internal teams.

I'd like to see a similar guide showing indicators that would appear on business web sites, showing a CEO commitment to engaging company resources in strategic, on-going efforts to help more kids move through school and showing strategies the company is applying to mobilize more and more resources and distribute their influence to all locations where they do business or where employees live.

If companies from every industry and profession were encouraging volunteer involvement in neighborhoods throughout the city, programs from throughout the city might be able to show a greater diversity of volunteers and funding. Using Social Network Analysis tactics every program might begin to publish graphics similar to this, showing the different jobs/careers modeled by volunteers within their organization, or showing sources of operating resources, technology, talent and ideas.

Finally, my 2015 wish includes a hope that one or two investors/benefactors will step forward and put their name on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, with a major contribution and long term commitment. This strategy map shows what I've been building and all the different places where investment is needed to do this better than I've been able to so far.

I recognize the vast amount of information I've provided in 2014 and in past years and that while my visualizations make sense to me, they may not make sense to others who've not spent as many years thinking about this as I have. Thus, I encourage you to invite me to your company or organization (for a small fee) where I can spend time talking with you about any of these articles or graphics.

Happy New Year to all who read these articles. Best wishes to you, your families and the people who serve in your own efforts.

Commitment to Chicago area youth. Need more leaders.

This was the editorial from the April 14, 2014 Chicago Tribune, following another weekend of violence. I've been collecting news articles like this for more than 20 years, with a goal that I'd some day have the ability to put these into book form in ways that the aggregated total would show that the way we've tried to solve this problem in the past has not worked, and that new ways need to be innovated.

This was the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes. I've used this often in this blog to remind myself, and others, of the daily commitment many of us need to make to help youth in areas with high concentrations of poverty, poor schools and youth violence, have a non-school support system, anchored by well-organized, consistently funded volunteer based tutor/mentor programs.

Every December since I started writing this blog in 2005 I've posted articles focusing forward into the next year. I hope you'll read some and share them with others.\

Dec. 9, 2014 - Building Influence. Building Networks

Dec. 26, 2013 - Connecting a Million Minds around Complex Problems

Dec. 21, 2012 - New Year's Resolution for Helping At-Risk Youth

Dec. 26, 2011 - Creating a Service and Learning Organization that Mentors Kids to Careers: 2012 Resolution

Dec. 22, 2010 - Networking, sharing information, collaboration

Dec. 17, 2009 - Network Building for Inner City Youth

Dec. 29, 2008 - SunTimes 'Stop the Killing’ Special Report misses opportunity

Dec. 16, 2007 - Building Networks of Purpose

Dec. 26, 2006 - National Mentoring Month - Who Mentored You?

Dec. 23, 2005 - Spread Holiday Hope and Holiday Cheer

If you look at articles I've written in other months of the year, you'll see a consistency of messages. I firmly believe that until more people are writing similar stories, using common information libraries, and for the same purpose, we won't build the momentum needed to make great tutor/mentor programs available in all poverty areas, or keep them their and constantly improving as they help kids move from first grade to first job.

If you're writing stories like this, and have been doing it for as many years, let's connect.

I've been trying to find a way to fund the work I've been doing since forming Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. I've not had much success so I'm spending less than $20,000 a year when I really should be spending more than $1 million a year to implement the 4-part strategy shown in this concept map.

If you want to help me do this work, on an incremental basis, become a sponsor for the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, or make a "HOPE and Opportunity" contribution that is an investment in the work I'm doing.

However, if you'd like to make this your legacy, and put your name on the door, please reach out to me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

Connecting a Million Minds around Complex Problems

As we head into 2014 I'm constantly reminded of how many thousands of people are already involved in some way in helping disadvantaged youth succeed in school, stay safe in non-school hours, connect with a caring adult mentor or tutor, and continue their movement toward adult roles and responsibilities.

I'm also reminded of the overwhelming amount of information that is available via the internet to support our understanding of problems and inspire us with potential solutions.

Last week I reviewed this Standford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) article on collective impact, titled "Embracing Emergence: How Collective Impact Addresses Complexity".

In an introductory paragraph the authors write "Under conditions of complexity, predetermined solutions can neither be reliably ascertained nor implemented. Instead, the rules of interaction that govern collective impact lead to changes in individual and organizational behavior that create an ongoing progression of alignment, discovery, learning, and emergence."

In past articles I've focused on the challenges of bringing large groups together for on-going learning so that their could become a shared understanding, trust-filled relationships, and a convergence on shared goals.

This process takes time. It requires the work of network-builders.

Some may be high profile community leaders. Some could be self-appointed organizers. I guess I fit that role. I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to fill a void. No one had a master database of Chicago non-school tutor/mentor programs, and thus, no one was leading a year-round marketing/advertising campaign intended to create shared understanding, or a distribution of needed operating resources, talent and dollars. Thus, with the support of six other volunteers the T/MC was created to fill the void.

I created this PDF to illustrate the goal of "building a network of purpose". It shows four strategies that I've attempted to support on an on-going basis with the limited resources I've had available every year.

I created the essay below to illustrate the process of network building, which is a role many people need to take if we're to reach the thousands of people who need to be connected to each other, and learning from a common body of information.

Ideas for Expanding Network of People Working for Social Benefit by Daniel F. Bassill

I've created an extensive web library, with links to more than 2000 other web sites. Each represents a star in a universe of knowledge and stakeholders. Each has it's own network of followers and supporters.

In addition, I've created a list of nearly 150 youth serving organizations, each with its own gravity and sphere of influence. I've also created this concept map showing intermediaries in Chicago and Illinois who focus on the well-being of young people.

As we head into 2014 my goal is to help these organizations connect with each other and to the ideas and library of information that I've been developing for more than 20 years. This Enough is Enough article that I first wrote almost six years ago describes a learning process that could be taking place in thousands of locations. A measure of success would be to find blog articles like this, and links to web libraries, on a growing number of the web sites I point to, reflecting a shared effort at creating a collective understanding of problems, process and solutions.

I also hope to rebuild my own organizational capacity to support this effort, while finding younger leaders who will share this work, and carry it forward into future years. Most of the collective impact efforts that SSIR points to are only a few years old. I think people have been building libraries and trying to bring people together to solve problems for many years longer than these efforts. They just have been named differently, and have had different champions and supporters.

 The real test will be if in 30 or 40 years any of these organizations can show an ongoing history similar to what I show on this concept map, showing my start with a tutor/mentor program back in 1973 and its formation in 1965.

If you'd like to connect and begin a conversation around these ideas, or follow up from a meeting or contact made in 2013 or before, just reach out to me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum. I can join you in your space and hopefully you'll join me in my space.

Keeping Attention Focused Throughout Year

I worked in retail advertising for a big company in the 1970s and 1980s and we spent millions of dollars every week to keep potential customers coming to our stores. If we want to do more to help kids in poverty we need to find ways to keep expanding the number of people who are offering time, talent and dollars to support schools and non-school tutor/mentor programs in thousands of locations.

In the social sector we don't have millions of dollars for advertising, thus we need to find other ways to build and sustain public support and the flow of needed operating resources to all of the places where people are working to help kids move through school and into careers. I created this video to illustrate the need for 12-month strategies that repeat from year-to-year. I hope you'll find time to view it and share it with others.



As you view the video, keep in mind the following two images:

Birth-to-work is a 20 to 25 year journey. It's difficult for most kids, but much more difficult for kids born into neighborhoods of highly concentrated, segregated poverty. Kids only grow a day and a year at a time. There are no quick fixes. Thus, we need to find innovative ways to keep attention focused and support available in thousands of locations.




Instead of focusing on single solutions, focus on the big question: "What are all the things we need to be doing to assure that youth born in 2013 are starting jobs and careers by 2038?" This question needs to be asked over and over, by leaders in business, politics, universities, faith groups, philanthropy, and by individuals who are concerned with the future of our democracy, our economy, and the millions of young people born in high poverty neighborhoods every year.

As you talk with others, read books and articles, and come up with information that supports this "birth to work" goal, find a way to share your thoughts by posting links or ideas in web libraries, blogs or social media forums. Below is a map of the information library of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which has been growing since the late 1970s.

You can find this graphic here.

Collecting, organizing and drawing attention to this information on a regular basis is a huge job. It cannot be done by a single person, or a single small organization. Other owners are needed to support this strategy. Sponsors are needed to keep it going in 2013 and 2014.

View this page to learn more of ways you can help.

Creating a Service and Learning Organization that Mentors Kids to Careers: 2012 Resolution

If you've read some of the messages I've posted to this Blog you'll see that between 1975 and June 30, 2011 I led a small non profit that seeks to connect workplace volunteers with children and youth living in neighborhoods of highly concentrated poverty.

I've been using this blog to share this message since mid 2005. I used an email and printed newsletter to share this in previous years. Following is an update of a message I First wrote in late December 2005

Our goal is to create an organized framework that encourages volunteers to serve as tutors, mentors, coaches, advocates, friends, leaders in on-going efforts that make a life-changing difference for these kids. By life-changing, I mean that the kids will not be living in poverty when they are adults because they will have the academic, social/emotional and workplace skills needed for 21st century jobs, plus a network of adults who can and will open doors to jobs and mentor them in careers.

I have spent time almost every day for more than 30 years trying to figure out better, more efficient, and lower cost ways to accomplish this goal.

I have learned to mine the knowledge and experiences of others to innovate strategies for tutoring/mentoring, rather than trying to develop my own solutions to problems. Using T/MC web sites, on-line networking and regular face-to-face training and mentoring, I am trying to share what I know, and the process of learning and service that I apply in my own daily routine, so that there are more people in more places accepting this role and responsibility.

So how do we make this vision a reality? We create a "learning organization", which is also the ideal of many of the best businesses in the world. We also create a "service culture" modeled after the work of heroes like Cesar Chavez, whose core values included sacrifice and perseverance, commitment to the most disadvantaged as well as life-long learning and innovation.

In a learning organization, everyone is engaged. In the world of Cesar Chavez, everyone is willing to make huge commitments, and sacrifices of time, talent and treasure to help disadvantaged people move to greater health, and greater hope and opportunity.

Our goal is to find ways to draw a growing number of our stakeholders into this learning process and to build an on-going commitment to service (as opposed to random acts of kindness). This process is intended to include students, volunteers, staff, donors and leaders, and members of the business, education, faith and media in the communities where our kids live.

It also aims to engage leaders and volunteers from other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and in other cities, plus people and organizations in the communities that don't have high poverty, but benefit from a world envisioned by Dr. M. L. King, Jr. as well as a 21st Century America where there are enough skilled workers to meet the future workforce needs of American industry.

The Internet is our meeting place. It's a virtual library of constantly growing knowledge. On Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection web sites we collect and host information that shows why kids in poverty need extra help, where such help is needed, who is providing help, and what volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs can do to connect adults, kids and learning in an on-going, constantly improving process of mentoring kids to careers.

If we can find ways to increase the percent of our kids, our volunteers, and our leaders and donors who are drawing from this information on a weekly basis, and reflecting on this information in small and large groups, the way people in churches reflect on passages from the Bible each week, we can grow the amount of understanding we all have about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have. We can innovate new and better ways to succeed in our efforts.

This process has already started. We need to nurture and grow it in 2012.

Can you help?

Visit the various web sites at the left and start your own learning. I encourage you to read the Power Point Essay titled, Theory of Change which is one of several illustrated essays I've produced to illustrate our goals and the community that we seek to engage.

I'm no longer operating under the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) non profit umbrella, due to strategic changes made in April-June 2011. I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in order to continue to support the growth of the T/MC in Chicago and similar organizations in other cities. I encourage you to read about this change and look for ways you might help me in the coming years.

Thank you all for reading my messages. I hope you share them with others. May God Bless you all with peace, good health and happiness in 2006.

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Tutor/Mentor Connection, formed 1993
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, formed 2011
Cabrini Connections
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Expanding the Network - A Decade-long Effort

Last week I wrote about the number of students who had been part of Cabrini Connections each year since 2000.

Then in follow up articles I showed how the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) has been collecting information, sharing that with maps and graphics, and organizing conferences and other network-building to encourage people to look at the information and use it to support their efforts to make more programs like Cabrini Connections available.

Think of it, if one program can provide mentoring/tutoring support to 60-70 teens a year, then 100 programs in a huge city could reach 6,000 or more.

The cost savings to society would be huge if youth in those programs avoided lives of crime or poverty because of more success in moving through school and into work. Then why not invest in the infrastructure needed to make this happen?

This graphic shows the process the T/MC supports. While we all want more kids to stay in school and be prepared for jobs and careers, someone needs to be building a knowledge base that includes information about all of the tutor/mentor programs in the city, if we’re going to learn what works, and help each of the programs get the resources to put what we learn to work in building great programs in every poverty neighborhood.

Collecting information about tutor/mentor programs is a huge challenge. Helping people come together and learn from this information is another challenge.

Because we’ve embraced the potential of the internet we’re drawing people to our web sites who are already interested in what we have to offer. The chart below shows the growth in web visits to to CC, T/MC sites since 2000.



In the T/MC links library we share the experience of others. For instance, this site on web evangelism provides useful information that any non profit could use to attract volunteers and donors.

These blog articles provide even more ideas that any non-profit, including Cabrini Connections, can use for fund raising, volunteer-recruitment and information networking. The links in this section show ways to collaborate, innovate, manage knowledge, and solve problems.

On the T/MC Ning site we’re coaching volunteers and interns to help us communicate our ideas via blogs and visualizations.

While we seek to support tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, the people we are connecting with come from all over the world. Here are some links that illustrate this. (editor note: as of 2016 many of these sites no longer exist)

Social Edge discussion of T/MC maps – Maps and What’s Possible, 2010

UK volunteer video showing how to use T/MC OHATS

How connecting people increases power, by Paul Mondeshire (NYC),

Oprah’s Angel Network article 2009

Crowdsourcing the MacArthur Awards, Phil Shapiro, Sep. 2009

Raising the Buzz: At the table with Dan Bassill, Feb. 09

MapTogether interview, 2009

High Quality Complementary Learning Programs, Learning Point Associates.

We have been connecting with others via blog exchanges since we started this blog in 2005.

While we've had less money for traditional print media and advertising, we’ve embraced the Internet, and share our ideas on-line. We’re reaching far more people each year than we were in 2000. The articles posted above show that the network building and relationship building of the early and mid 2000’s is now leading to work by others that shares T/MC ideas in their own networks.



This is still just a whisper in the internet world. We not only need to find funds to invest in greater advertising and social networking, but we need to find ways to help people understand and use this information. We need to find ways to expand the number of people who understand and share this information like I do and we need to find funding so that I can spend more time in meeting with people in face-to-face events that are held in other cities. While I know that what we do on the Internet has power, it is not a total substitute for face-to-face networking and relationship building.

The 4-part strategy shows that step one is collecting and organizing information. Step two is increasing attention and the number of people who look at the information. Step 3 focuses on helping people understand and use the information so that in step 4 more people are taking actions that support high quality tutor/mentor programs in more places.

View at this link

Tomorrow we’ll post an article about accountability and actions we and others need to take daily to help constantly improving tutor/mentor programs reach youth in more places.

Then we’ll conclude with an analysis of funds available to do this work and opportunities that would result from more funds becoming available.

See the Tutor/Mentor Connection library of ideas.

Learn ways to become a sponsor, donor or beneficiary.

Did St.Paul Have a Map of the Road to Damascus?

Throughout the world Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths are celebrating the year end holidays. Many people will be spending time reflecting the meaning of these holidays, and the depth of their faith.

I hope that some will read this article and add it to their thinking. I used the story of St. Paul on the Road to Damascus in my title because, most people who travel, use maps to find their way.

I use maps too. Shown is a map of the Chicago region, with areas of poverty highlighted, and with locations of Catholic Churches shown.



Mike Trakan makes these maps for the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This week he posted three blog articles that show how faith groups might use these maps to build strategic involvement in many places, and for many years, so that the lives of inner city kids living in poverty are transformed, just as the lives of people of faith have been transformed by their beliefs.


Merry Christmas, Christians! Love Thy Neighbor! (Dec. 22)

Christmas Week! Help Us Spread Charity, Kindness, and Love! (Dec. 21)

Happy Hanukkah! How Jewish Faith Leaders Might Rally Against Poverty (Dec. 17)

These articles are not intended to suggest that people in faith communities are not already very generous in the way they help the poor. Our goal is that leaders use maps to build an understanding of where they are having an impact on tutoring/mentoring programs, and where there are programs that need faith partners to help them. Our aim is that there are numerous partnership supporting each of the tutor/mentor programs already operating in the Chicago region, or helping new programs form in areas with poverty, but without programs currently operating. Without mapping where you are involved, it's easy to look at what you are doing and think that this is enough.

Until we reach every poverty neighborhood, with well supported, ongoing programs, we are not doing enough to assure that more of these kids are staying in school and will be prepared for 21st century jobs and careers by the time they are adults.

If you would like help in mapping the current outreach of your faith community, contact the T/MC and we may be able to help you use maps for your planning and evaluation.

I hope that people in faith communities will use these maps throughout the year, not just during these periods of special celebration.

SunTimes “Stop the Killing’ Special Report misses opportunity

Over the past weekend the Chicago SunTimes ran a series of stories profiling the personalities involved in three shootings that took place in a 59 hour period of April 2008. Today, a full page editorial titled “Gang-related’ Killings much more than that” focused on the causes of inner city violence, saying “When we fail to face up to the real causes of violence in Chicago, when we chalk up hundreds of murders with a dismissive “gang-related” as if all that is needed is a bigger crackdown by the cops---we let ourselves off the hook.”

"Poke beneath the surface of any shooting on that weekend of April 18 and you will likely uncover a tangle of social woes that only an entire city, as a whole, can do much about. The police can clean up mess after mess, but more messes will be coming along."

You can read the full editorial at…http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1352626,CST-EDT-edit29.article

If you click the links to the left on violence, or media, you’ll find that this is not a new story. In fact, as the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes shows, the media have been calling for public involved in solving this problem for a long time.

So why is so little happening? What’s the opportunity that was missed in today’s editorial?

It’s right on the front page of today’s Chicago SunTimes, which featured the headline “SAVING TROY” . Page 2 and 3 were devoted to this heart-warming story, about a homeless man who was helped off the street by a Chicago businessman who connected with him by chance on a cold morning last April. As much as this story was about Troy, it was also about how one volunteer got personally involved, and because of that involvement Troy’s life is changes. However, the life of the volunteer has also been changed. Pete Kadens has gone from personal involvement, to joining the board and becoming a leader of STREETWISE the newspaper that helps the homeless in Chicago. He is quoted as saying, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It’s been one of the neatest, proudest, happiest times of my life.”

I did not read anything in the “Stop the Killing” report that suggested strategies for getting people who don’t live in poverty personally engaged so that they use their time, talent and resources to make life different for those who do live in poverty.

Yet, that’s what can happen when volunteers join structured, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections, or many others that you can find in the Program Links section of the T/MC web site. I encourage you to read some of the volunteer profiles from Cabrini Connections. As you skim the web sites of some of the other tutor/mentor programs from Chicago, you’ll see similar stories.

If we can increase the number of business volunteers connecting with kids in tutor/mentor programs, we can increase the chances of fewer kids growing up as gang-bangers, and more kids growing up and becoming contributing members of society, perhaps even a future President.

I want to thank the Chicago SunTimes for writing these stories. I’d also like to thank them for making a $2 million award to the SunTimes Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend A Hand Program in the fall of 2006. Money from that award was distributed as $240,000 in operating grants to 31 different tutor/mentor programs in 2007 and another $217,000 in grants in 2008 (even though the stock market dive has seriously eroded the original $2 million award).

As we enter 2009 there will be more killings and more opportunities for the media to write stories calling on the public to build long-term strategies to bring hope to the hopeless, and an end to the violence. I hope that each time the paper writes a story about violence and poor schools, it will point to the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site, and our database of Chicago area programs, where people like Pete Kadens can get involved, and stay involved for a long time, in helping change the future for kids born into concentrated, segregated, inner-city poverty.

I hope they also point to the articles on our web site that readers can use to build their own understanding of these issues, and to be more involved in helping comprehensive, mentor-rich volunteer-based programs grow in inner-city neighborhoods. Finally, I also hope they will use the maps in the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery, to encourage business, hospitals, colleges and faith groups to become strategically involved in all of the areas where they do business or have facilities, not just a few high profile places, or a few pilot programs.



If there is one media story and reference to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in a major newspaper of Chicago each week for the next five years, there will be an army of volunteers like Pete Kadens, and a growing support system to prevent some young people from growing up to become involved in “gang-related” killings on Chicago streets. If our business, faith, and political leaders point to programs in neighborhoods where they do business, on a weekly basis, they can help this network of programs and army of mentors grow, and stay connected to kids for many years.

Can this happen? That's my wish for 2009. Help me make it come true.

Many to One, Not One to Many

The image of the lonesome warrior is one that reminds me of the men and women who are fighting overseas to make this a better world. As we count our blessings, let's pray for the young people in our armed forces.

However, this image is also one that I think of when I think of the people leading social benefit organizations around the world, mostly in isolation, mostly with too few resources to do everything they are trying to do.



Those who lead small non profits, or are struggling to get social benefit ideas launched, may related to this One-To-Many graphic. We're constantly reaching out in many different directions, trying to find the help we need. We're like fish in a bowl, competing with thousands of others for a limited amount of dollars and volunteers. Unless you've got a powerful marketing machine, or are well connected in donor circles, you succeed some of the time, but not most of the time, and you spend tremendous amounts of emotional capital and energy all of the time.



Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I'm trying to change this. I'm trying to recruit leaders in many places who lead strategic thinking process in their organization that aligns social benefit with corporate and organizational strategy. Such leaders will use their own advertising, visibility and resources to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that lead kids to careers, because it's a core business strategy.

See this concept map at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Many-to-1

I've been saying this for a long time, but last week I found an article on the Harvard Business Review that reinforces this concept. The article is titled Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. Written by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer.

Education and workforce development are of strategic importance for most industries. Thus, if leaders of business, health care, law, journalism, sports and entertainment, etc. are strategic, they can use tools like the Program Locator and Chicago Program Links to choose what part of a city they want to support, and what programs they want to help grow from good to great.

This isn't a strategy to support just one tutor/mentor program, or one brand name like the Boys and Girls Clubs, it's a strategy to help every high poverty neighborhood have comprehensive programs that are one end of the pipeline to jobs and careers for businesses that are strategically engaging their corporate resources to help grow their future workforce.

Over the next seven days millions of people will make charitable decisions, either for good will, or for tax deductions. Choose a program like Cabrini Connections, which I led from 1992 to 2011, or one of the others listed in the Links Library, and this will show the impact of Many to One.

National Mentoring Month - Who Mentored You?

During January the attention of the nation will be focused on mentoring
through the 4th Annual National Mentoring Month campaign. During the month many celebrities will talk of how important a mentor has been in their lives.

A few months ago I heard a former US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Anton Valukas, talk about how his years as a mentor to 3 inner city boys was more important than the years he was the powerful US Attorney.

I've been a leader of a tutor/mentor program for more than 30 years, and I agree with how important mentoring is, to the youth we've connected with adults, and to the youth connected to mentors. I also know, that mentoring alone, is not enough to help kids living in high poverty, inner-city neighborhoods stay in school and move to jobs and careers. That's why I coined a term "Total Quality Mentoring, TQM", which describes the type of mentor-rich program we lead at Cabrini Connections in Chicago.

In a TQM program we surround youth with many adults, not just the primary one-on-one mentor, and we provide a range of learning, enrichment and skill building activities. This is a village of adults, all focused on helping raise the kids to reach jobs and careers by their mid 20s.

Good mentoring, regardless of the format, depends on an effective system of coaching and support for mentors. In a TQM program, that system of support requires funds to rent space, provide computers, and offer learning activities in addition to mentoring.

That's why I hope that during the final days of 2006 you will think of who
mentored you and look for ways to make a financial donation to support Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, or one of the other volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs operating in Chicago or in other cities.

My hope is that some of the lawyers and stock brokers who are making multi-million dollar bonuses this year will think of how a mentor has helped them have their success, and they will make major gifts to tutor/mentor programs, rather than the IRS, as a way of celebrating their success.

With such help some of our teens can be successful business leaders in the future. Can you help make that happen?

Thanks to everyone who has helped us connect inner-city Chicago youth with volunteer tutors and/or mentors during the past year. Your donations will help us do that again in 2007.

Creating a Service and Learning Organization that Mentors Kids to Careers: My 2006 Resolution

If you've read some of the messages I've posted to this Blog you'll see that I lead a small non profit that seeks to connect workplace volunteers with children and youth living in neighborhoods of highly concentrated poverty.

Our goal is to create an organized framework that encourages volunteers to serve as tutors, mentors, coaches, advocates, friends, leaders in on-going efforts that make a life-changing difference for these kids. By life-changing, I mean that the kids will not be living in poverty when they are adults because they will have the academic, social/emotional and workplace skills needed for 21st century jobs, plus a network of adults who can and will open doors to jobs and mentor them in careers.

I have spent time almost every day for more than 30 years trying to figure out better, more efficient, and lower cost ways to accomplish this goal.

I have learned to mine the knowledge and experiences of others to innovate strategies for tutoring/mentoring, rather than trying to develop my own solutions to problems. Using T/MC web sites, on-line networking and regular face-to-face training and mentoring, I am trying to share what I know, and the process of learning and service that I apply in my own daily routine, so that there are more people in more places accepting this role and responsibility.

So how do we make this vision a reality? We create a "learning organization", which is also the ideal of many of the best businesses in the world. We also create a "service culture" modeled after the work of heroes like Cesar Chavez, whose core values included sacrifice and perseverance, commitment to the most disadvantaged as well as life-long learning and innovation.

In a learning organization, everyone is engaged. In the world of Cesar Chavez, everyone is willing to make huge commitments, and sacrifices of time, talent and treasure to help disadvantaged people move to greater health, and greater hope and opportunity.

Our goal is to find ways to draw a growing number of our stakeholders into this learning process and to build an on-going commitment to service (as opposed to random acts of kindness). This process is intended to include our students and volunteers, our staff, donors and leaders, and members of the business, education, faith and media in the communities where our kids live. It also aims to engage leaders and volunteers from other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and in other cities, plus people and organizations in the communities that don't have high poverty, but benefit from a world envisioned by Dr. M. L. King, Jr. as well as a 21st Century America where there are enough skilled workers to meet the future workforce needs of American industry.


The Internet is our meeting place. It's a virtual library of constantly growing knowledge. On T/MC web sites we collect and hosting information that shows why kids in poverty need extra help, where such help is needed, who is providing help, and what volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs can do to connect adults, kids and learning in an on-going, constantly improving process of mentoring kids to careers.

If we can find ways to increase the percent of our kids, our volunteers, and our leaders and donors who are drawing information on a weekly basis, and reflecting on this information in small and large groups, the way people in churches reflect on passages from the Bible each week, we can grow the amount of understanding we all have about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have. We can innovate new and better ways to succeed in our efforts.

This process has already started. We need to nurture and grow it in 2006.

Can you help?

Visit the various web sites at the left and start your own learning. I encourage you to read the Power Point Essay titled, Theory of Change . This illustrates our goal and the community that we seek to engage.

This and other PPT essays in the Tutor/Mentor Institute library illustrate the T/MC vision and the community of organizations that we seek to engage. Then share your own knowledge, time, talent and dollars to help us build this service and learning organization.

Thank you all for reading my messages. I hope you share them with others. May God Bless you all with peace, good health and happiness in 2006.

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Cabrini Connections