Leverage Billionaire Funding - Tipping Point

Today I saw an article showing How Melinda French Gates Plans to Fund "Chronically," "Unconscionably" Underfunded Programs for Women and Girls.  

In addition, I've seen many articles showing how MacKenzie Scott donated more than $740 million to HBCUs in 2025 and already more in 2026.  This is just part of her 2019 pledge to "donate the majority of  here billions in wealth to charity."

And, this week I saw posts on social media suggesting that these two women team up to create a new media ecosystem.  That would be fantastic.

But, I think there's another opportunity. What if MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates teamed up to fund the idea shown below, at several universities?  Let's dig into the graphic:

In the middle of the graphic is the birth-to-work arrow that I've  used since the mid 90's to visualize age-level supports that volunteers and businesses could provide to youth, via well-organized tutor/mentor programs as well as schools. 

At the top of this graphic is the question. What can universities do differently, that might be a tipping point in terms of making well organized programs available in more places, for more years, reaching more youth, and helping them through school?

I answer by saying "build a pipeline of leaders, who work in these programs, and who work to provide the talent and resources needed by each program on an on-going basis".

So I added an overlay to the Birth to Work arrow to suggest this idea.

If you strip away the arrow, this is what's left.

Imagine a four to six year masters or PhD level college program, starting the freshman year of college.  Then visualize on-going practical learning, in which college students serve in existing programs, reaching youth as young as elementary school, with their service tied to course work being studied on campus at different points over their college career.

Imagine part of what college students are teaching youth in middle school and high school, is drawn from the same "how to" lessons that college kids are studying. If students begin thinking of what it takes to make the programs available to them, which they are part of, they will have momentum if they choose to pursue this course of study in college, and as a career.

If colleges just did the first part of this suggestion, they would  be reaching youth in neighborhoods surrounding the college and enlisting their students and alumni in various roles that help PULL kids through k-12 school, and into college, then on into jobs and careers.  If this were a continuous program, lasting for decades, it might dramatically close the opportunity gap.

This certainly would support Gate's goal of supporting programs for underserved women and girls.  And HBCUs receiving funds from Scott could dedicate some of those funds to building this type of curriculum. 

However, that's not enough. Youth and volunteers need a safe, well-organized place where they can connect, build relationships, and stay connected for many years.  Such places are constantly seeking dollars, volunteers and other resources, but are not equal in their abilities to attract those resources. Thus, too few programs are available.

Here's the TIPPING POINT:  The curriculum I am suggesting is not limited to just those going into direct service. It's a college wide humanities type course that engages students studying in different fields, most of whom will go into the business world.

Imagine that each year's class of graduates from a university include a few with degrees showing them to have a full knowledge of how to build and lead a mentor rich youth serving organization.  And then imagine another group of graduates, leaving college with an understanding of what it takes for such programs to succeed, and the role they can take in PROACTIVELY providing dollars, talent, technology, volunteers and other resources needed, including jobs, internships and learning opportunities for youth in organized tutor/mentor programs and public schools.

Then, imagine that people from both groups spend time daily, or weekly,  in on-line affinity groups, supported in part by universities, and students who are working toward their degrees, where they keep learning, from the college, and from each other, so they are constantly seeking to do more and do better, at helping kids move out of poverty, or helping solve other complex problems facing the world.

No matter how many billions Gates and Scott donate, it's too little. They need to leverage their giving so others join in.

I've attempted to communicate this idea in the past using this graphic, which you can find in this series of articles.

The problem, as I see it, is that most adults don't have time to dig through my articles and learn what has taken me 50 years to learn.  Most are not motivated to do this, nor guided through this mountain of information, they way faith leaders and college professors guide students through other information resources.

So what types of curriculum would students study?  I started building a list which I show in the graphic below. I suspect that others could add more, if they just spent time thinking about it.

As you look at the list of skills needed, compare them to courses required by colleges preparing teachers, social workers and/or business leaders.  I doubt that many are required to learn spatial thinking tools like GIS mapping, or concept mapping. Or that they are asked to learn basic coding, so they can oversee a web site or blog, to communicate ideas. I doubt that many are learning ways to support digital learning in on-line communities, or the creation of digital content that can be used to share ideas and promising practices.

Visit this section of the Tutor/Mentor library and find lists of websites that share skills which should be part of this curriculum. 

To me, this graphic also represents how students, alumni and community members, including youth, would be connecting in on-going learning to better understand complex problems, and learn about actions being taken in some parts of the world, that might be applied in other places, if resources were readily available.  If alumni who are working or have been blessed with wealth are in these conversations they would be ready and able to offer support where needed.

I've been reaching out to universities in Chicago and beyond since the 1990s to find one that would adopt the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC as a strategic partner.  Here's one of many articles showing this invitation.

It just takes one college to pilot this, and one wealthy benefactor to provide the financial incentive for a college or university to take this role.

Look at the graphic below. Imagine each of those red school icons being a place where an alumni with a Tutor/Mentor Institute degree from your university were on the staff and that others were volunteers, board members and/or donors.  Can you visualize having such an impact?  

This is not intended to help one, or even a few, great youth programs grow. It's intended to fill a growing number of high poverty areas across the US and the world with great, constantly improving, well-supported youth tutor/mentor programs that are recognized as world class, by the degrees of their leaders and by the work they are doing.

No matter how many billions of dollars wealthy donors give, it won't be enough.  However, if some of these dollars are intended to support effective, constantly improving organizations, and others are intended to educate donors, so they learn to search for organizations to support based on where they are located, who they serve, and what they show on their websites.  No Letter of Inquiry or Grant Proposal needed!

If you've read any articles on this blog, or followed my @tutormentorteam posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter or Facebook, you've seen graphics like the one below.

The message in both graphics is the same. We need to reach kids as they enter school and support them with a wide range of mentors and learning experiences as they move through school and into adult lives. While all kids need this support, for most kids, it's naturally available through family, neighbors, faith groups and community.

For each child this is at least a 20-25 year journey, starting in preschool. 

To make that happen we need to create a pipeline of new leaders.  Wealthy donors can fuel that.

Thanks for reading. Please share it. Maybe someone in wealthy circles of influence will take time to read it.  And pass it on, up the chain of wealth!

If you appreciate what I'm sharing, visit this page and send a contribution. 

What comes after the election?

We lost. America lost. What's at risk? You may have heard of Project 2025, the radical right agenda to reshape America.  This site was created by comic book artists and writers to help people better understand what's in Project 2025.  Take a look.  These are things we need to fear and fight against in the coming years.

However, there's a battle that has been going on far longer.  

Helping kids to careers

The issue I've been focusing on for the past 50 years is related to economic justice. If we help kids born or living in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives with jobs and careers, and support networks, that enable them to live and raise their own children where ever they want, we do much to create economic justice. 

Since 2005 I've created a library of concept maps that visualize commitments, strategies and resources, with this one showing that helping kids to careers means providing a wide range of needed supports at each age level as they move from first grade through high school, college/vocational training into jobs.

View Mentoring Kids to Careers cMap

In the bottom left part of this cMap I show the role that volunteer tutors, mentors, coaches, etc. take, as "extra adults" to help kids access these resources and as a form of "bridging social capital" that provides expanded networks and opportunities for kids living in neighborhoods defined by concentrated poverty.

This is extremely important because if we don't find ways to get thousands adults who don't live in poverty personally connected to youth and families that are in high poverty areas, we'll never build the empathy, and public will, to invest in the long-term efforts I describe in posts like this.

Building such systems of support and making them consistently available for 20 to 30 years in thousands of locations will require a huge commitment of public will, something this country has little history of success in generating.

This is a graphic that I've used often over the past 20 years to show that the outcomes we all want for kids requires work done at the bottom of this pyramid.  You can find this graphic in this PDF.

Below I've created some images that focus in on different elements of this graphic.  The ideas apply in building systems of support for inner city youth, and for solving any other complex problem.

At the bottom of the pyramid is the knowledge that we draw upon to propose solutions to problems.   While we each have our own personal experiences, and some have studied an issue for their entire lives, most don't have a broad reference base that they draw upon to support where and how they get involved.  Building a knowledge base that supports the decisions of others who need to be involved in solutions to problems is an essential first step. Keeping this up-to-date is an on-going challenge.

I've been building a web library and directory of non-school tutor and mentor programs since the early 1990s. Initially I did this to support youth, volunteers and leaders in the tutor/mentor programs I was leading in Chicago. As I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I began to share this information more consistently with others throughout Chicago and use it to try to draw more consistent attention and resources to EVERY tutor/mentor program in the region, not just the most visible.  

The knowledge collection role is Step 1 of the 4-part strategy I've led since 1993.  Read more about what I've been trying to do in this Tutor/Mentor Learning Network presentation.

Competing for attention.  Drawing users to library.  Building and sustaining a library of information and ideas is one thing.  Creating daily advertising and public education that draws a growing number of learners and users to the information is a very different challenge.

Most youth serving organizations don't have powerful marketing teams working to draw attention and resources to them on an on-going basis.  The way philanthropy works, most programs compete with each other for scarce dollars. That does not encourage collaboration. Read this "Drain the Swamp" article to see what I mean.

Innovating ways that more people take roles in building public awareness and draw viewers to information in the library has been a priority of the T/MC since it was formed. This is Step 2 of the 4-part strategy.

I find too few conversations that focus on this step.  With the Internet we have a growing "Crisis of Attention", which is described in this 2017 article.

I keep looking for conversations where people are thinking about challenges of competing for people's attention in an environment where so many others have far more resources.  I've written many articles focused on "creating attention". Take time to read through them.

Building the network. Part of my web library focuses on "who needs to be involved" which includes a directory of non-school tutor and mentor programs in Chicago and around the country and a data base and collection of more than 2000 links that point to others who are involved in some way in efforts to help kids move through school and into jobs and careers.

Getting representatives of these organizations and resource providers together to learn, share, build relationships and innovate shared solutions to problems is what I focus on in this stage of the pyramid.  

Unless people in business, philanthropy, faith groups, media, politics, etc. are coming together on an on-going basis, for face-to-face and on-line learning it will be difficult to create and sustain collaborations that help build and sustain high quality youth supports.

In this blog article I show that a "village" of people with different talents and networks needs to be involved helping every tutor/mentor program grow, as well as helping many programs grow in specific neighborhoods and entire cities.    This is part of Step 3 in the four-part strategy.

These first three steps need to be happening on an on-going basis, reaching people throughout Chicago, Illinois and the world. However, they are just the start.

Better information, read and understood by more people, creates a better understanding of what types of youth support programs have the best chance of having a positive impact on youth and volunteers. Better information also helps people understand the challenges involved, which are many.

When I talk about the need for "better information" read some of the articles I've posted about program design and how many programs are needed.   

This needs to lead to actions that support programs in more places. If more of the stakeholders, including resource providers, are looking at this information, they can develop a set of actions that generate a flow of on-going resources (talent, dollars, ideas, technology, etc.) into every high poverty neighborhood, to every tutor and mentor program operating in those neighborhoods.

T/MC map created in 2008

It is essential that maps be used to support this process. With a map leaders can focus on all areas of a city where kids need extra help. At the same time, neighborhood groups can focus on their part of the city. Many groups need to be doing this.  With a map we can add overlays that show indicators of need, existing youth tutor/mentor and learning resources, and assets (business, hospitals, faith groups, universities, etc.) who could be helping youth programs grow in different areas....because they are also invested in these areas!

I think this is the weakest link in this process. Most programs compete with others for scarce resources. Most foundations use requests-for-proposals and competitive grants and competitions to decide who gets funded. There are only a few winners and many losers. Often prizes and grants are one-time gifts, not repeated from year-to-year.  No business could grow to be great on this type of funding stream. Yet, I see few leaders using maps to show a need to draw resources to all poverty neighborhoods, and to all of the organizations working in these areas.  Few cities have a map based leadership effort, intended to help great programs grow in every part of the city. 

However, if we could solve this problem....

A better flow of needed resources to youth serving organizations (Step 4 in 4-part strategy) leads to more and better programs serving k-12 youth in more of the places where they are needed.  I can't tell you how often people ask about "outcomes" without talking about the work needed to build well-organized, mentor-rich non-school programs.

This leads to the final graphic.

It can take several years for a business to become profitable, or for a youth-serving organization to build the team of staff, leaders, volunteers, parents and youth that makes it a "great" program.  However, that's only the start. If a youth enters a great program in first grade, or 7th grade, it will still take 12 years for the first grader and six years for the 7th grader, just to finish high school!  It will take four to six more years for that young person to move on into adult lives and roles, and to jobs and careers that enable him/her to raise their own kids outside of the negative influences of high poverty.

Long-term; many places

I used this birth-to-work arrow in many other articles, such as this one, which is a discussion of the costs involved in a program intended to create jobs for 32,000 young men in a few Chicago neighborhoods.

I created this 'race-poverty' concept map to illustrate the many other factors that influence life outcomes for kids born or living in high poverty areas.  In 2017 I read an article titled "Why do we keep insisting that education can solve poverty?" It still applies.

Here's the challenge. As a nation we're not very good at keeping the focus (and flow of resources) on problems and solutions to the time it takes to actually begin to solve the problem.  While this 1993 Chicago SunTimes article includes a map, very few leaders in 2017 are using maps to emphasize all of the places where kids, families and schools need help to aid youth as the move through school and into adult lives. Read more about this.   Read this article about "building public will".

I started this article with this graphic, and pointing to this presentation from my library of visual essays.

Poverty is a complex problem, requiring many different types of resources in the same place at the same time.  If we want more youth to stay in school, be safe in non-school hours, graduate from high school and move on to jobs, careers and adult responsibilities, we need to do the work shown at the bottom of this pyramid.

Who should take the lead? Universities.

I've been reaching out to universities for over 30 years but never had the leverage (money and clout) to motivate busy faculty members to adopt the Tutor/Mentor strategies as their own.  Here's one article and here's another that show my invitation.  Read this "Tipping Points" article to see what's possible.

I just read today how Warren Buffet is making billion dollar donations around Thanksgiving and how MacKenzie Scott has doubled her giving in response the 2024 election.  People like these could fund long-term Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies at universities in every city in the country (or the world) and ensure they share ideas and learn from each other, so they constantly improve their impact.

They don't even need to involve me! They can  motivate people to spend time reading and learning from my blog and visual essays, just by providing the money needed to fuel such efforts!

I wrote an article in 2021 about "Learning from others. Don't re-invent the wheel".  This is the thinking behind the work I've done for so long. It is the reason for my library. I hope someone with higher visibility than I have will build an even larger library, and include links to my website in it. 

Finally, I wrote this article in January 2024 showing how one person was raising money for Democratic candidates throughout the country.  This is an example that could be duplicated to support youth serving programs in multiple locations.  This is another project that a billionaire could easily fund.

In my own work I've never been able to get enough people together for an on-going basis, just to talk about ways we create and share the knowledge I've been collecting with more potential users.    If you're interested in taking a role please reach out to me. You can find me on any of these social media platforms.  I'm available for an on-line conversation on a daily basis.

We need everyone's help.

Thanks for reading. I know this is a long article and the links take you deeper and deeper. So don't try to read it all in one day. Make it part of on-going learning.  

Or make it a learning competition, as I describe on this page. You don't even need to be a billionaire to fund this!

I've been critical of Project 2025 and the billionaires behind it, but what if a few billionaires adopted the ideas in this article and supported them for the next 50 years.  This needs continuous support beyond one President.  

Can you help me do this work (and pay my bills)? Visit my FUND ME page and add your support.  Thank you.

Follow up to JuneTeenth - Building the Network

I have been writing this blog since 2005, continuing work that I started in 1993, to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach kids in more places and help more of them move safely from birth-to-work.

Many of the articles written in past years are as important now as they were then, so from time-to-time, I repeat them.  

Here is what I wrote in December 2016 under the headline of "Building, Connecting Villages of  Hope and Opportunity".

---------------begin---------------

I am one of those people who fear what will happen to our democracy and freedom, and the planet's health, over the next few years.  In some of the posts I've read, writers say "don't lose hope" and "get involved locally with a cause you care about".

These prompted me to create the graphic shown below, which I'll explain in the following paragraphs.

Since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993 (and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011), my goal has been to help mentor-rich, non-school tutoring and learning centers be available in a growing number of high poverty neighborhoods. Rather than start new programs, the strategy has been to identify existing organizations who already do some form of tutoring and/or mentoring and help them get a consistent flow of ideas, talent, operating dollars and other resources needed to build constantly improving programs.

When you look at the "oil well" images on the map I want you to think of the 12 years it takes for a youth to go from first grade to 12th grade, and the four to eight years after that to go through secondary education and find a job and/or be starting a career.

Since no program starts out as "the best" the flow of resources needs to help programs launch, then grow, then build and sustain multiple year connections with youth.

It takes a lot of different talents and skills to make this happen. I use the "it takes a village" graphic to visualize this.  In addition, I've created some concept maps that show the range of talent and community networks who need to be involved in supporting each program operating in each neighborhood.

Here's one of the maps in my library, showing supports kids need as they move through school.

Mentoring Kids to Careers - map

The concept map below visualizes a process that should be taking place in hundreds of locations, in the Chicago region, and in other cities, to help programs grow in places where they are most needed, and to help them become great at what they do to transform the lives of kids, families, volunteers and anyone who is involved.

See map at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-PlanningCycle-cmap

When I started leading a tutor/mentor program in 1975 I had a full time advertising job, we had no paid staff, and we already had 100 pairs of elementary school kids and volunteers involved. That number grew to 300 pairs by 1990 (with about 30 hours per week of part time college student staff).  I recognized that I could never touch and train every volunteer to know all they needed to know about why we were offering the program and what they could do to be effective tutors/mentors and program participants.  Thus I began to collect information that they could read and draw from to support their own efforts.

I started to create a "learning organization" well before this term was coined in business schools and trade magazines. This is one of many articles I've written to explain that idea.

In all my communications I was asking my volunteers to look for ways to help the kids we work with move through school. I was offering a library of articles (which was put on the internet starting in 1998) that they could read, share, discuss and learn from.  I focused on a process of improvement, or how do we get from "here to there'.  I organized social events, such as getting together for food and drinks after a tutoring session, or field trip, so that volunteers could form bonds with other volunteers and we could build an informal, on-going, discussion of what we were doing, and how they could help.

In 1990 we converted the company sponsored program at the Montgomery Ward headquarters into a non profit organization. From that point till today, my goal has been to bring donors, policy makers, media and other leaders into this same learning process.

Do a Google search for "tutor mentor" then look at the images. You'll find many graphics like this.

Chicago SunTimes, Oct. 1992

In November 1992 six volunteers and myself gathered and made a commitment to form a new program to serve 7th to 12th grade teens who had aged out of the original program.  At the same time a 7-year old boy from Cabrini-Green was shot and killed on his way to school.

The media were once again putting the "it's everyone's responsibility" message on the front page and in editorial stories. However, there was no master database of Chicago tutor/mentor programs so no leader could offer a strategy to fill ALL high poverty neighborhoods with great programs.

So we decided to also create the Tutor/Mentor Connection to fill the void.

In the years since then we have created a huge library of information, including a list of Chicago area tutoring and/or mentoring programs,  that anyone can draw from to understand where kids need extra help, who is already trying to offer that help, and what volunteers, donors and businesses could do to help programs grow.

Between 1994 and 2015 I hosted Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences to bring people together to share ideas for starting or building effective programs. I also developed a public awareness strategy to try to draw more attention to the web library and the list of Chicago tutor/mentor programs that I had been developing.


However, I was only reaching a few of the people who needed to be reached, and the system was not effective in connecting people (the village) from different programs with others within a single program, or with volunteers, donors, leaders, parents and students from other programs in Chicago......or with similar people from other cities who were doing the same work.

In the early 2000s I connected with a group of ESL educators (Webheads) who were located in different countries, and who were meeting weekly via the Internet, to share ideas and build relationships.

Over the past few years I've connected with another network of educators via Connected Learning MOOC formats, where people from many different places are sharing ideas and building relationships with each other.

I point to these in various blog articles because they are examples of how people can connect and learn from each other in virtual communities.

Most of my ideas for leading a single tutor/mentor program, or for helping build a city of great programs, have come from others who I've met over the past 40 years.  One entire section of the Tutor/Mentor web library is focused on "innovation, process improvement, mapping, knowledge management, etc" which are ideas anyone can use to build strong non-profits, or build strong businesses.

Look at the graphic at the top of the page once more.

The lines on this graphic illustrate how programs within a city need to be connecting with each other using on-line libraries, communities, blogs, annotation, Twitter, Facebook and other learning tools to constantly innovate ways to increase their impact on the lives of program participants.  The small map in the lower left corner illustrates that people in big cities all over the country need to be talking to each other in the same way.

When you look at web sites of youth serving organizations in the future, hopefully you'll see evidence that shows a program is bringing together a "village" of support for it's participants, and that the community surrounding each program is proactive in offering the time, talent and dollars each program needs to be great at what it does.

At some point in the future you should find maps of Chicago and other cities, with icons on the map showing places where "the village" or "networks of people" are working to help kids grow up, or help communities solve complex problems.  The Tutor/Mentor Program Locator (archive since 2020) interactive map can serve as a model for others to develop such maps.

The November 2016 election shows that we need to find ways to bring people from rural communities and Indian reservations into these same discussions.

We don't need government permission or support or funding to do this. We just need a commitment at the local level to build mentor-rich programs (villages) that build a culture of learning into their fundamental operating principles and then nurture this on an on-going basis.

We don't need to solve the world's problems every day. Just make a contribution to help solve a local problem.

Take a step every day and these add  up to mountains of impact over a lifetime.

----- end 2016 article ----

As you read my blog articles and/or follow my posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, please take the role of the YOU shown on this graphic.

I'm just one person, with a small voice. Thousands of people need to be looking at the same information I am. Events like Juneteenth draw attention to issues of slavery, inequality and racism, but unless they multiply the number of people building an understanding of issues facing us, and working to get more people involved, too little will happen to change history for the better.

When I describe the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a "learning organization" I mean that we learn from work others have been doing and borrow ideas that we can apply to our own efforts.  Below is a recent Tweet showing the network of funders who have been supporting extremists organizations across the USA and the world.  

The Koch network uses a maze of nonprofit groups and LLCs to conceal donations and campaign activity. pic.twitter.com/RyKPuH2lcZ

— seeshell (@Tentoads4truth) June 27, 2018

Scroll through posts on the seeshell Twitter account to see more maps like this. Then look at my graphic in the paragraph above. Is there a network of wealthy advocates that is as well established and focused in its own efforts to protect and expand democracy and create the true freedom that celebrations like JuneTeenth promise?  

Without that type of organization and network we face a difficult task.  

Thanks for reading. Please share this and other posts from this blog.

And, if you're able, visit this page and make a small contribution to help me fund this work. 

Don't Drive By Poverty. Get Involved. Invitation to Super Wealthy, too.

Last week WBEZ published a report showing the shrinking middle class and growing divide between rich and poor in Chicago. I wrote about it here.

A few days later I created a graphic with a set of maps, by WBEZ, and by the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), which I created in 1993 and still lead today.

WBEZ consistently produces some of the best maps to focus attention on poverty and inequality in Chicago. I put two in this graphic. On the far left is a map showing low digital access (see in this article). In the middle is one showing the growing gap between rich and poor and the shrinking middle class. On the right is a Tutor/Mentor Connection map from the late 2000s, showing poverty areas, known non-school tutor/mentor programs, and transportation routes bringing people to and from the city for work or socialization every day (see T/MC map in this article).

Chicago is a huge city, thus drawing people from affluent areas into poverty neighborhoods to be part of organized volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs becomes more difficult, as the distances grow. Yet the rich transportation system in Chicago provides access routes that many could use to reach places in neighborhoods where they might connect with kids during the after work (5pm to 8pm hours).

About a week ago I started seeing Tweets from The Bridgespan Group about a report titled "Four Pathways to Greater Giving", which focused on the philanthropy of the ultra-wealthy.

For the ultra-wealthy, spending down 50% of wealth in 20 years requires an annual payout rate of more than 11%. Yet on average, America’s wealthiest donate just 1.2% of their assets to charity each year. Learn more.

— The Bridgespan Group (@BridgespanGroup) December 3, 2018

For the ultra-wealthy, spending down 50% of wealth in 20 years requires an annual payout rate of more than 11%. Yet on average, America’s wealthiest donate just 1.2% of their assets to charity each year. Learn more.— The Bridgespan Group (@BridgespanGroup) December 3, 2018

I am reading the report now, and highlighting key passages, using Hypothes.is. You're welcome to join me.

Imagine if super wealthy donors adopted high poverty sections of Chicago and its suburbs, with long-term involvement and investment.  That's been my vision for many years.  I used the graphic below in a 2014 article, and again last year, when two billionaires were asking for political donations to support their campaign for Governor of Illinois.

If you use the "drive by poverty" map, you see expressways running through each of the poverty zones of Chicago.  While these are physical transportation routes, they can also be virtual guides, to places on the Internet where volunteers, donors, youth development program staff and leaders, researchers and others can talk about the needs of youth and families and the way well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs expand social capital and support systems and offer a path out of poverty, while also engaging more people in discussions of the other related problems that also need to be addressed.

In the Bridgespan Group report, one challenge raised was finding trusted intermediaries who could channel large donations to a network of smaller organizations.  In the graphic below, I show the role of a Tutor/Mentor Connection, connecting people who could help, including wealthy people, with places where kids and families need help, and organized youth development, tutor and mentor programs in those places.

While I point to a map of Chicago on this graphic, that map could be any major city in the world, and the intermediary could be an organization coached by myself to apply Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies, using tools that I've been trying to develop with limited and inconsistent resources for more than two decades.

The beauty of the Internet is that anyone can spend as much, or as little, time as they want digging into the information that's available.

Thus, I invite those who can help to browse through my past articles, read PDF reports like this, showing what I've been trying to build, then as you build your understanding,  begin to think of ways you might help me re-build the T/MC for Chicago, but make it a useful tool for any city.

Or, spend time in this planning Wiki, to see what I've been trying to do, what needs help and rebuilding, and what opportunities still need to be developed.

It's the Oscars this weekend, so read this article, which I wrote about a "do over" following the 2017 Oscars, when the wrong movie was announced as "Best Picture".  Think of ways an ultra wealthy family might adopt, and own, this re-build, as their own long term commitment to closing the wealth and opportunity gaps in America and the world.

I've written several more "do over" articles since then, which you can find here.

In the short term, a contribution in the five figures or less might have a great impact on helping me continue to bring attention to these ideas. Visit this page if you're interested. 

Grant Competitions. Few Winners. Many Losers.

I have used this graphic for many years to visualize the need for leaders to mobilize support on an on-going basis for tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago.

I've supported that thinking since 1993 by building and maintaining a list of Chicago area non school, volunteer-based tutor and mentoring programs.  Visit this cMap and you can find links to my list of programs, and platforms managed by others which you can also use to find youth programs in Chicago and other cities.

I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993 with the goal of helping every neighborhood have great non-school programs reaching kids starting as early as 1st grade and staying connected to them all the way through high school, college and into work.  The map graphic at the right illustrates that every program has common needs, that need to be met annually, for programs to operate, grow and improve.

One of the unmet goals of my work is to create a map platform where icons on the map indicate where donations of time, talent and dollars are landing in different neighborhoods. Without an accountability tool like this we'll never know for certain if were providing support to all the places where it's most needed.

Over the past 15-20 year's I've seen a growing number of high profile grant competitions, from the federal and state government, from foundations, and from business. In most cases many organizations spent countless hours of staff time, consultant fees, and emotional energy preparing submissions for these grants.

But the reality is that only a few programs win, and they many not win every year.

I first created this "good to great" graphic in mid-2000s and have used it often. Here's most recent article, from 2017.

In these articles I'm pointing to the Jim Collins booktitled "Good to Great and the Social Sectors"

To be great you need to build strong organizations, and that requires an on-going flow of resources.

Grant competitions with only a few winners don't fill a map of Chicago or any other city with great youth serving programs in every high poverty neighborhoods. 

That's got to change.

Here's how that might happen.  I created this map graphic a few years ago after reading the annual Forbes article about the world's richest people. The local Chicago papers featured this story again this past week, showing 17 super wealthy people living in the Chicago region. 

I wrote articles suggesting that these people adopt different sections of the city and provide on-going operating dollars to support needed non profit and social enterprise organizations in their adopted areas.  (see article)

Three of these guys are asking to be governor of Illinois. None has a visible track record of using their personal wealth to fund multiple programs as I've suggested, or to influence other wealthy people to join them. I'm sure they each can point to individual programs they've supported.

Funding youth tutor/mentor programs on an on-going basis, and helping new ones form where more are needed would be a great start, and could be happening in every city. However, as the graphic below shows, there are many challenges that need to be addressed, in every high poverty neighborhood. 

All, or most, of these need to be addressed or we'll continue to spend tons of money with too little impact.

View this Race-Poverty map

Those wealthy leaders who adopt neighborhoods could also adopt and fund the intermediary organizations who build the information libraries that are needed to support this effort.  When I say "Information Library" I'm pointing to the Tutor/Mentor web library as an example. 

This includes many articles showing uses of maps to help understand "who" is in the community who need to be at the table in efforts to create greater opportunities for all youth growing up in those communities.

These maps are among many that can be found on this blog (see maps tag) and on the Mappingforjustice blog. There's also a map gallery, showing maps created between 2008 and 2011, with links to blog articles that show how the map was integrated into a story. 

Without building this information base, and the map resources, too few of those who need to be funded will receive consistent funds to enable them to constantly learn from their own work, and from others, and grow from year-to-year. Too few of those with roots in a community area will have a voice at the face-to-face or virtual on-line table.

Grant competitions will never solve this problem. They may raise visibility for the donor, and even the issue, but they do as much to harm organizations who constantly seek to win, but most often lose.

This is not like the business world, where one soap producer can distribute soap to people all over the city (if there are distribution points available). We need great youth tutor/mentor and family support programs in every high poverty neighborhood. 

One more map!

This cMap is just one more way of showing that kids need many different supports as they move through school and into adult lives. Such supports need to be available in every high poverty neighborhood, just as they are naturally available in most affluent neighborhoods.

Adults who get involved as volunteer tutors, mentors, tech support, board members, etc. can help make this happen.  Billionaires can provide the fuel.

Competitions don't work.

Visit this section of the Tutor/Mentor web library to read about challenges facing non-profit organizations, such as this article titled "The NonProfit Starvation Cycle".

Like what I'm writing about? I'm starving for funds, too. Click here and use the PayPal button to support my efforts. 

Hey Mr. Rich Man, I'm Over Here

I read an article yesterday about multi billionaire Jim Simons and a think tank he has created to support work that benefits society. As I read it I recalled this graphic, which I first shared in this 2014 article.

Simons and other wealthy people have begun setting up "institutes" where talented people work on complex problems.  In Simons' case, he's not creating new raw data, but is digging deeper into data collected by others.

I've been doing something similar for the past 24  years, but with less than $150,000 in my best year and with almost no money for the past six years.

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 with the goal of "gather and organize all that is known about successful non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.".

This map shows four sections of the web library I've been building since 1998.  Click on the box at the bottom of any of the nodes on the map, and a new map will open, with links to sub sections of my web library.

At the heart of this library is a list of Chicago area non school volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs operating in different parts of the city. Click this link to see the map and list of programs.

While I've been building a list, I've not had the resources do dig deeper into this information. However, by sharing this online, anyone could be taking a role of building a deeper understanding of what these programs do, what works, what does not work, what could be improved, what the challenges are, how could they be overcome, etc.

My Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and list of Chicago programs can be found in one section of the library I've been building. The other three sections, the larger part of the library, consists of links to articles and web sites of others involved in helping kids, or of solving complex problems.

In the mission statement above I wrote "collect all that is known", which is an on-going process. We'll never have "all that is known" but we can have much more than most people have at their disposal. By aggregating this information, others can learn ideas that people are applying in some places and find ways to improve them, and apply them in many other places. When we have access to a wide range of descriptions of the problem and of potential solutions, we can make better decisions and hopefully build and sustain stronger solutions.

Collecting this type of information, making sense of it, and  helping others find and use it would be the role of the team that a billionaire might fund if they were to create a Tutor/Mentor Institute in their name and support it's growth the same way Simons is supporting his research institute.

Collecting information is just the first step in a four part strategy that a billionaire might support, which I've piloted since 1994.    In this map I show the four steps, and point to  work needed to make each step work more effectively.

A well funded institute could not only make better sense of the data, but do much more to recruit other wealthy supporters, and to draw resources to community led initiatives in every neighborhood who are using the information and resources to do work that helps kids and families overcome the many challenges of poverty as they move more successfully through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers, and laws, that enable them to raise their own kids with fewer of these challenges.

While a wealthy man or woman might create a stand-alone institute, he/she might also endow a Tutor/Mentor Institute on one, or more, college campus, where student-led teams might apply the T/MC strategy to support the growth of mentor-rich non-school programs in the area around a university, or in neighborhoods where students come from. Read more about that.

A first step of any group should be to spend time reading what I've been posting in printed newsletters, web sites and blogs for the past 23 years, so they know what I'm describing and are better able to improve it over the next 20 years.  I will coach that process as long as I'm still alive.

In the short term, if you want to help me, visit this page, and send a contribution.