Closing Opportunity Gap in America. Building the Network.

Yesterday I posted a long article sharing my thoughts following hearing Robert Putnam talk about his new book "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis".

In order to close the opportunity gap we need to dramatically enlarge the number of people taking daily actions to grow the network. We need to increase the number of wealthy benefactors who are making $10 to $100 million commitments to support the growth of the network, as well as individual donors supporting long-term, mentor-rich, tutor/mentor programs with workplace donations and annual contributions. We also need others who support intermediaries who support the on-going learning required to support long-term growth. In this Tipping Points essay I show ideas that, if fully funded, could support the growth of mentoring programs, and the growth in the number of people who take long-term roles in closing the opportunity gap.

The illustration below is from this "network building" essay.

I've attended events hosted by the Chicago Community Trust and many other civic and business leaders in Chicago for nearly 20 years. With the growth of social networks, and network analysis tools I've encouraged people who host events, to create network maps showing who is participating, and what skills/networks they represent. I still don't see this being done.

The statement "It takes a village to raise a child." has been overused, but it fits with Putnam's "Our Kids" advocacy. However, unless you map who is active, using network analysis tools, you really don't know which parts of the village are pulling their fair share of the load. In addition, unless you keep doing these maps from year to year, you don't know if the village is growing, or if the people who took action in past years have continued those actions in future years.

On page 259 in "Our Kids" Putnam wrote this about mentoring: "The last thing that poor kids need is yet another unreliable, "drop-by" adult in their lives." He could have wrote the same about "drop by" donors who make short term grants that fund only a small percent of total costs for operating a mentoring program, or who don't sustain their funding beyond one, two or three years. If many leaders are mobilizing volunteers and donors to support programs in the same urban area, then every program ought to be able to create maps showing funding from multiple sources, and volunteer involvement representing many different career paths that youth might aspire to.

I don't know of anyone in the mentoring movement talking about mentoring as social capital, AND... talking about ways to use social network analysis tools to map participation. I've been trying to do this, but with the help of volunteers since I've not found investors and financial support. View the maps shown here and here to see some of the work I'm trying to do, and that I think others could also be doing.

I've written about this on my blog since 2005 and in printed newsletters, between 1993 and 2001. I've posted a variety of illustrated essays in the library on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site. I encourage others to write their own strategy essays to show how they think we get from "here to there". Share them. Let's compare notes. Let's work together to build the "village".

If you're interested in this, let's connect and talk of what I've been trying to do and ways you can help. What we develop for Chicago can be used in any other city.

If we don't know who is involved, and how the network grows from year-to-year it is unlikely we'll ever mobilize enough continuous involvement to seriously close the opportunity gap.

Engage Team In Informal Learning to Support Mentor Program Growth

It's National Mentoring Month and on social media many are showing how they have been involved in a mentoring program and others are telling stories of the impact of mentoring. However, I don't find many talking about strategies that increase the number of programs, the quality of programs, the distribution of programs into all neighborhoods where youth would benefit, or the mobilization of increased operating resources needed to support all of these programs.

I received a paper this weekend via my social media, titled "The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning", written by Henry Mintzberg, who is now Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University. This paper was written in 1994, prior to the Internet providing us the ability to connect, share ideas and innovate ways to solve complex problems.

I hope you'll read it. I've highlighted my own copy to emphasize how this paper relates to efforts needed in making mentor-rich programs available to youth in more places. Here are some quotes from the paper.

"The most successful strategies are visions, not plans."

What the strategy making process should be: "capturing what a manager learns from all sources (both the soft insights from his or her personal experiences and the experiences of others throughout the organization and the hard data from market research and the like) and then synthesizing that learning into a vision of the direction that the business shold pursue."

"Planners should make their contribution around the strategy-making process. They should supply the formal analyses or hard data that strategic thinking requires, as long as they do it to broaden the consideration of issues."

"Strategic thinking is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction."

"Such strategies often cannot be developed on schedule and immaculately conceived. They must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization, typically through a messy process of informal learning that must necessarily be carried out by people at various levels who are deeply involved with the specific issues at hand."

"Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes, to encourage the informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations."

"Strategies can develop inadvertently, without the conscious intention of senior management, often through a process of learning."

"Real strategists get their hands dirty digging for ideas, and real strategies are build from the occasional nuggets they uncover."

"Planners can assist managers in finding fledgling strategies in their organization's activities, or in those of competing organizations."

"Planners can snoop around places they might not normally visit to find patterns amid the noise of failed experiments, seemingly random activities, and messy learning. They can discover new ways of doing or perceiving things."

"Some of the best models that planners can offer managers are simply alternative conceptual interpretations of their world."

Throughout this article there is an emphasis on learning. Within the corporate structure, where people are earning a pay check for their involvement, there is some degree of motivation for deeper learning. Our challenge in the social sector is motivating all those who need to be engaged and involved in on-going learning that leads to better programs, in more places.

I believe that volunteer involvement in a structured tutor/mentor program is a form of adult "service learning". This animation illustrates that belief. Involvement in a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program can be a strategy for informal learning and out of the company-box thinking.

I've written many articles on "learning" in this blog. I hope you'll review some of them in context of this article.

In order to make mentor-rich programs available to youth in all places where they are needed, and keep such programs in place, and constantly improving for many years, we need a commitment by leaders from every industry that supports this process of learning. Read this ROLE OF LEADERS presentation. This envisions a role similar to the planning support described by Mintzberg. It encourages CEOs to advocate for employee involvement in tutor/mentor programs near all places where the company does business, as part of its own employee learning and workforce development.

In the articles on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, we envision a constantly-expanding, source of information, ideas and data that can be used by anyone who wants to help more youth connect with mentors, tutors and extra learning as part of a long-term process of helping kids move from birth to work.

If National Mentoring Month has captured your attention, use this article to inspire your strategic thinking. Through the Internet CEOs, Board Members, policy makers, youth, volunteers and program leaders can connect with each other, and with a wealth of ideas that can stimulate their own thinking of ways to reach youth, expand aspirations and support habits that are needed to compete in 21st century corporations.

Benefit to Business from Encouraging Employee Volunteer Involvement

School is starting soon and every tutor/mentor program in the city is looking for volunteers. They are also looking for donors, tech support, and many other talents that enable them do do their work as effectively as possible. I had a letter to the editor appear in Crain's this week, calling on business leaders to form employee 'research and development, and marketing' teams that would build the company's involvement in youth tutoring, mentoring.

Today I found a couple of articles that show benefits to companies and their employees for encouraging such involvement.

First, take a look at this video:



Second, read this article by Daniel H Pink, titled "employees are faster and more creative when solving other people's problems".

In both cases they are talking about benefits to individuals from stepping outside of their comfort zone to build empathy with others, and with issues that are not part of their work experience and/or daily lives.

After you watch this I hope you'll also view this interview between myself and Edwin Rutsch who created the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy



I believe that well-organized volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring, arts, technology and career focused programs can connect volunteers who don't live in high poverty neighborhoods with youth and families who do in an on-going process that transforms the youth and the adult, and possibly the community.

I've created an information library on the web where anyone can draw ideas to support what they do to make tutor/mentor programs available in their community, and to help these programs constantly improve the ways they engage youth and volunteers in transformative actions. I host a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every spring and fall (not offered since May 2015) in Chicago to encourage people to come together, share ideas, build relationships, and find ways to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in big city neighborhoods.

I share this information every day in one-on-one conversations, via email, via web forums, etc. with the goal that others will pass this information on to people in their own networks and that more people will gather in on-going learning and action planning efforts. I also look for people who will help me in my efforts, and will take ownership of these efforts and ideas in future years.

Please review this graphic. If we believe in the value of connecting extra adults with youth, and we understand the need for organization programs to build and sustain these connections, why wouldn't teams from business, professional associations, media, and other sectors work collectively to support the growth of these programs in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities.

Then browse this list of Chicago area youth serving organizations located in different sections of the region. They are all different. Some are better organized, better funded, and/or serve more youth than others. However, each needs a constant flow of volunteers, dollars, ideas, tech support, etc. to be the best it can be at serving youth in the neighborhood(s) where it operates. Pick a program and give it your long-term support, starting this fall.

In supporting employee involvement in well-organized programs you benefit your company and your current employee, while developing future employees and customers. In concept map are links to more articles showing benefits to business. 

How do you pass these ideas on? Look at the articles interns have written over the past few years. You can do the same.

Charity Leaders Begin to Focus on Overhead Issue. More to do.

If you have not noticed, some of the big charity leaders are beginning to focus on the "overhead" issue, or the way charities are rated based on the percent of money they pay on salaries, training, technology, learning, etc., which are the essential building blocks for strong organizations. Visit "The Overhead Myth" site to get engaged with this on a national basis, or this Donors Forum hosted site to connect on a Chicago level.

I wonder how much of this is the result of the work Dan Pallota has done to put a spotlight on this issue? Dan gave a TED talk a few months ago that I wrote about here and here.



When I read Dan's book in 2011 I created a map to outline the chapters, recognizing that parts of the book, and parts of Dan's background, were pretty controversial. Let's focus on the parts we agree upon.

In my own comments I've emphasized that networks of non-profits and social benefit organizations focusing on similar issues, such as youth in high poverty areas, could be forming communities of practice and innovating ways to build on-going, year-round communications campaigns that address some of the challenges Dan describes and that are described in these articles in the Tutor/Mentor Connection library.

I keep using graphic like this one, and others which you can see on my Pinterest Boards, to illustrate quarterly events that can draw needed operating resources into tutor/mentor programs throughout Chicago. Such strategies can help programs attract talented people and keep them engaged for 5-, 10-years, or longer, so their knowledge, network and impact grows and they have more influence on the aspirations and habits of the kids who come through their programs, as well as the volunteers who provide time and talent.

Talking about overhead without talking about the flow of resources needed to build strong organizations is not enough. Talking about this without using maps to talk about all the places where high quality programs are needed is not enough, either.

This article may be read by one or two hundred people. That's not enough to change the way philanthropy and social benefit organizations are supported in Chicago, let alone in every city in the country. However, if you pass this story on to other people in your own network, more people will read it, and more people will find ways to integrate this thinking into their own discussions and actions.

We are all part of networks. How we engage our networks in social problem solving, now and in the future, will determine what the world we leave to our children looks like.

Read other articles with ideas like this at Mapping for Justice and Tutor/Mentor Intern blogs.

Building an Empathic Civilization

Here's a RSA Animate presentation I hope you'll take time to view.



After you watch this I hope you'll also view this interview between myself and Edwin Rutsch who created the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy



I believe that well-organized volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring, arts, technology and career focused programs can connect volunteers who don't live in high poverty neighborhoods with youth and families who do in an on-going process that transforms the youth and the adult, and possibly the community.

I've created an information library on the web where anyone can draw ideas to support what they do to make tutor/mentor programs available in their community, and to help these programs constantly improve the ways they engage youth and volunteers in transformative actions. I host a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every spring and fall (next is June 7) in Chicago to encourage people to come together, share ideas, build relationships, and find ways to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in big city neighborhoods.

I share this information every day in one-on-one conversations, via email, via web forums, etc. with the goal that others will pass this information on to people in their own networks and that more people will gather in on-going learning and action planning efforts. I also look for people who will help me in my efforts, and will take ownership of these efforts and ideas in future years.

Please review this graphic. If we believe in the value of connecting extra adults with youth, and we understand the need for organization programs to build and sustain these connections, why wouldn't teams from business, professional associations, media, and other sectors work collectively to support the growth of these programs in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities.

How do you pass these ideas on? Look at the articles interns have written over the past few years. You can do the same.

Complex Problem - Helping Youth from Birth to Work

The shooting last Friday in Conneticut demonstrates again how many different challenges our world faces as we look for ways to keep all kids safe and help all kids develop their full potential and become contributing adults.

I've used maps in the past to point to high poverty areas, and point to research and media articles showing that kids living in areas of big city and rural poverty face greater challenges because there is less community wealth and too little social capital linking these kids to live beyond poverty.

Yet we're reminded over and over that kids who live in middle class and affluent areas have their own social and emotional problems, need extra help in school and need the extra attention of adults beyond the family.

I have collected so many ideas over the past 35 years that when I meet with people in one-on-one meetings I'm overflowing with information to the point that I overwhelm and confuse. Thus, I've begun creating a handout that people might use following a meeting to look at the ideas I am talking about, with some degree of sequence and growing depth of understanding.

In the four-part strategy essay I've posted on this site, I show a need for facilitators to help other people find, understand and use this information. The graphic below shows many actions that need to be supported by many people and by a wide range of resource providers.

I think this entire strategy should be duplicated to focus on kids who live in affluence, as a parallel system to one that focuses on kids living in poverty. If I can find resource providers to continue to build the strategies I describe above, I would find it an honor and a tremendous opportunity, to connect with those wanting to build this parallel system.

In the Bible there is a story about how Jesus was asked "how do we pray?" and he answered with the Lord's Prayer. The "lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil" part is a prayer we each start each day with and hope that at the end of the day we and none of our friends and family have fallen victim to tragedy or evil doings.

I pray that we all find peace and deliverance from evil in the coming days, weeks and months. I also pray that more people will step forward with generous amounts of time, talent and money to intentionally make this safety available to more kids in both rich and poor parts of this world.

Impact of income inequity and wealth gap

As we in the US begin to gather with family and friends for the holidays, I encourage you to take a few moments to view and reflect on this discussion of "How economic inequality harms societies." The speaker is Richard Wilkinson, a public health researcher.

I support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs because they are a bridge that connects people from beyond poverty with young people and families from within high poverty neighborhoods. Learning takes place on both sides.

Last spring I talked about "empathy" with Edwin Rutsch and described how I feel the on-going involvement of volunteers in tutor/mentor programs builds a greater understanding of the problems facing youth in poverty, creating empathy and a commitment to devote personal time, talent and resources to closing the gaps between rich and poor by helping young people have more of the support they need to succeed in school and life.



As you review these videos over the holiday I hope you'll become more willing to support a tutor/mentor strategy in your own community, and to dig deeper into the ideas shared in these videos so that we can create a more equal America that has a benefit to both rich and poor.

I hope you'll also read this Holiday Letter and send a contribution to help me continue the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2013.

Empathy In Action - Sharing Ideas

On Friday May 18, I connected on Skype with three of my friends to talk about what "empathy" means to you and how this translates to actions that help social benefit organizations reach more people who need help.



The panel included Bert Ola Bergstrand who organized the Social Capital Forum on Facebook. The Social Capital Forum is an action and learning platform for developing social capital around the world. Social Capital Forum has also been instrumental in bringing the Impact Investment field into the Nordic countries and is hosting this years Social Capital World Forum.

It also included Bill Huddleston, who has extensive non-profit and federal employee experience and now shows non-profits how to get the most out of the CFC or Combined Federal Campaign.(CFC). He shows non-profits how to use the CFC to generate unrestricted funds, and how to use workplace giving as an integral part of the non-profit’s leadership development program. He is the author of the soon to be released “CFC Fundraising Secrets, The Insider’s Guide to the Combined Federal Campaign” plus many articles on workplace giving and leadership development. His website and blog are at www.cfcfundraising.com and www.cfctreasures.wordpress.com.

The panel was hosted by Edwin Rutsch who is founding director of the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy.

Edwin posted the May 18 panel discussion on his web site - here.

He also posted an earlier interview that he and I did - here.

We'll be organizing more of these discussions in the future and I'd like to try to tie them into conferences and blog exchanges. Read more about the conference and blog exchange strategies.

Empathy - interviews

I connected with Edwin Rutsch who leads the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy during a discussion hosted by Ariana Huffington last week on Social Edge. Edwin is creating video interviews with people throughout the country and aggregating them on his web site. I was interviewed on April 25 and the interview can now be found on his web site.

Listen to this interview at http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Experts/Others/Daniel-Bassill.htm

Edwin has invited me to create panel discussions among tutor/mentor leaders that he can record. I'd like to host one of these in mid June around the period of the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference (June 14). If you'd like to participate please post an introduction or email me at tutormentor 2 at earthlink dot net.

Chicago Charity losing political support

An article in today's Chicago Tribune told of how the "well-connected Chicago Cultural Center Foundation, is now in serious disarray and could be headed for closure." Seems that because of the late Maggie Daley's involvement millions of dollars flowed to the charity from philanthropic, business and city hall. Now that she's gone and there's a new Mayor in town, that support has lessened to the point that the charity is considering closing down.

When I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993 I wanted to generate private support because I realized that no publicly supported social benefit organization could last through the changes of political leadership over time. Even though the Daley machine was in power for over 20 years, it to has ended before the problems of poverty in Chicago have been resolved.

Unfortunately I was never able to generate consistent or significant philanthropic investment in the T/MC so now I'm trying to fund it through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. I wrote this article last spring showing lost opportunities resulting from not being a favored charity.

It's great that some charities supported by the Mayor and Mrs. Daley were blessed with philanthropic support over the past two decades. However, the downside is that other charities which may have had good ideas, maybe even better strategies, were not as well supported.

I created this video last year with the hope that the new Mayor would use maps and data, and the power of his office, to draw volunteers, donors, dollars, technology, etc. to all of the neighborhoods where kids need help instead of just to a few favored programs.

This may be something that's being discussed behind closed doors. Maybe there is a committee of a few business leaders and chosen philanthropic leaders who are talking about this. However, I've been using maps for almost 20 years and I've not been invited into any conversations where people who are thinking of investing new money might ask what I've learned and what they might do to help build on what I've started rather than starting from scratch.

There's a discussion about "cultivating empathy" taking place on Social Edge this week. It will be archived so you can visit it any time you find this article. I'd like to see the new Mayor focusing on how he can connect rich and poor, Black, White, and Latino, and people of different faith groups in ways that generate greater empathy and understanding and which build long-term commitment to social problem solving solutions that will last even beyond the time this Mayor is in office...here, or in Washington.

Extending our Empathy - role of Mentoring

I encourage you to view this video.

Then tale a look at some of the ideas I've been sharing on this blog and in the Tutor/Mentor Institute. If we want to expand the empathetic world what are the steps that some of us, or many of us, need to take to bring more people into this type of world?

I've focused on volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring because of the way it connects people who don't live in poverty with places in neighborhoods with high poverty and with young people who live in those neighborhoods. If the volunteer is well supported because the tutor/mentor program is well funded and has effective, experienced leaders, I feel the volunteer will grow his/her understanding and begin to see the world the youth lives in through the ideas and experiences of the youth.

This creates empathy that leads many volunteers to sacrifice more time, talent and even dollars to help the youth overcome the challenges his world of poverty creates.

This graphic and video illustrates this growth.

Right now tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities are recruiting youth and volunteers and doing the screening, orientations and training that start the annual mentoring cycle. You can use the Tutor/Mentor Program locator to find contact information for places in the Chicago region where you can become a tutor/mentor and where you can offer your talent as tech support, communication, PR and marketing, or as an evaluator or book keeper.

There are lots of ways to get involved. If we want to expand this empathic world it starts with the first steps we each take today or tomorrow.