Some focus on act of Mentoring. I focus on infrastructure that makes it possible.

The ideas and visualizations shown on this blog and my web site result from my having led site-based, non-school, volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs in Chicago since 1975. As a program leader you know the work it takes to enable youth and volunteers to meet weekly, and to continue participation for multiple years..and to find money to pay the bills. Few others in your organization know these challenges, which makes your life frustrating and your role difficult.

A few  years ago one of the NU Public Interest Program Fellows who was working with me at the time, created a graphic, that looks like an iceberg. You can see it here. Today I updated that graphic (crudely). You can see it at the left.

In my new version, I included photos of teens and volunteers who were part of the Cabrini Connections program that I led between 1993 and 2011. Many joined us while in 7th or 8th grade and stayed involved through high school. I'm still connected to some via Facebook and LinkedIn.

I also added a tagcloud I created last week, that shows the many different areas of knowledge program leaders should be thinking about as they look for ways to build and sustain long-term, mentor-rich programs. These tags can be seen on the left side of this page. However, there are many other places on the Internet where I've been sharing these ideas.

 
In  the graphic at the right I've created "oil well" graphics, and put them on a map of Chicago, where the red color represents areas of high poverty.  The "oil well" and the "iceberg" are two related ideas. Strong programs don't start out great. They become great over a period of years, as a result of constant reinvestment of ideas, dollars, time and lessons learned. They are needed in every poverty neighborhood.

Below is a third graphic, where I compare raising a child to building a house or a tall building. You start with a plan, with financing, and with blueprints. Then you do the work shown on page one before you go to page 2. You work your way from the bottom to the top.  Kids grow from birth to work. They need many different types of learning support as they grow up, and they need help from many different people as they move from school and into work.

Actually, as a parent, with children aged 19 and 26, you don't usually have a plan. You learn as you go. You hope you can find the money. That could be the topic of an entirely different blog.

I'd like to see more people involved in mentoring, from the national level down to the city level, integrating maps and visualizations like these and the strategy map below, showing the infrastructure needed in many different programs, while showing that great programs are needed in many different places. And, showing that the long-term goal is that kids who come through our programs are entering the workforce in their mid-twenties, thus able to earn a living that allows them to raise their own kids free from the challenges of concentrated, segregated, urban or rural poverty.

This map also shows the commitment needed by leaders from business, faith groups, colleges, hospitals, celebrities, media, politicians, etc., who must become more proactive and on-going in their commitments, if great programs are going to be available in more of the places where they are needed.

This graphic is from this article, and illustrates the need to use ideas to influence resource providers as well as non-profit leaders.  

I've just shown you a few of hundreds of visualizations I've created over the past 20 years, all with a goal of enlisting more people in efforts that make programs available which help kids born or living in high poverty neighborhoods today, be in jobs/careers in 25-30 years.

For that to happen, many more people need to be talking about the same ideas that I am communicating through my blog articles.  If that is happening, you should be able to do a Google search for the organization or business and then see many similar visualizations when you look at the images feature on Google. Try it.

If you're using graphics to communicate similar ideas, please post a link to your web site in the comments section below and let's connect. If you'd like to know more about how you might get involved with this work, just introduce yourself to me in an email to tutormentor2@earthlink.net or a post on Twitter or Facebook.

6-10-2025 update - here's an article from Social Roots that shows the value of intermediaries who do the type of work I've been trying to do for the past 32 years. It's titled: Self-Organization Needs Activators: The 9% Who Turn Networks into Movements  click here

Build Great Youth Teams in Every Neighborhood - Role of Intermediaries

Like everyone else in Chicago, I'm celebrating the accomplishments of the Jackie Robinson West Little League team. I'm also watching the Bears and hoping the Cubs and Bulls will put great teams on the field. I have hopes for the White Sox, too. I even cheer for the Blackhawks. I think several million other Chicago area residents have the same thoughts on their minds today.

Thus, I want to draw your attention to the infrastructure that is needed to build great teams. Then I want to ask you to think of ways volunteers in business, civic and alumni groups, faith groups, etc. can take on roles of fans and team owners to build and sustain great tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities.

Below is a graphic I've been trying to develop for many years.

The team on the field consists of youth and volunteers who are connected via the efforts of the staff and leaders of organized tutoring, mentoring and learning programs. Youth in poverty face many obstacles, thus the defensive line in this graphic represents some of those obstacles. However, organized tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods also face many challenges.

Unless we as a city can overcome these challenges there will be too few Jackie Robinson West type teams and tutor/mentor programs in the many Chicago area neighborhoods where they are needed.

In this graphic, the fans in the stands are people who work in business, attend faith services weekly, attend local colleges, etc. These are the people who support great sports teams by their attendance, by watching on TV, or listening on the radio. They sport teams, and sponsors, by the way they purchase sports apparel, and the way the talk about their teams on a daily basis. These are people who could be volunteering time, talent and dollars to support tutor/mentor programs.

In the sky-boxes are team owners, boosters, investors and others who pay millions of dollars to make great teams available...at the professional level, and at the major college level. Unless we find investors like this to support the growth of great tutor/mentor teams, there will be too few, and there will be few who have long-term commitments to building great teams (think CUBS).

This next graphic shows the role of intermediaries. The articles I write and graphics I create are limited by the talent I have to do this work. The number of people who see these is limited by my own lack of personal visibility and advertising dollars. Thus, if we want more great teams we need more people doing what I do, taking on an intermediary role to help connect people they know with ideas and with programs where they can help implement these ideas.

I send out a monthly email newsletter, with graphics like these, and with links to different sections of my web library. This section points to almost 200 Chicago area youth serving organizations who need support from fans and owners to be world class at what they do.

The goal is that people use the information I'm aggregating to expand the range of ideas they have to support actions they take to help great tutor/mentor teams be available in more places. Volunteers from different places could help create a better design for this newsletter, could write articles, and could create their own versions to circulate this information to their own network of family, friends, co-workers, etc.

Below is an animation that illustrates a role athletes could take on a regular basis to mobilize fans and owners to support constantly improving youth programs in high poverty areas.



This animation, and other videos in my library, could be re-produced in many ways, with hundreds of different athletes, celebrities, etc. giving the message.

This isn't an ICE BUCKET campaign, but if it is given the same attention, the result will be better support of hundreds, or thousands of different youth serving organizations operating in Chicago and other cities.

And ultimately, that will provide more of the support youth need to move through school and into adult lives and careers.

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.

Can't Drain the Swamp? Up to your Neck in Alligators?

If you skim through articles I've written since 2005 you'll see a growing use of visualizations to communicate ideas. Many of these start as scratches on a tablet as an idea comes to me, then are converted to power point.  I've been lucky to have interns from IIT and other universities work with me for a few weeks every year who have used their own talent to convert some of my essays into new graphics. This page shows work that has been done.

However, these interns are only with me a few weeks in the winter and spring. I come up with ideas all the time but don't have the talent to communicate these as effectively as I'd like.  Here's an example.

I've used maps to show where poverty is concentrated in Chicago and to show where existing tutor/mentor programs are located. You can see many like this in this map gallery.  In addition, I use maps in many of my blog articles I've written about how poverty affects  health, student aspirations, education performance, etc.

In other articles and in this section of my library I show challenges that non profit tutor/mentor programs face in finding the talent and operating resources to build and sustain constantly improving long-term programs.

Since I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 my goal has been to help all of the non-school tutor/mentor programs in the region get the operating resources they need while helping new programs focus in areas where more are needed. While many of my peers have said "I like what you do." most have said "When I'm able to get my own program stabilized, I'll help you do this".

I've always said to myself, "They will never help because by themselves they can't solve the funding and resource flow problems facing non profit organizations."

So this week I was thinking about this and I thought of the saying "can't drain the swamp because I'm up to my neck in alligators".   How could I visualize this?  Well I started scratching out some ideas. 


So here's the first image I thought of. I'm in a boat in the middle of a swamp. The boat is leaking water and I'm surrounded by alligators.  

Operating a small non profit feels like this. I'm surrounded by challenges and don't have the manpower to solve all of the problems facing my kids, volunteers and the organization. In this analogy, the swamp represents the high poverty neighborhoods where our kids live and where we operate. Parents, schools, kids and non profits are surrounded by all sorts of problems. Violence is just one of these (see articles)

Through the actions of the Tutor/Mentor Connection I've been trying to "drain the swamp". This graphic illustrates this.

This next graphic shows how many of the 170-plus tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the Chicago region face the same challenges every day.

So what if many non profits were working together to overcome the challenges we each face. What if leaders in business, faith groups, politics, sports, entertainment, etc. were working with us?

We could be building greater daily attention for ways to help build student aspirations and learning habits while also building support systems that expand the network of adults and learning opportunities available to kids in every high poverty neighborhood.

Through the collective efforts of many people we could be helping more volunteers connect with kids in tutor/mentor programs as school starts each year. We could be encouraging more workplace donors to support these programs during workplace fund raising campaigns in the fall. We could be bringing more people together to share ideas and give recognition to programs in November. And we could be using this November attention to encourage more year-end donors to seek out tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods.

So now that I've laid out my thinking. Who is willing to volunteer their talent to turn this into a new graphic, animation, video or some form of communication that will draw thousands of people to read it, reflect on what the meaning is, and find ways to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs this year in Chicago or any other city in the country? 

I've been coaching my interns in the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum. I encourage you to introduce yourself there if you'd like to offer your talent.

Search Google "images" for 'tutor mentor'

I post images in my blogs to help communicate ideas. For instance, this one illustrates all of the work that goes on each week, and which needs to be funded, just for us to support weekly tutor/mentor sessions at Cabrini Connections each Wednesday and Thursday evening.

Have you ever searched Google for the words "tutor mentor" then looked at images?? I did today and there were dozens of pages with images I've put on our web sites over the past 10 years. In addition there were images from other tutor/mentor programs.

I think this is a potentially great way to connect with others who may be doing similar work. I encourage you to check it out.