Investments needed in birth to work strategies

 View the graphics below and click into links to find more information. 

I included this graphic in this July 2018 article titled "After the march, do the planning".   It's one of more than 200 articles posted on this blog that focus on "violence" prevention and "planning".  My goal is that youth and adults from around the USA are are reading these articles and sharing their interpretations with friends, family and co-workers to help mentor-rich birth-to-work programs grow in every high poverty area of Chicago and other parts of the country.

You can look at the graphic above in several ways.

1) It includes a map, showing high poverty areas of Chicago. Programs that help kids through school and into adult lives need to be in every one of these zip codes.

2) The horizontal arrow shows the #birth-to-work timeline, which takes 20-25 years for EVERY  youth. Those in high poverty areas don't have the same range of natural support that kids in more affluent areas have, so those supports need to be made available through school and no-school hours programming.  I wrote an article last week focusing on some of the needed programming. 

3) You can also think of the graphic as a guide to investments needed.  Since the arrow, and the graphic above, shows stages kids grow through as they move from #birth-to-work, communities need to innovate ways to drive needed operating dollars, technology, talent and ideas into every high poverty neighborhood, making age appropriate programs available at each stage on the timeline.  Furthermore, at the right end of the arrow these supports need to be job training, interviews and JOBS!

Maps need to be use for multiple purposes. They can show demographic and poverty data as layers of information, pointing to places where people need extra help. 

They can show access routes through neighborhoods which might help volunteers see more places where they can connect with youth in organized programs.

They can show locations of programs, and potential support, such as banks, colleges, hospitals, faith groups, etc. We created the Program Locator in 2004 and updated it in 2008 to enable people to create map view showing small sections of the city, that could be used in planning.  

Maps can also show who's involved, as these conference maps demonstrate.  

Most importantly, maps can show a distribution of dollars and involvement.  Foundations,  companies and government programs have the ability to create maps that show where their dollars are landing, and/or where company volunteers are involved as board members, or volunteers serving as tutors, mentors, tech support or marketing and fund raising support.  

So far I can find almost no examples of maps being used this way, thus, there is little accountability assuring that funds and resources support all stages of the #birth-to-work timeline, in every zip code where such programs are needed.

I no longer have the organizational capacity to update the program locator and implement these ideas. Instead, I want to be part of planning teams who read these articles and are trying to innovate ways to implement them in different locations.

I'm on these social media channels. If you're interested in knowing more and starting a conversation, just reach out to me.

If you want to help fund the work I'm doing, just go to this page and use PayPal to send your support. 

Thank you for reading.

Yummy's Story. New for You? Not for me.

Did you see this editorial in yesterday's Chicago Tribune?   I created the graphic at the left so I could talk about it in this article. I shared it on Twitter with this Tweet (open to view).

It's the story of an 11-year-old Chicago boy murdered 25 years ago in August 1994.  While the story might be new to you, it is not new to me. 

I've been collecting news clips of stories like this for nearly 30 years in an effort to mobilize more consistent attention and resources to help prevent kids from becoming victims of poverty and inequality. 

So I looked in my files to see what I had. Below are just a few of a series of 1994 stories.

This was the front page of the Chicago SunTimes on September 2, 1994 as media started to try to build an understanding of why this happened.

This is the front page of the Chicago Tribune on August 25, 1994.  The image from this story was used in yesterday's editorial.

67 kids were slain in Chicago in 1994 according to a Chicago Tribune story from January 1, 1995.  I put that story into the graphic below to highlight where Yummy Sandifer was on the list and where in Chicago his killing took place....in the Roseland area on the far South Side of Chicago.

 
I had created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and our goal was to help draw volunteers, donors and ideas to non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, using a four-part strategy that you can see on this page. Step 1 was an information collection strategy, which included building a list of non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. In 1994 we started trying to use maps to show this information and map-stories to try to draw attention to different areas following media stories. 

Below is a map created in August 1994 to highlight the Roseland area where this shooting took place.  Over the next 25 years our maps became more sophisticated yet the purpose remained the same.

If you look at the January 1, 1995 Chicago Tribune story shown above, you'll see at the right that they point to places where people could volunteer.  Unfortunately they did not point to the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Directory that we had first published in May 1994 or the conference that we held that May.  (They did do a story in May 1994 about the conference, but did not tie these together). 

If you view this list you can see a long list of articles where local media did try to tell what the Tutor/Mentor Connection was trying to do. Unfortunately these were far fewer after 2001. We tried to overcome that with a growing use of the Internet.

While yesterday's Chicago Tribune editorial focused on the Yummy Sandifer story the Chicago SunTimes did a story showing changes of demographics in Chicago, caused by a growing number of college graduates moving into the city.  Below are the maps featured in this story, along with maps from a WBEZ story that I used in a "Don't Drive By Poverty. Get Involved." story.

I've been using maps in stories for 25 years, in my print newsletters, on my web sites, email newsletters and blog articles.  If you read the stories about kids in poor schools, kids in gangs, kids in poverty and kids killing each other, and look at maps showing where these are taking place, you begin to understand that there is a need for solutions in many parts of the city.

Here's another map-story that has driven my efforts. This is from 1994, showing more than 240,000 kids in poverty. If you look at the shaded areas they are pretty much the same areas as we're looking at in 2019. Yet, there are changes, too. 

What a map is intended to provoke are questions of "How do we reach all of these kids with great programs?" How do we help these programs stay connected to kids from the years they start school till they are adults with jobs able to raise their own kids free of poverty?  How do we change the funding systems that make long-term programs so difficult to operate?"

Below is just one of many graphics I've included in blog articles and newsletters. How can we do this better?  How do we bring leaders from every sector into this conversation and keep them involved for many years.  How do we build birth to work programs reaching kids in every poverty area? How do we collect and report data that shows what programs are operating, where they are and what they do, so we can know that we really are reaching kids in all places where they are needed.

This "how to do it better" conversation needs to be taking place in many sectors.

As you look at graphics like this, where I show maps and the "mentoring kids to careers" graphic, also look at concept maps like the one below.

Kids in every neighborhood need ALL of these supports - view map

For any number of reasons I've not had the magic formula for drawing leaders to this information and motivating them to use it.  Nor have I been able to attract consistent funding, or a significant benefactor who would champion the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

What I started 25  years ago has left many footprints that others could follow, but as we enter 2020 I don't have any resources to go beyond maintaining an information base and posting articles like this to build on stories I see in the media and try to stimulate more strategic thinking by more people.

In the graphic above where I show the SunTimes maps I also put a small graphic of a bridge. If you look at the maps you see colors representing rich and poor sections of Chicago.  Volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs can be islands of hope and opportunity that serve as bridges that connect people from both backgrounds in mutually beneficial ways.

Such programs need to be identified, supported and multiplied so they are in every high poverty neighborhood.

If you want to help me keep writing these articles visit this page and make a contribution. 

Or, better yet, reach out and start a conversation. Hire me to be a consultant to share these ideas with you and your planning team.

Or help create a Tutor/Mentor Connection at one of Chicago's colleges, so student researchers can dig into my files and pull out more stories that might motivate people to do what has not been done in the past 30 years: 

Build a system of school and community support that really does reach kids and families in every poverty neighborhood.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Connect with me there or leave a comment.

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. 

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.

Letter to Billionaire from 1999 - Imagine What Might Have Resulted If He had Responded

I'm going through my archives while working on a two-page letter that I'm sending to an organization in Chicago, asking for their support of the work I've been doing since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993.

I found this letter, written to a member of one of Chicago's wealthy families, in 1999.  The issues I describe are highlighted. They still persist today, in 2016.  They may still be with us in 2036 if we can't build high level financial and civic support for a strategy like the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Here's the letter:

May 4, 1999

To: Highly Visible Billionaire in Chicago

Dear ……,

I read an article recently which recognized the $15 million donation being made by your family to commemorate the new millennium. I congratulate you on having the generosity of spirit to offer such a gift to the city of Chicago.

I’m writing to introduce the Tutor/Mentor Connection to you and your family and to invite you to appoint a representative to get to know us and to become one of our leaders. The major issues of the new millennium will be education, poverty, violence, welfare reform, social capital, and public health, all of which will have significant positive or negative impacts on our economic vitality, whichever way we go on these issues in the next few years.

I included social capital in that string of issues because it is a unifying issue. We live in a country where people are becoming more and more isolated; while new research is showing that it is communities which have vast amounts of social capital which enjoy the best forms of government. I believe that efforts to connect large number of adults with large numbers of at-risk children, and with each other, have unlimited potential for successfully addressing each of these issues. I also believe that while we need to find places in neighborhoods throughout America to provide hands-on connections between adults and children, it is through the internet that we will be able to meet often enough to understand the vast complexities which must be understood for unified visions to evolve which will change the “riot of fragmented social contributions of the 20th century” into a revolution of social improvement in the 21st century.

Finally, I believe that the Tutor/Mentor Connection, formed in 1993 as part of a new site based tutor/mentor program called Cabrini Connections, is one of the few organizations who actually are integrating some of these visions into a strategy, with a history of growth which is ripe for the involvement of a family with your own vision, history and generosity. I hope you will review these materials and then will want to meet and begin to become a part of this movement.

What is Cabrini Connections?
(Writer Note: I wrote this letter in 1999 while I was still leading the Cabrini Connections program. While this program still operates in Chicago, I've not been involved since 2011, when I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to support the continued work of the T/MC in Chicago and to help similar intermediaries grow in other cities. The information shown below describes the Cabrini Connections program as it was in 1999.)

Cabrini Connections is a small non-profit concerned about the large number of American children who fail to obtain the basic skills and experience that will be necessary to compete for employment in the global economy of the 21st Century. For six years, this organization has helped create school-to-work opportunities for inner-city children by recruiting volunteers to contribute time and energy to provide quality after-school tutoring and mentoring to teens living in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago. Miiri Shin, an Abbott Laboratories employee and 3nd year volunteer wrote ”What a wonderful job the program has done with the kids. I am very pleased to be a part of it.” Cabrini Connections believes that after-school tutoring, mentoring and school-to-work programs like its own can make a significant difference in whether a young person finishes high school and enters the work force or drops out and becomes part of the next generation on welfare.

Cabrini Connections serves nearly 110 teens in its own program, and several participate in the ACI College Bridge Program. However research done by Voices for Illinois Children shows that nearly 200,000 children in Chicago alone could benefit from such programs. And, a 1997 study funded by ACI and conducted by Human Capital Research Corporation in partnership with the Tutor/Mentor Connection, shows that fewer than 6% of Chicago’s school-aged children participate in any of 272 afterschool programs which indicate that tutoring and/or mentoring are part of their mix of services. The maps included in this study show that the areas of Chicago that most desperately need school reform and after-school programs tend to be the same areas plagued by poverty, violence, segregation and neglect.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC)

While many organizations and efforts —including the 1997 Presidents’ Summit — have recognized these problems, Cabrini Connections believes it is the only organization with a working action plan that can increase the overall availability and quality of afterschool tutor/mentor programs throughout an entire geographic area.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) is Cabrini Connections’ detailed action plan aimed at expanding and sustaining the availability and quality of after-school programs throughout Chicago. Although the strategy of the plan appears complex, its message is quite simple: There must be safe places where children can connect with a broad spectrum of adults committed to their future well-being. These places must have support from businesses, universities, hospitals and churches to last for the time it takes for a child to move from first grade to the first job. These places must also be available in every neighborhood that needs them—not just in a few high-profile areas. It is every American’s responsibility to make this happen.

The T/MC approaches this as a marketing and distribution problem, not an education problem. There is not an adequate distribution of resources, volunteers, mentors, youth apprentice programs, ACI College-bridge-type programs, leadership or operating dollars into every neighborhood where help is most needed in any city. Nor is their a long-term commitment to keep these resources flowing, and the quality constantly improving, to the point that the outcomes documented would be children born to poverty landing in careers....some 25 years later.

The T/MC already has created a structure of events, conferences, newsletters and Web site to support the efforts of teams of volunteers such as these. Now it is working to develop an Internet Based Learning Network to provide on-line training, and action plan facilitation, to teams of volunteers and leaders of tutor/mentor programs anywhere in the world, drawing from a world-wide range of “experts” who will be connected via linked web sites to deliver on-line instruction, as well as to provide facilitated discussion-groups, integrating T/MC Directories and GIS computer aided mapping, within each competency to help a learner turn what they learn into constantly improving and expanding actions in their own community.

While we are applying for a five year federal grant to launch this Learning Network (Not received), we seek business and foundation support, to give us the start-up capital needed to get this program off the ground and to help us keep it growing and constantly improving.

The needs of young children are not limited to Chicago. Your family empire is also not limited to Chicago. The many businesses your family leads would be a beneficiary and ideal partner of such a learning network, because of its opportunities for employees, funded agencies and business partners from throughout the world to meet on-line, and in different time, different place facilitated meeting formats to build relationships, shared understanding of common problems, and shared commitment to collective action which would benefit each program and organization.

I have attached the Learning Network Proposal for your review.
Editor Note: This proposal is now archived (here) in a Planning Wiki at http://tutormentorinstitute.wikidot.com/home, that outlines goals, challenges, and work that needs to be done to re-energize the T/MC, while also adding features that do more to connect people and ideas and help youth serving programs grow in all high poverty neighborhoods where they are most needed.)

These ideas and strategies demonstrate the vision that leaders from different states or continents can become a team, share ideas and create actions which give benefit to each partner and to the communities and geographic regions where they live and do business. With the internet, we only need a few visionary leaders to be bold enough to outline a business plan for moving children from school to work, and to provide the leadership to put that plan to work. The T/MC already has this in place and has a wealth of business and non-profit partners who’ve contributed to our success, including the Chicago Bar Association/Foundation, Montgomery Ward & Co. and Illinois Wesleyan University.

With the many different networks you and your family are involved with, or leading, I think it would be very likely that your efforts could result in leaders from every industry and sector of service soon joining you in this coordinated and comprehensive vision.

I hope you’ll review the www.tutormentorexchange.net and www.tutormentorconnection.org web sites, which further demonstrates the work we do and the use of the internet to gather and share best practices and action plans.

Then, I hope you, or one of your representatives, will want to meet with me and become a leader of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Such involvement can be of far greater value and benefit to the next millennium than any gift which has yet been given.

If I can provide additional information for your consideration, please call or email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

Thank You.

(end of letter)

If you read articles like this, which I wrote in 2016, you can see how writers, such as Robert Putnam, are drawing new attention to problems I was describing in 1999 and earlier. 

With millions of dollars being spent by wealthy people and corporations to get people elected to city, state and national political offices, there must be one or two people who would invest in strategies that I have piloted over the past 20 years.  If you share my blogs and letters like this with people you know, and they share it with people they know, we can reach people who have the resources needed to re-energize the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy and make it available at low, or no-cost to leaders in cities throughout the world.

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.

Look in your Google mirror!

Occasionally I will do a Google search for "tutor mentor" or "Bassill" to see where my web sites show up on the search and to find others who I don't yet know who may be pointing to my sites. When I do this I also click the "images" button to see what types of graphics show up. Below is a graphic that was among many that I found yesterday.

If you and thousands of others around the world search for "tutor mentor", you'll find my sites on the first page. That means the ideas I share are available to people anywhere in Chicago, or in the world.

In the Google images you can find a page reference for each image, thus you can see how the image is being used. I've put over 100 images on my Pinterest page with links to one page where the image has been used, but this is pretty limiting. I've used some of these graphics over, and over, to illustrate the need for youth mentoring and tutoring programs to be in many places, and for them to have long-term strategies that engage volunteers from diverse work backgrounds.

In the graphic above, I point to stories and media interviews from the early 1990s, showing that I've been giving a consistent message for almost 20 years. In this I'm sort of like John the Baptist, saying "there's a better future" and trying to survive at the same time.

If you're involved in youth development, mentoring, tutoring in any way, I encourage you to search for names of people you feel are leaders in this movement. Look at the images with their profiles. Do you see maps and graphics showing strategy or do you see pictures of them with youth or with other leaders and celebrities?

If you search for my name you'll find some photos of me, like from 1999 when I received the Publisher's Clearing House Good as Gold Award on a year end Montell TV Show. You'll also find photos of me with Leo Hall, who was my mentee in 1973 when I first became involved. He's still my friend today.

However, most of the images are going to be similar to this, showing the role of intermediaries who connect people from their network with programs serving youth in high poverty areas, and with a library of information they can learn from so they are more strategic in how they use their time, talent and dollars.

I've often been told I'm so far out in front that no one can see me. When I look at the images of most people, I see a self promotion, and an emotional appeal. I've not done that and perhaps that's a problem. Unfortunately, too few people are interested in long-term solutions. They want to feel good now.

Yet, as this Huffington Post article about the high costs of high school drop outs shows, we pay a huge price for short term solutions.

The image at the top of the page is from this page, where I'm asking for financial support, partners and investors to help me do the work I do. I'm not operating as a 501-c-3. Thus your support is an investment in reducing the high costs of poverty.

Naming Rights? Why not?

In a previous article I wrote about MOOCs, or massive on-line organized learning communities. These are part of a series of articles focused on learning.

When we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 our aim was to "collect and organize all we could find related to volunteer-based non-school tutoring/mentoring" and how such programs could contribute to workforce development and social justice. This chart illustrates the range of ideas we've been collecting and adding to web libraries. This link points to one of four sections in our library.

While universities, libraries, think tanks and many other organizations collect and organize information, the Tutor/Mentor Connection also seeks to actively share this information with anyone who cares about poverty, racism, education, wealth gaps, social justice, democracy, etc. The goal is that as more people become personally involved and understand the infrastructure needed to operate and sustain long-term connections between programs, volunteers and inner city youth, more people will be proactive in seeking out places to offer time, talent and dollars.

This video illustrates the year-round strategy we've developed and this chart outlines the public awareness strategy we've been trying to implement.

Unfortunately we've never had much money to invest in what we do. Yet our network keeps growing each day. These are some awards that have recognized my work. Imagine what we might do to bring thousands of people to this knowledge in an on-going MOOC focused on helping tutor/mentor programs grow --- if we had a greater wealth of resources.

This is Ryan Field at Northwestern University. It's one of thousands of buildings at universities, hospitals, sports stadiums with the name of a benefactor or sponsor who has put up millions of dollars for that privilege.

While I enjoy football and baseball I think we'd all benefit from working together to help more kids born in poverty be in jobs and able to support their kids when they are adults rather than in prison or living in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Thus, I offer the Tutor/Mentor Institute, Tutor/Mentor Connection, or a component of our work, such as the conferences or the tutor/mentor program locator, as a "naming opportunity" for someone who wants to help us make this a better world for all of us.

If you search for the words "tutor mentor" on Google or most other search engines our sites come up multiple times on the first page. You'd need to spend quite a bit of money for that ranking. We already have it. You can too.

Contact me on Skype at "dbassill" or join the Tutor/Mentor Institute on Facebook.

Like to change the subject?

Instead of talking about losing a big game or becoming manager of another team, wouldn't it be great to be able to point reporters to how you're helping inner-city tutor/mentor programs grow?

Read the Sports articles on this blog, like this one, and see how athletes can become the cheerleaders who mobilize fans to be volunteers, donors and/or leaders in tutor/mentor programs all over the Chicago region and in their own home towns.

Anyone can be a leader and point volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods of a city .... as long as someone makes the effort to create and maintain a Tutor/Mentor Program Locator Directory like we have done since 1994.

The most important part of this idea is that we're pointing to all of the non-school volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs we know of, not just the high profile programs with brand names or celebrity leaders. We're using maps to illustrate this need for tutor/mentor programs in all high-poverty areas.

We need your help to continue to operate the program locator and to update it with new features and more current information. This is a social investment, not a charitable donation. If you want "naming rights" we'd be happy to talk with you.

Help Ignite Social Impact

Today there's a report of a pregnant teen being shot and killed in Chicago. Does that make you mad? This picture is the front page of the Chicago SunTimes from October 1992. I've used it often to remind me and others of why the Tutor/Mentor Institute and Tutor/Mentor Connection exists.

In July 2011 I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. It's not a non profit. It is aimed at making a difference in the world. It needs your help.

Social Investing is a new concept. Here are some excerpts from two sites which are trying to raise money to support social innovators all over the world.

33 Needs.com. FAQ page
"I'm confused. Why do you call this an investment? Because it's important to distinguish this from charity. This is impact investing. Investors are being asked, and offered, the chance to make a personal and emotional connection -- an investment -- with a company. A social entrepreneur is being asked to make a reciprocal promise to its investors -- that it will use the investment to create greater value. It's an ongoing relationship, they're in this deal together."


Start Some Good FAQ page
"Q: Is my financial support tax deductible? A: Unless otherwise stated, your support is not tax deductible. However you will get some awesome rewards, and the even more awesome feeling of helping someone start good!"

Here are two other sites where donors are contributing to organizations and/or causes that do not have non-profit status.

GiveForward - "empowers friends and family to send love and financial support to patients as they navigate a medical crisis"
Social Actions - donate page

At some point I may describe the different projects of the Tutor/Mentor Institute and Tutor/Mentor Connection on one of these portals. But for now I've created this page and I invite you to invest in the vision I've outlined in these blog articles and my newsletters for the past 18 years.

If you've contributed to the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the past I hope you'll continue to invest in the Tutor/Mentor Institute so I can continue to support the T/MC in Chicago. But I hope you'll also invest so I can help similar structures grow in other cities.

We need volunteers to help in many areas, or the money to hire staff. The talent map below illustrates the range of skills needed to implement the vision I've outlined on our web sites. With your help we can fill this map with names of people, organizations and businesses who share ownership of this vision and work responsibly and creatively to achieve its goals.

See actual map.