August 2025 Tutor/Mentor Newsletter

You can now view the August 2025 Tutor/Mentor newsletter, which will be sent via email tomorrow. 

Visit this page to read the newsletter on your computer or phone.  

The format will look different on a computer than on your phone.  It will also look different than what you received via email (if you are a subscriber).  

That's because the recent upgrade of the Joomla platform upon which the site was first built in the mid 2000s provides a different viewing experience on the PC vs the phone.  

However, it's also because I've not figured how to copy the newsletter from my Constant Contact, or email, onto a new Joomla page. I tried several time with last month's newsletter and it just looked terrible. So I ended up re-entering the newsletter data on a template that  had been created for my concept map pages. 

It works, but I'm sure someone with graphic design and Joomla expertise could do it better.  I just don't have any money to hire someone and in the past few years no volunteers have offered to help.

Take a look. Subscribe if you want this in your email.  Bookmark the page on my website and visit often. 

Enjoy your week! 

Repeat after me! Try it!

I've been digitizing 30 years of files from the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I and six other volunteers created in November 1992, and launched in January 1993.  

Since this was a two-part strategy I created two versions of the print newsletters we sent from 1993 to 2003. One focused on our own Kids' Connection tutor/mentor program, serving teens in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago. We called that NEWSLINK.  The other focused on what we were doing to help all programs grow, including our own. We called that T/MC REPORT.

As I've digitized these I once again was reminded of my on-going effort to recruit others to deliver the exact same messages, through their own newsletters and media. 

Below are some pages from a few issues of the NEWSLINK newsletter.  You can click on the image to enlarge and read the text.  Or you can open the link and look at the entire issue, including the page I'm sharing.

Winter 1996 NEWSLINK - open PDF

In the "President's Message" I wrote, "Chicago won't change the bleak prospects for these children, and Chicago's future, unless it provides a comprehensive range of "birth-to-work" programs that reaches ALL of these kids --- in school, and after school --- and in every neighborhood, not just Cabrini-Green."

The rest of the information on this page shows the "1995 Kids' Connection action plan". 

Spring 1997 NEWSLINK - open PDF

I wrote this in the months before the 1997 Presidents' Summit for America's Future, which drew leaders from every state and was chaired by five living Presidents of the United States.  

In it I wrote, "Wouldn't it be  nice if all of these companies making pledges would look at a list of programs already operating in the communities where they do business, devoting just a percent of their new commitments to programs already operating.  Not just the big well-known programs, but the programs that are grass-roots efforts, operating in churches, social service centers, at business sites and libraries.  Think of how important these helping hands could be to the success of students we are already working with."

The rest of this page has messages from high school seniors who had been with our tutor/mentor program since it was launched in January 1993.  I'm still connected to them via social media.

Jan-Feb 1998 NEWSLINK - open PDF

The heading was "DUPLICATE WHAT WORKS".  The subhead was "What will it take for youth groups in every neighborhood to look like the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP)? How can businesses, foundations and communities help?

Open the PDF and read the suggestions I offered, then read more about the Kids Connection program. See the page with notes about alumni. See how we include information about the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

Feb - Mar 1999 NEWSLINK - open PDF

Under the two maps I wrote "No general has ever won a war without a good map, and better "intelligence" than his opponent.  Yet in America's effort to help at-risk kids move from poverty to careers, few leaders are using this powerful tool."  

Open the PDF and read about Kids' Connection activities, our 3rd Annual Film Festival,  use of technology, and more.  

Feb - Mar 2001 NEWSLINK - open PDF

I've included two pages from this issue. The first is the back page of the newsletter, with a heading of "Where there is suffering, there is duty." This was followed by "With these words, President George W. Bush launched his leadership of this great country.  Over the next four years we'll learn if these were just good sound bites, or if there is a sound strategy and commitment behind them."

Then I wrote, "We cannot wait to find out. We each have a leadership role to play."

The second page continues this article and on the bottom page uses a network-building graphic that I've used over and over in past newsletters.   Above the graphic I wrote, "OUR GOAL is to recruit leaders who will use their own "bully pulpit" to focus on-going attention to tutoring, mentoring and school-to-work learning programs in every poverty neighborhood and to Internet-based information models which these programs can, and should, use to constantly improve the outcome of their work.

In the rest of this issue you can read about the Kids' Connection first annual reunion, our Black History exploration, the annual video festival and more.  

Read more 1993-2001 issues of NEWSLINK - open this folder.  Then open this folder and see copies o the T/MC REPORT newsletters.  As you look at these remember, the funding was raised by the people who were also raising funds to operate our single Kids' Connection tutor/mentor program. 

In most of my newsletters I've encouraged others to read and share my messages.  I want to dig a little deeper into this.

First, these show ideas I was sharing more than 20 years ago!  If you read past blog article you'll see I'm still sharing them. 

Second, very few people actually received these newsletters. In 1993 our distribution was 400 people. By 2001 it was about 12,000.  That's still just a whisper in a crowded city.  That means if you are reading this now, you're seeing information that is "NEW TO YOU".

If you share the messages in the newsletters, it will be NEW TO YOUR NETWORK AND COMMUNITY!

I want you to create your own blog, podcast, videos, PDF presentations, newsletters and websites where you literally repost my articles, with your own introduction and call-to-action.

If you're a former student you could start by saying, "I'm (name). I was part of the tutor/mentor program from (years). It made a big difference in my life. That's why I'm going to be sharing these messages.

Then use the text from what ever article you're looking at and post it in your blog, podcast, video, etc. with links to the www.tutormentorexchange.net website and blog. 

If enough people do this, over-and-over, for the next 20 years, there will be more programs helping kids through school and into lives free of poverty, in Chicago, and in other parts of the USA and the world, AND MORE VOLUNTEERS AND DONORS REACHING OUT TO HELP THOSE PROGRAMS. If someone aggregates links to these stories, the collection will serve as inspiration for even more people to do the same.

Imagine a concept map like the one below, with links in each node to people who are sharing stories like this - open map

This shows key talents needed to build a tutor/mentor program. If people from these professions are sharing stories, they are recruiting people like themselves to get involved.  A version of this could be created for every city in the world!  Doing so would be one step closer to getting these people to connect, share ideas, and work to reach more people and help more kids. 

Doing this over-and-over is the essential commitment. In advertising we understand that it takes multiple impressions just to get a potential customer's attention. Then even more, to motivate him/her to consider buying our offer.  

To help kids from first grade through high school a program needs to be able to stay in business for 12 years!  No program starts great. They grow to be great, over a period of years, and with a constant investment of ideas, talent and operating dollars.

Instead of this being dependent on one person, it will be the vision of many.  Furthermore, over time you will no longer need to repost my articles. You will be creating your own!

Read the "a New T/MC' articles to learn more about my search for new leaders to re-energize the Tutor/Mentor Connection and help versions of it grow in every city with pockets of persistent poverty.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on social media (see links here).  

If you're able, consider a contribution to help me pay the bills. Visit this page. 

Retaining Volunteers in Tutor/Mentor Programs

We're nearing the end of this school year and are at the end of the annual April Volunteer Recognition Month.  Volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs all over the country have been making an effort to recognize the people who have given time and talent over the past year, while are also (I hope) looking for ways to motivate many of those volunteers to return for another year when the 2024-25 school year begins in late August.

I've been digitizing newsletters and yearbooks from the two tutor/mentor programs I led between 1975 and 2011 and thought I'd do some volunteer recognition today.

Below is a page from the 1991-92 yearbook of the tutor/mentor program I led in Chicago from 1975 to the fall of 1992.  

This program was started in 1965. I joined as a volunteer in 1973 and became a member of the leadership committee in 1974. In the summer of 1975 I was chosen to be the leader when the incumbent announced during a summer planning meeting that he was "going to Europe and would not return for a couple of years".   When I took the lead the program was already recruiting 100 pairs of kids and volunteers at the start of the year.  In my last year, 1991-92, that had grown to 440 2nd to 6th grade youth and 550 volunteers.  You can see the yearbook PDF at this link. 

I left that program in October 1992 and with six other volunteers formed a new program, intended to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have similar support to help them through high school.  At the same time we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to help similar programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago.

Below is a page from the 1999 Annual Report for that program.

Starting with only seven volunteers the program grew quickly, reaching nearly 100 volunteers by the end of the 1998-99 school year.  If you look at the list of veteran volunteers on this page and on the one from 1991-92 you'll see many of the same people. That's because many volunteers from the first program came to the new program with their students, as those kids joined Cabrini Connections.  You can see this Annual Report in this PDF. 

Note that by 1999 I was using the Total Quality Mentoring graphic to describe how we were recruiting volunteers from many different backgrounds.  That was true in the first program, too. 

In this PDF I describe the concept of Total Quality Mentoring.

By sharing my annual reports and newsletters I hope that I'm providing some inspiration for how others might build activities in their programs that help them recruit and retain students and volunteers for multiple years.  It's these long-term relationships that have the greatest benefit and it's the experience of veteran volunteers that helps newer volunteers become part of the program and stay involved longer.

You can view 1975 to 1992 yearbooks for the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program at this link.

You can view 1994 to 2009 annual reports for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection at this link.  

As you look at these annual reports you'll see several thousand volunteers who participated for one or many years. I am tremendously thankful for the time each person contributed to helping create a brighter future for the kids we were working with.  

Now I want to share a President's Message from a January 2005 e-Mail newsletter.  You can open the PDF and read the full newsletter at this link. 

The heading of my message was "Competing for Attention" and it was written after a year of "unbelievable acts of violence caused by nature and caused by humans."

I wrote, "In the aftermath of these have come equally magnanimous acts of kindness and generosity.  While this leads me to be thankful at the same time as I fear what the next tragedy will be, I feel that we need to look at charity in new ways if we're to maximize the benefits of the generosity that is in this world."

I went on to write

----- begin Jan 2005 ------  

"This is why I participate in a variety of Internet forums that connect people from around the world with each other. 

I feel that out of the Tsunami tragedy will come some innovations that those of us working with kids might benefit from. Right now donations are coming from all over the world to a variety of charities serving the Tsunami because of the high public visibility the tragedy has generated. I feel that if we can create a portal that tells why it's important to help kids, with doors leading to each continent, each nation, each city, and each neighborhood where kids need help, this portal can serve as a funnel for dollars, volunteers and similar resources to go to individual programs in each neighborhood. While there are some on-line charity portals, like http://www.networkforgood.org, these promote all forms of charity, and thus don't have the passion and appeal that could be generated by having portals that focus on specific channels of service, like tutoring/mentoring. 

Rather than reinvent the wheel, my dream is that we could find people who share our passion for helping kids and will share their talent to build such a portal, or to make existing products available to other streams of service. I'm sure such people and organizations exist. We just have not connected yet. In the Discussion section of www.tutormentorexchange.net there is a database and a GIS discussion group where I'm gathering volunteers who might help with such a project.

Once we have the portal every organization that offers any form of tutoring, mentoring, career development, etc. can share in building visibility and traffic, knowing that this helps each of us increase the revenue pie that we end up splitting. In six months much of the attention to the Tsunami will be turned to some other tragedy and the people in these countries will be just like us, struggling to draw attention and consistent revenue to the work of rebuilding lives. The type of portal I'm trying to build could be a benefit to these countries just as much as it will be a benefit to you, me and thousands of others like us. 

This email goes to more than 3,000 people. A print newsletter goes to almost 14,000 people (when we can find the money to print it-the last print newsletter was sent in 2003). Some of you have been connected to me and the Tutor/Mentor Connection for more than a dozen years. Some are getting this email for the first time. While my intention is to share information that I hope you can use, this is also an invitation to everyone who reads this far on this email to contact me to explore ways we might work together. As Margaret Mead once said, "it only takes a few people to change the world". It only takes a few of you to join us in 2005 to make this a better year for thousands of organizations serving kids living in poverty. 

While it is almost impossible to have two or three thousand one-on-one conversations each week, it is very possible to meet in on-line forums where thousands of people can share ideas and unite in joint action. In the Discussion Section of http://www.tutormentorexchange.net a few such forums are listed. I hope you'll join some and that we can meet on-line.

---- end Jan 2005 ----

I've never been able to find a group willing to work together (of provide funding) to build the type of portal that I described in that 2005 newsletter.  I was able to build an interactive tutor/mentor program locator in 2008 and keep it available until 2018, but not able to update it after 2010.

On this planning page you can see the vision for the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and find a link to a "next step" of adding a fund raising capacity to the platform, that would enable donors to directly donate to programs listed in the database. 

I've continued to use social media daily to share ideas and connect with others.  I'm still looking for program leaders who "share in building visibility and traffic, knowing that this helps each of us increase the revenue pie that we end up splitting."

In the Tutor/Mentor library I've three lists that point to organizations doing part of what I envisioned in 2005. Find those here, here and here.  If you know of others doing what I described, please share the link in the comments. 

As you read my newsletters I hope you'll share them in your own networks.

Thank you for reading today's post.

At this page you can find links to where I'm active.  Please connect with me and encourage your friends to do the same.

Finally, there's a cost for me to keep these archives available and to keep updating the Tutor/Mentor library.  If you can help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, visit this page and use the PayPal feature to contribute. 

Building Social Capital

I've been sharing pages from printed newsletters that I created in the 1990s in the past few blog articles, along with portions of e-Mail newsletters sent from 2000 to 2010.  These show a consistency in the advocacy I've been doing for 30 years, and the need for new leaders to carry this forward for the next 30 years.

Below are two pages from a 1999 newsletter. You can open the PDF at this link. 

In this page is a subhead that reads "Building 'social capital' for America's future." in this I wrote about hearing Dr. Robert D. Putnam speak in December 1998 at a  UIC Great Cities annual Winter Forum. I wrote that "Dr. Putnam's research shows that "Americans have dramatically deserted the voting booth, the family dining table, the church pew, the union hall, the PTA, and even the bowling league and coffee klatch" over the past 25 years. He suggested that new forms of social interaction must be generated in the coming years.  

I countered that "while most forms of social capital have declined, the number of students and volunteers participating in the 5pm-7pm tutor/mentor program sessions held at the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago has increased. While other forms of networking have declined, this program's ability to connect adult volunteers from widely diverse social, ethnic, faith and geographic backgrounds has increased. Programs like this, which connect adults and children in weekly one-on-one and group settings --- where everyone has a shared vision of making life better for the children we serve --- is one of the best investments in social capital, diversity education and workforce preparation any company could invest in today."

I have continued to advocate for organized, volunteer-based, tutor, mentor and learning programs as a form of social capital since 1999.  In 2016 I wrote this article, pointing to Putnam's "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" book.  It's one of more than 30 articles on this blog that focus on social capital. 

I think many organized tutor/mentor programs connect kids and volunteers the same way we did in the programs I led, but when I visit websites or look at social media posts, I don't find many describing what they do as a form of social capital building.  I hope my articles inspire more to adopt this thinking.

Maybe donors will begin to look for this and reward it with funding. 

The next page of that 1999 newsletter is shown below.

 

Once again you can see examples of how I've been using maps. 

Under the heading of "MENTORING WORKS, BUT....", I wrote "Communities need a strategy to help mentoring programs recruit, train and retain volunteers, to make sure programs are where they are most needed, and to make sure they receive ongoing funding, so they can stay connected with a child for as long as that child needs their help...even into a career."

They still do. 

Open the PDF and read the full article, and the rest of the news that we were sharing in 1999.

I've continued to repeat this call to action over the past 25 years.  Below is a graphic I created for this 2016 article. 

It's the same message, with a different visual presentation.  

That's the point of this and other articles that I've been writing. I've been preaching this message of building and sustaining organized, mentor-rich programs that reach K-12 kids in high poverty areas for 30 years. 

Yes, there are actually thousands of people calling for support for mentoring and tutoring programs. I point to hundreds of youth-serving programs at this link. Many have sophisticated, far-reaching advertising and PR strategies that call attention to their own programs.

However, I don't find any using maps to focus attention and resources on areas of high poverty within specific geographic regions, or calling on volunteers and donors to support programs in every high poverty area, the way we did from 1993 to 2011.  Nor do I find many using visualizations that show long-term support needed in every high poverty area.   Or who has piloted a year-round event strategy to help programs grow. Or who have led that strategy for 30 consecutive years.

So, I think I'm unique. In fact, one of my volunteers once accused me of being so far in front of other people with my ideas that no one was able to follow me.  That's why I've used my website, blog and visual essays to share ideas.

But I'm just one person. With the help of six other volunteers we created the vision of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection in November 1992.  We had no source of financial support. We launched the site-based Cabrini Connections in January 1993 with seven volunteers and five teens. We did the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and launched it in January 1994.

In the summer of 1993 Montgomery Ward made a multi-year commitment of $40,000 a year to fund our work and donated an entire floor of its corporate tower in Chicago for our operations.  In total that year we raised only $50,000 in cash, but the value of donated space and corporate services was much greater.

Each year from 1994 to 2000 we raised more money to fund our efforts and raised over $400,000 in 1999.  Then Wards went out of business and we lost their financial support and donated space and services. To stay connected to the kids we were were working with we had to rent space in the Cabrini Green neighborhood.  

This increase in expense and loss of income came as we endured the dot.com financial meltdown in 2000, and then entered 2001, and the 9/11 tragedy that led to a drastic reduction in funds available to us.  We cut expenses, such as ending our print newsletters and printed directory and moving almost entirely to a web-based communications strategy.  

By 2007 we had rebuilt our donor base and were receiving contributions as large as $50,000. Then the financial markets collapsed, and in 2009 and 2010 we struggled.  That led to my leaving Cabrini Connections in mid 2011 and forming the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to continue the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago and help similar intermediaries grow in other cities.

I say all this to emphasize that we never had much money for advertising and public relations. Our newsletters never were sent to more than 12,000 people, and then only three or four times a year.  

Too little to change the world.

A couple of weeks ago I published this article showing how I've reached out to universities for the past 30 years for the talent and manpower needed to expand the reach, frequency and impact of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the ways we were helping our own teens through school and into college and careers.

Skim through this presentation and you'll see numerous examples of how student interns have helped.  

But is has not been enough.

As you look at my printed newsletters from the 1990s you see a problem that persists around the country in 2024, and will continue, unless more people adopt an information-based strategy like I've piloted and devote their own time, talent and resources to leading it for the next 30 years.

This 1998 story in Crain's Chicago Business described the work I had been doing since 1993.  It's one of dozens of stories I share on this page.

This could be YOU!  This could be a page on your university's website, showing work your students, faculty and alumni were doing.

It just takes two or three people, with a big commitment (and a major donor) to launch such a program. 

Thank you for reading this article. Please share it with others in your network,  particularly people who might bring my archives and lessons into a university in your city or state.  

Let's connect on social media.  Visit this page to find links to where you can connect with me.

If you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me continue this work for another few years. 

Commitment Needed from top 100 CEOs - 1996 newsletter

In last Tuesday's post, I showed a President's Message from a 2004 Cabrini Connections-Tutor/Mentor Connection newsletter. Below is my President's Message from my winter 1996 newsletter, written eight years earlier.

On page 2 of the newsletter you can see three elements.  At the top right I show a design for an ideal, long-term, mentor-rich program that recruits volunteers from multiple backgrounds and keeps kids involved for many years.    I call this Total Quality Mentoring because it's a constantly improving process, based on what we learn from our own work, and what we learn from other people.

Below are three maps of Chicago, under the headline of "How many programs are needed in Chicago?". The map on the left shows locations of Chicago Public Schools. The map on the right shows the 109 schools on the State of Illinois School Probation list.  The map in the middle shows locations of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that we discovered through our surveys. The shaded areas are high-poverty areas of Chicago.  

The column on the left is the  President's Message.  You can open the PDF version of newsletter and read it there, but I'm posting the full text below.

------ begin 1996 President's Message -------

109 city schools put on probation

In each of those schools 85% or more of the students failed to score at national averages on reading tests!

Once again, the test scores are out and the schools are under siege! Hold them accountable!  Fire them if they don't perform! It's a "long-needed" call to action" reports the Chicago Sun-Times. 

If this is a wake-up call, I think it's a bomb aimed at the wrong target. Sure, the poor education Chicago kids receive borders on criminal, but the wake-up call should be to the civic, business, religious and political leaders of this city.

To those who read about the school probations and thought, "It's about time," I suggest reading a few books on this subject. One would be Reclaiming our Schools, by Maribeth Vander Weele.  Another would be Savage Inequalities, by Jonathon Kozal.  And another, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, by Nancy Denton and Douglas S. Massey.

These problems did not arrive overnight, and they will not end by putting schools on probation. This tragedy won't end until the best minds, the top leaders and a much broader group of citizens make a lifetime commitment.

Reports from Chapin Hall and the Carnegie Corporation tell how poor the after-school infrastructure is in most poverty stricken inner-city neighborhoods.  In their books, Vander Weele and Kozal tell how poor the infrastructure is in many schools, and how weak the will to rebuild those schools is.

Our "blueprint" for change involves a knowledge distribution system that suggests kids need adult role models from pre-school through work.  It also suggests they need to experience arts, sports and have access to computers, with people who can model their use --- just like the kids in the suburbs.

We have developed maps to illustrate how serious this is.  All 250-plus tutor/mentor programs combined don't come close to matching the density of public schools, and in some areas where they are needed, no programs exist at all.

When we print an overlay showing business presence in some of these neighborhoods, we find some very well known corporate names, some who take a great credit for community betterment programs they operate. The problem is, they don't do this with a vision that says a Total Quality Mentoring program should exist within one mile of every corporate site they operate in the city, or that their involvement should assure that these programs are well funded, have access to the latest technology, have volunteers from their company and business associates serving as mentors and leaders --- and that once a child joins the program, there is a full commitment that the program will do everything in their power to see that that child graduates from  high school 4-, 8- or 12-years later.

When we have that commitment, from the top 100 CEOs in Chicago, we will begin to have real school reform.

--------------- end 1996 President's Message --------

You can do a Google search and find the books I mentioned.  And you can look at articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 and find similar messages.

Unfortunately, very few people ever saw my newsletters.  In 1993 our mail list was 400 people. It grew every year and by 2000 we were sending the Newslink version of our newsletter to a list of about 8,000 supporters and the T/MC Report version, to a list of about 12,000 (with overlap between the two).

That's a really small number.  Imagine if we'd had email newsletters and social media in the 1990s.  More people would have seen my letters and maybe we would have made it through the turbulent financial struggles of the 2000s without splitting the Tutor/Mentor Connection from Cabrini Connections in 2011, or by creating two separate nonprofits in the early 2000s when we began to recognize the need.

However, since persistent poverty in highly segregated neighborhoods is still a problem in 2024, my newsletter archives offer a rich orchestra of ideas that anyone could draw from for a new advocacy that might accomplish more in the next 30 years than I have in the past 30.

But, a few people need to read them, then share what they are reading with others.  That's what the graphic below is telling you.

The big circle represents the resources on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net library and the archives I point to in my blog articles.  The smaller circles represent groups of people reading and discussing the ideas, and ways they might implement them in Chicago or their own communities.

Below are two visualizations done in 2011 by an intern from South Korea, to interpret this graphic.

 

I shared these in this blog article.  They illustrate how someone else can look at my articles, newsletters and visualizations, then create and share their own interpretation.  This could be happening in thousands of places, with a shared goal of bringing more people together to help reduce poverty by helping kids born or living in these places move through school and into jobs that enable them to raise their own kids free of the negative impacts of poverty.

Over the coming year I'll post more of the newsletters from the 1990s and early 2000s, along with the President's Messages that I included in each of them. 

I'm on Twitter  (X), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media platforms. You can find the links on this page.  I hope you'll connect and help me find other people who share the same goals.

Thank you for reading this article.

If you value what I'm sharing, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills. 

What if political campaigns raised money for youth programs?

I've been sharing archives from the work I've done since 1993 to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in high poverty areas. Today I'm going to point to email newsletters I wrote in the early 2000s.

Below is the President's Message from the August 24, 2004 newsletter (open PDF here).

This text says:

Editorial: Which candidate is helping you get volunteers and dollars for your tutor/mentor program? Most of the tutor/mentor programs that I know of don't have large advertising and PR budgets. Many, like Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, struggle to find money for rent and payroll. Thus, during the election season it is even more difficult to get our call for volunteers heard.

That's a reason we created the T/MC. Its strategy is to create a larger public awareness of tutoring/mentoring by connecting tutor/mentor stakeholders via the Internet and face-to-face meetings. As hundreds of individual programs, networks, and business and professional partners take the lead in calling for volunteers, links to web site portals, like http://www.chicagovolunteer.net or http://www.tutormentorexchange.net create a larger flow of potential volunteers and provide multiple choices of where they might volunteer. If you use these services and participate in the campaign, you should be more effective at recruiting volunteers for your individual program.

As leaders in other cities and states build their own T/MC type strategy we hope to link web sites and link campaigns so that we ultimately have a voice during August and September that is as loud as those of commercial advertising and political candidates. If our strategy works we can create this level of public awareness at a fraction of the money being spent on the fall elections by our major political parties.

Maybe we'll even reach a point where the VOLUNTEER NOW button of a political candidate's web site has a link to the local volunteer center, not just to the candidate's campaign committee!!

In another part of the newsletter, this is what I wrote:

It says:

TRAINING VOLUNTEERS, ONCE YOU HAVE THEM
The Tutor/Mentor Connection web sites have hundreds of links to resources that programs can use to improve quality and support volunteers. In 30 years of leading a tutor/mentor program I've learned that every student and volunteer is different, and they are constantly changing. No training program or manual can provide everything each person needs. Thus, I've focused on building a library of materials that volunteers can use to develop their own skills. The focus of our training and communications is to lead our volunteers, staff and leaders to this information so they begin to use it on a regular basis.  

These messages are as relevant in 2024 as the were 20 years ago.

With the 2024 election season in full swing, millions (billions?) of dollars are being raised to fund political campaigns, just to get people elected or re-elected.  

In 2004 I called for part of that money to be used to support needed youth programs and other important causes.  That's still the case.

In 2004 I also pointed to the resources I was aggregating to help volunteers in tutor/mentor programs become more effective tutors, mentors and advocates, helping their own students and programs, and helping others in different parts of the cities where they live or work.   That's still the case.  Except, the library is much larger today than it was 20 years ago.

Last week I posed this article, sharing my 30 years of reaching out to universities.  And yesterday on the Mapping for Justice blog I posted an article showing my 30 years of using maps to draw attention and resources to every high poverty area of Chicago.

As I look at my archives I'm embarrassed by the number of spelling and grammar errors.  I could have benefitted from having a proof reader!

I can't change that, but you can.

As I share this archive, I also point out that too few people ever saw what I was publishing, because I never had the money to buy advertising, and never was a high profile celebrity who could attract readers just by asking.

Thus, everything I'm sharing would be "new" to most people.

In my final slides on the "Reaching out to Universities" presentation I included a map showing cities in the US with high concentrations of poverty.   Skim through past articles on this blog and you'll see many more stories showing that Chicago is not the only place where a Tutor/Mentor Connection type strategy is needed.

Thus, my archives represent a resource that anyone might use to create and lead a new campaign (with better editors and writers, and more high profile leaders), using my past work as a starting point for their own articles and visual presentations.

The starting point is your own curiosity and learning.  Dig through my archives. Find stories that resonate with you. Re-write them. Post them on your own blog. Share them with your own network. 

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

Maybe in 10 or 20 years you'll be able to share a similar archive.  Maybe you'll be able to point to thousands of kids who you've helped.  Maybe you'll have made a bigger impact on reducing poverty concentrations.

That's the goal.

Do you ever feel like my articles are similar to the messages I gave each year to youth and volunteers in the tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011?   

Thanks for reading, and sharing.  

Connect with me on social media.  You can find link on this page.

If you're able, please make a contribution to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and help me continue this work.  Visit this page. 

These "Calls to Action" Need New Energy

Yesterday I took a look at the first newsletter sent in June 1993 by the new organization I and six other volunteers had created in late 1992.  The message below was included.

This was the first page.

You can open and read the PDF at this link.  I put a President's Message in my newsletters in each issue from 1993 through 2002. After that I put the message in email newsletters and starting in 2005, in this blog.   In this issue I started by saying "There are kids all over Chicago who don't have anyone taking an interest in them. Cabrini Connections is changing that."

The headline of the newsletter was "Do the Right Thing!".  

I was prompted to form Cabrini Connections, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection in October 1992, following the shooting death of 7-year old Dantrel Davis in Cabrini Green, the neighborhood served by the tutor/mentor program I had led from 1975 to September 1992.

The Chicago SunTimes front page said "7-Year Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action"

Sadly, I've seen editorials like that in Chicago media often over the past 30 years. I've seen a lot of action, and a lot of money spent, but nothing strategic and on-going that would reach kids in all high poverty areas and do more to help them through school and into adult lives.

I put this 1993 Chicago SunTimes article and graphic in this 2015 article

Here's another from the same article

The 1993 SunTimes article concludes "While Chicago has “had all these sincere people making good efforts, one group working on poverty, one on education reform, one on community policing, these problems are too interwoven and too immense. The city needs all anti-poverty efforts “at the same table”.

Here's something more recent:

I included this in an April 2023 article with the headline "Crime and Violence in Chicago - Not New".  If you take time to scroll through the media articles on this blog, you'll find dozens of similar stories.

Below are two graphic you'll find in many articles, showing the need to build a distribution of youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of the city, with non-school locations where kids and volunteers can meet regularly.  

Here's another graphic with the same idea

A citywide strategy needs to recruit and support teams of leaders who support individual programs, neighborhoods full of programs and a city full of programs.  Such a strategy needs to be part of a "learning organization" where everyone involved is constantly learning from the work being done by others, so they innovate improvement from year-to-year, rather than constantly starting over.  And such a strategy has to be supported by business, philanthropy, politics and every other sector, so their is a distribution of resources to fund every part of this ecosystem.

Such a "learning organization" is supported by libraries and websites such as the one I host at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net 

I've been sharing these ideas for over 30 years, since launching the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  However, now I'm turning 77 and don't know how many more years I have left to do this.

Thus, new leaders who share this vision need to step forward and take ownership, preferably by putting my archives in a university structure where the articles and PDF essays are curriculum that students learn from in preparation for leading this strategy during their adult lives.

I've posted several articles in the "A New T/MC" collection that will give you an idea of what is needed. I hope you'll read these, share them, or encourage others to do the reading and sharing.

In the short term, please consider a contribution to help me pay the bills and keep sharing these ideas in 2024.

You can contribute to my 77th birthday campaign - click here

Or to the Fund T/MI campaign - click here

Thank you for reading and sharing.  

Read the Monthly Newsletter

I've published an eMail newsletter almost every month for 20 years.  Before that I published a print newsletter four times a year from 1993 to 2003.   Here's the link to the August 2023 issue.

While you can subscribe to receive this in your in-box, you can also read it on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  You can also view past issues, back to 2012, at this link. 

Every newsletter and all of the resources on the website and my blogs focus on helping kids in high poverty areas of big cities like Chicago connect with adult tutor, mentors, friends and coaches, in organized, on-going non-school programs.

There's one common, on-going question.  How can we do this better?  
This question needs to be asked and answered daily, for many years, by thousand of people in Chicago and every other part of the country.  

I hope you'll share the newsletter and my other posts with people in your network, so more people are asking the same question and using the resources to help constantly improving tutor/mentor programs reach  more kids in high poverty areas.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon and other social media places. Please follow me and share your own ideas.  Find links on this page. 

Finally, if you can make a small contribution to help me pay the bills, please visit this page for details.