The Pope Shares Message on TED

Last week my Facebook feed shared this video of His Holiness Pope Francis giving a TED talk. I watched it. I hope you will, too.

At one point in the video he talks about the responsibility for each of us to take on the role of the Good Samaritan, to help others who are in need.

At another he talks about HOPE, as "a humble, hidden seed of life that within time will develop into a large tree".   And he says, "A single individual is enough for HOPE to exist, and that individual can be YOU."

If you've read any of the thousand-plus articles I've posted on this blog you will see that I use the word "hope" often, such as "I hope you'll read this and share it with others."

In my role as leader of the tutoring programs at Montgomery Ward, starting in 1975, and of the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993, I've been that lone leader inviting others to join with me to create brighter futures for kids living in poverty.  I created the image below to show a message I've repeated often since the 1970s.

I've seen the growing violence in America's cities and Chicago's neighborhoods since the 1970s and I've compared it to a snowball rolling down a mountain. At the top it is small, and would be easy to stop. However, as it rolls further downhill, it gains momentum and is almost impossible to stop. When it reaches the valleys and homes at the bottom of the mountain, it destroys everything in its paths, including the homes of the wealthy, along with the poor.

I've feared for many years that the growing sense of hopelessness growing among youth living in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities would turn into violence toward others in the wider community, just as it already is destroying lives within poverty communities. I've seen terrorism grow around the world, and seen small sparks here in the US, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. I've feared that we would reach a point where the work of volunteer tutors and mentors in non-school tutor/mentor programs would become too little, too late.

Thus, I've often told volunteers that we have two choices. You get in front of the snowball now, and try to stop it, and if no one else joins you, you'll probably be crushed by the on-coming avalanche.  Or you can wait until the snowball reaches the bottom of the mountain and you are certain to be destroyed, along with every thing you care for.

The first choice offers the opportunity, no matter how small it appears, that others will join you, and the snowball can be slowed, or even stopped.

The second choice offers no hope.  Unless others do this work for you.

As the Pope said in this TED talk, "Each and every one of us can become a bright candle, a reminder that light will overcome darkness."

And he said "How wonderful would it be if solidarity, this beautiful and, at times, inconvenient word, were not simply reduced to social work, and became, instead, the default attitude in political, economic and scientific choices, as well as in the relationships among individuals, peoples and countries."

That's been my goal with many of my articles, such as this.

It's not easy being the first one to get in front of that snowball. This photo hung in my Grandma's house and after she died in the early 1970s, I  asked for it. I spend much time alone, imaineering a better way to support the many organizations that need to be in place throughout the country, thus, this photo resonates with me.

I used it in this article to show how I and many others are seeking help for the work we do.

I HOPE the Pope's message touches your heart and inspires you to reach out to offer your time, talent, dollars, leadership, advocacy and ideas in one, or more, of the many areas where you might make a difference.

10-19-2021  update - Video Message of the Holy Father Francis on the Occasion of the Fourth World Meeting of Popular Movements - click here

Archdiocese of Chicago Commits to War on Poverty

Yesterday Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago launched a new campaign to reduce violence in Chicago neighborhoods. Below is the video showing this announcement. Listen to the commitments that are being made.



What I heard was a commitment to a) increase awareness; b) increase capacity of local organizations; c) build partnerships with others who should be involved; and d) seek new approaches.

Since the late 1990s I've been sharing a strategy for faith communities to help reduce poverty and violence in Chicago, through support of youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in all poverty neighborhoods.  See it in this presentation.

Network Building. Role of Faith Community by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

Note the use of maps, and the intent to enlist every faith group in this effort, not just the Catholic Church. From 1995 through 2003 the Tutor/Mentor Connection organized a Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaign to mobilize volunteers and build support for all non-school, volunteer-based, tutor/mentor programs in the region. Read campaign history here and see a manifesto signed by political, business and faith leaders, including Francis Cardinal George of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The goal of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (now led by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC), was that each congregation create a learning circle, which digs into information on T/MC web sites, and uses the list of Chicago area programs that I've maintained since 1994, and map-based Program Locator, built in 2008, to support the growth of existing programs in different neighborhoods, helping each one become great at what they do to help kids through school and into jobs and careers, with a network of adult support that is created via the strategies of the tutor/mentor programs and is supported by people from congregations throughout the Chicago region.

I've been collecting, mapping and sharing ideas and strategies since creating the T/MC in 1993. (see article). I shared these ideas on web sites since 1998 and in printed newsletters from 1993 to 2002. I've shared them on this blog since 2005.  Step 2 in this four-part strategy is focused on building greater public awareness and involvement in efforts that help kids in all poverty neighborhoods have non-school support systems that help them come to school better prepared to learn, and leave school after 12th grade better prepared for their adult lives.

In my articles and strategies I focus on new ways to attract philanthropic and volunteer support for youth serving organizations in every poverty neighborhood. In this article I describe my thinking and point to an article about "web evangelism" that encourages leaders to borrow from strategies used by the faith community for over two thousand years.

When I describe the formation of learning circles in religious communities, I'm not describing something new, or revolutionary. Every week in thousands of locations a faith leader reads a few passages from a very large book, then encourages members of the congregation to get together in small groups to discuss the meaning of this passage to them and their lives.  No one is expected the read the Bible or the Koran in a few days. It takes a life time of learning.

The links in my web library points to more than 2000 other web sites that help you understand the needs of high poverty communities and also help you see work being done in some places that could be duplicated in other places. This blog has more than 1000 articles. The MappingforJustice blog has many more. There are more than 60 PDF presentations in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library.  These articles focus on the on-going application of time, talent and dollars, in many locations, that is needed to help kids entering first grade today be entering jobs and careers in 20 to 25 years.

This information is not intended to be digested in a single session. It's intended to be read and discussed on an on-going basis.  It's intended to encourage people to go forth and do service, then to gather and share what they did, what they learned, what works, what does not work, and what could work better if others were helping. Then, go back and apply what was learned in a continuous cycle of service and learning.

Faith congregations are ideal incubators for this process because every person siting in a congregation works in some company, college, hospital or government agency, and knows many others who work in the same places.  Thus, each week they can take what they learn, and share it with others, so more people get involved.

Unfortunately, the leaders who signed the campaign manifestos between 1998 and 2002, and others since then, never made an effort to reach out to get to know more about the ideas and strategies I've been sharing, or to offer to help me do this work.

I keep trying to change that.  I do so with no source of revenue except my monthly social security check, a shrinking retirement savings, and donations made by a few supporters.  

Here's a letter I wrote in 1999 to one of the billionaires in Chicago. It's similar to letters written to many leaders over many years.

There are thousands of faith based congregations in the Chicago region, each with powerful leaders like Cardinal Blase Cupich. I welcome a conversation with one or all, with the goal of having the ideas and resources I share become part of their own thinking and planning.

I invite you to adopt the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and make it work better than I've been able to, with a continued 20 to 30 year commitment, which I have demonstrated.

Introduce yourself below or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

The Pope, Poverty & Tutor/Mentor Programs

While the big news this weekend was the Pope's visit to the US, the news in many, many, poverty neighborhoods around the country is that a wide range of organized, non-school, volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs are launching their first weeks with volunteers and youth meeting with each other. So far the month of September has been full of volunteer and student recruitment, screening, orientations and matching. I know with the programs that I led that our first week of tutoring was toward the end of September.

So while everyone is focused on the work that goes with stating a new school year, I'd like to focus on the planning that will enable programs to start a new school year in 12 months, or next September. This graphic is from a PDF focused on annual planning. I hope you'll take a look. It shows the data collection, evaluation, team-building, visioning, etc. that needs to be on-going throughout the year in order to move successfully from one year to the next.

Part of this planning is laying out a week-to-week, and month-to-month, schedule of activities. This (click here) is a sample, which I used with the tutoring programs I led in Chicago. The September through May calendar offers tutoring and mentoring programs a sequence of holidays and events upon which they can build writing and enrichment activities that foster learning and creativity and help build participation and relationships.

Does your program have a planning calendar like this? Is it on your web site so volunteers can plan ahead and students can look forward to upcoming events? Having a written plan and calendar can help programs with year-to-year planning. You don't need to start from scratch once you have this in writing. You just need to update it each year, perhaps adding, or deleting activities.

You don't have the manpower to do this? Many smaller programs are over-whealmed with the work of operating a program and finding the money to keep it running. I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 with the goal of helping existing programs get the ideas, attention and resources they need to constantly improve, while helping identify under-served neighborhoods where new programs are needed.

I've used print newsletters, and my blogs, to communicate a vision that intermediaries, business and philanthropists could support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in all high poverty neighborhoods of a city, not just a few high profile programs, in a few places. The graphic below shows page 2 and page 4 of the Fall 1999 Tutor/Mentor Report newsletter.

What does the Pope have to do with this? When I started the T/MC in 1993 I visited many people asking for support, with limited success. I knew they program-support strategy of the T/MC was needed in Chicago, so with the help of volunteers who helped start Cabrini Connections in late 1992, we launched the T/MC. This timeline shows 25 years of work done since then. This 2010 PDF compared the T/MC to mentoring partnerships in different cities. This archive shows media stories.

Yet, it has never gained (or retained) the commitment of leaders in business, religion, media, politics or philanthropy, that is essential for a strategy like this to succeed in filling a city with high quality, tutoring, mentoring, learning and jobs programs in all high poverty neighborhoods.

I've read comments from many saying "lives have been changed" or "will change" as a result of the Pope's visit. I hope that one or two of those lives are inspired to dig through the articles on this blog and on my other web sites and then reach out to say "How can I help you? How can I help this grow over the next 25 years and in cities across the world?"

If a T/MC strategy were in place in Chicago volunteers from different companies would be offering time and talent to help programs with planning, and with communicating their vision, strategies and weekly operations to all of their stakeholders. I'm sure this is taking place in support of a few programs. I want to see a map showing a distribution of this type of support to programs in every high poverty neighborhood. That means someone needs to be trying to collect information that would show if this is happening, and where it is happening. That's one of the goals of a T/MC strategy.

A Message from the Vatican. What’s the Follow up?

Last week Pope Francis released his first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium - “The Joy of the Gospel”. It’s a long document. This web site pulled 21 of the “most important” quotes from it.

The headline of one news report reads: "Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth" The sub head was "Pontiff's first major publication calls on global leaders to guarantee work, education and healthcare"

One of the blogs I follow, People-Centered Economic Development blog, offered a commentary under the headline "Pope Francis challenges trickle-down economics"

The blogger, Jeff Mowatt, posted some quotes from the Pope's message such as:

"Drawing attention to exclusion, he (the Pope) writes:

'Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.'

I hope that the Pope's message will become a topic of discussion in every Catholic Church in the Chicago region and that it will expand to become a topic of discussion in every faith group with the result that a growing number of leaders will devote much more time, talent and dollars, in more strategic and ongoing efforts to help youth in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs and careers out of poverty.

As that happens I offer the web library and ideas of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection as a free resource.

I’ve been aggregating links to research and articles that focus on income inequity and poverty. My collection of articles can be found at  https://tinyurl.com/TMILibrary-poverty-inequality  

As we head through the year end religious holidays and into 2014 my goal is to seek out groups within faith communities who are discussing the Pope’s message and reflecting on ways to apply the ideas in their own efforts to close the wealth gap in American cities and rural areas.

The links I point to provide a “recommended reading” that can expand people’s understanding of the problems of income inequity and how it affects everyone, not just the poor. As people gather to talk about what they can do beyond what they already do to solve social and environmental problems I hope that sub groups will form that focus on income gaps in the US and ways to build systems of support that reach youth in more places with age appropriate learning, mentoring, jobs programs, etc. that stay in place for dozens of years and that this would lead many to adopt commitment on this strategy map.

The articles I’ve posted on this blog, and in the Library on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site can be used to stimulate thinking. For instance, maps like this one, showing Catholic Churches in the Chicago region could be used to plan outreach to a growing number of neighborhoods with high poverty. They could also be used to show distribution of current involvement, just by putting icons on the map near churches that implement a strategy such as described in this PDF.

If faith communities begin to implement this strategy and rally more people around the challenges outlined by Pope Francis, more leaders in business, politics, media, etc. will adopt the strategies described in this Role of Leaders essay.

When leaders in every industry are forming volunteer teams within their company or industry to guide the involvement of employee volunteers and a distribution of resources, we can begin to see the growth of mentor rich programs in more places, where there is a diversity of volunteer talent as well as a diversity of the funding stream needed to provide year-to-year operating dollars.

Perhaps more teams will become part of a “virtual corporate office” with different people taking on roles that help mentor-rich programs grow in more places. This PDF describes that concept.

In his commentary, on the People-Centered Economic Development blog, Jeff Mowatt posts this message:

"Excuses won't work, particularly in light of a handful of oligarchs in Ukraine having been allowed to loot Ukraine's economy for tens of billions of dollars. I point specifically to Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Poroshenko, and Kuchma, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. These people can single-handedly finance 100% of all that will ever be needed to save Ukraine's orphans. None of them evidently bother to think past their bank accounts, and seem to have at least tacit blessings at this point from the new regime to keep their loot while no one wants to consider Ukraine's death camps, and the widespread poverty that produced them.. "

In Matthew 19:24 Jesus said to His disciples, ""Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Many Billionaires are talking of giving their wealth away. This Giving Pledge web site shows “ a commitment by the world's wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.”

A few weeks ago I heard John Rodgers of Arial Capital Management in Chicago describe the annual wealth accumulated by hedge fund managers and private equity firms, saying “At the top of the financial crisis, John Paulson made $500 billion!”

I’m not advocating a new set of competitive grants set up to fund tutor/mentor programs. I’m calling for leaders to create an on-going public education and marketing program, a business-type strategy, that connects people who can help, with programs in places where birth work help is needed.

In 2009 Phil Shapiro posted an article in PC World titled “Crowdsourcing the MacArthur Awards” listing 12 people he would nominate for the MacArthur Award. I was one of them.

If just one billionaire in Chicagoland were to devote a $50 million a year for the next 10 years to support an area wide network of non-school, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs who were each focused on helping youth move through school and into jobs and careers such programs would be operating in more places, with more of the talent and resources each needs to constantly improve their impact. Such leadership could lead to greater and more consistent public support in the future. I don’t think they would go broke doing this.

And, if thousands of citizens who are not billionaires, but have a deep commitment to put their faith to practice were to adopt these ideas and support them with their own time, talent and dollars, we could have the same impact.

So, who is building a list of faith communities where the Pope’s message is beginning to be discussed, and where the group is drawing from the information I’ve been sharing as part of its learning process?