What if CEOs in every sector took these roles?

Between 1973 and 1990 I held various roles in the retail advertising department of the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago. I learned how functional teams worked daily to support more than 400 retail stores in 40 states, while my advertising team worked to draw customers to those stores. All of these roles were needed.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 these strategies shaped my thinking. There are hundreds of youth-serving programs in big cities like Chicago. They all need to be great, or getting there with constant investments of time, talent, learning and dollars.

I've two sections on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website where I share many resources that elevate this thinking and are intended to provide ammunition for leaders in business, sports, healthcare, higher education, religion, media and other sectors to use their own resources to help on-going volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago (While I piloted these ideas in Chicago they apply to anyplace in the world with large concentrations of segregated poverty). 

This is the Leadership Strategies page

This is the Business Involvement page

Many companies spend billions of dollars on research and development (R&D) so they stay competitive in their markets or capitalize on new opportunities. How many spend even a few thousand dollars a year researching reasons for being strategically involved in youth tutoring/mentoring programs? Think about that as you read the articles I share on my website.

How can we stimulate this learning? What role could universities, even high schools, take?

A few months ago I included the graphic below in this article showing how billionaires could fund programs at universities that build a pipeline of leaders and supporters who would help make volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs available in more places.

Imagine if someone provided the endowment for the ideas I've been sharing for over 30 years to become curriculum that educated a new generation of leaders to think differently about how they support social benefit organizations.  

Contact me. I'd love to help you train your AI to build a curriculum drawing from my collections.

I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon and post at Substack.com and Medium.  I urge you to connect with me in these places and share your own strategies.

Finally, I depend on a few donors to help me pay the bills. Please visit this page and make a contribution if you can help.

Turning Research into Active Problem-Solving

Every month I see a new report showing the impact of concentrated poverty on school performance, health, economic well-being and other issues.  Last year A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025". I wrote about it in this article.  They issues an update in 2026 - click here

Below is a message I've shared often, in different articles, for the past 30+ years.

I’ve been collecting similar information since I became a volunteer tutor in 1973, showing where people need extra help, why, and what type of help could be offered to youth via organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

From 1993 to 2003 I shared this information via printed newsletters. Then on a website since 1998.   I’ve been pointing to that research in articles on this blog since 2005.

I’m sharing a few below. I hope you’ll open the links and take a look, then share the ideas through your own blogs, videos, etc.

Here’s an article where I use maps to show where people need extra help.

It’s one of dozens where I show the four-part, information-based problem-solving strategy that I’ve piloted since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. It’s one where I point to a section of my library with hundreds of links to articles and research about poverty, racism, inequality and social justice. And, it’s one where I encourage others to share this information in their network, so more people find it and use it.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection the goal was to help every existing tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the operating resources, volunteers and ideas each program needs to grow. Here’s one of many articles that focus on the challenges of finding on-going funding for mentor-based programs.

My leadership of a single volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 1992 and a second program starting in 1993, along with my career in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward corporation, provided the foundation ideas for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

These experiences led me to understand that organized volunteer-based programs were a way to connect kids in high poverty areas to people, experiences and opportunities that were not readily available in their own family/neighborhoods, due to extreme poverty. Over time, I began to understand this as a form of ‘bridging social capital’ and visualized it in graphics like the one shown below.

Here’s one of many articles where I write about mentoring as a form of social capital.

In my work at Montgomery Ward’s corporate headquarters, from 1973 to 1990, I learned how my department, and other functional teams, supported more than 400 retail stores spread in 40 states. We helped each store be good at attracting customers, selling merchandise and earning a profit. (at least we tried)

Thus, when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection plan in 1993 our initial strategy was to learn what programs existed in Chicago, then to build a public awareness strategy that would attract more attention, volunteers and donors to each program, and to every high poverty neighborhood.

This article shows how we began publishing a Directory of programs in 1994 and how this information was used to support programs.

In this article I describe an on-going information-based planning process, that uses information like I’ve been collecting.

This could be led from institutions who have deep roots in geographic areas, like hospitals, universities, businesses, etc.

To do this research, someone needs to host a library like mine, with lists and directories of youth serving programs, then use that information in an on-going planning, program development and public education and resource generation strategy.

This is a missing step in most of the research I’ve seen for over 25 years. Researchers get the money to do the research and produce a report, with a big event that shares it with the public, but then don't have the money to continue to share that research and draw people together to use it over the following years.  What I do is aggregate links to that research and try to motivate people to use it to support youth tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

I encourage you to look at articles, like this, where I point to work being done by Daniel Max Crowley, who I met on LinkedIn.  He calls on universities to go beyond collecting research to helping communities use it. 

Over the past 30 years I've piloted actions that I share on my website and that anyone can borrow and apply in their own geographic area.

While I do find a few who host lists of youth serving programs, and even plot the list on interactive maps, I don’t find any with multi-year public awareness efforts aimed at drawing volunteers and donors to every youth-serving program within their city.  If you know of any who do this, please share the link and I'll add them to my library.

Furthermore, I don’t find any doing the deeper research asking “what youth programs exist in your area”.

Doing such research and maintaining a list of programs is a big job, especially in cities as large as Chicago. That’s why, for many years, I’ve tried to motivate universities to build a Tutor/Mentor Connection-based strategy on their campus. This is one of several articles where I share this invitation. 

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

Here’s an article where I show 30 years of effort to build strategic alliances with universities. You can see a wide range of interactions with many universities, but no long-term initiative led by, and funded by, any university.

Why wasn’t I successful? Money. Reputation. Clout.

I never had much of any of these so when I met with someone at a university, I’d receive polite nods, with a “I’m already over extended. Find a younger professor.”

 The answer: ultra wealthy donors

Here's one of several articles where I show the potential of strategic investment by one or more wealthy donors.  Here's another. 

How might we find such donors? 

They are all around us. Do you watch NFL football games? How often do you hear players praised for their philanthropic work? I posted this on Twitter in 2024 sharing the idea from this post.

What if a university aggregated this information and then used it to recruit a group of athletes who support the same cause, to support a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy at the university that was building the database of athlete involvement?

What if? What if? What if?

What if you share this article in your networks? Maybe someone will read it and adopt the idea and actually take the next steps.

That’s why I write these articles.

If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Thanks for reading.  There's a lot here, so bookmark the page and return often.  Then, look me up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and let's connect.  If you're writing similar articles, which I hope you will, please share them.

Finally, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

Tutor/Mentor Learning Network - What is it?

I shared the two visual essays shown below in a new article on Substack.com.  I hope you'll take time to view it and dig into the essays.

The first shows how I've been collecting and sharing information for the past 30+ years, via the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present).  This slide shows how I link to other organizations that represent specific areas of expertise.

My goal is not to have links to "everything" on my website, but to point to other websites who aggregated information about specific topics, or specific groups of organizations.

Open the PDF at this link. 

The second essay shows more of what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been building since 1993.  I call it a "capacity-building" network.

Note the "mentoring to careers" graphic in the first image and the map of Chicago in the second. Both have photos of kids and volunteers who were part of the programs I led.  These signal an intention to help similar programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other places.

While many intermediaries collect and share information, I’ve found few who host a list of programs that do similar work, then constantly try to draw attention, volunteers and donors to EACH of these places. That’s what makes the Tutor/Mentor Connection unique, and difficult to understand.

Click here to view the visual essay.

While I've piloted this work since 1993, via a small non-profit (until 2011), I've constantly reached out to convince colleges and universities to adopt the strategy, as a teaching tool, and for their own self-interests.   The second visual essay shows roles students could take.  Many articles on this blog do the same.

This is becoming a much more urgent concern.  I'm 79 and in the early stages of a lung disease that will ultimately end my life.  This blog and the sites it points to are just one entry point into what started for me in 1973 when I became a volunteer in the Tutoring Program hosted by employees at the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago.  

I studied history in College then spent three years in U.S. Army Intelligence. Both taught me to look for best-available information to support my efforts to constantly improve my work in retail advertising at Wards and my volunteer-role as a tutor, then leader, of the program at Wards.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) I've been sharing this library with others in Chicago and throughout the world!

These visual essays show much of what I've been doing.  

If you have been blessed with great wealth, and you care about helping solve complex, long-term problems, please consider making a gift to a university, focused on building a Tutor/Mentor Connection-type program, including taking ownership of my archives, websites, blogs and all the work I've been doing.

I'd love to connect on ZOOM with anyone who is interested in helping make this happen.

These photos show me in 1973 with Leo Hall and in 2014 as he celebrated his 50th birthday. We're still connected in 2026.  It's one of many reasons I keep trying to help mentor-rich programs grow in more places.

Thanks for reading.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky and/or Mastodon.  See links here.

Finally, I don't charge people to use these ideas and resources, but there is a cost to me to keep doing this work.  Visit this page if you'd like to help me pay the bills.

Changing how social benefit organizations get funded

Last week I shared links to a couple of researchers at different universities in this article. I hope you'll read it then follow their posts on LinkedIn.

Here's another post by Daniel Max Crowley, which you can find here on LinkedIn.

As I thought about this I said to myself, "It does not go far enough."  That motivated me to look up an article I posted in 2007.  It's titled "Many to one. Not one to Many."

I'm reposting it below because the ideas are as important today as they were 20 years ago. Furthermore, the tools to identify where people need help, and what organizations already work in those areas, and who also need help, are dramatically better than in the past.  The articles I point to on LinkedIn illustrate this.

---- begin 2007 ----

The image of the lonesome warrior is one that reminds me of the men and women who are fighting overseas to make this a better world. As we count our blessings, let's pray for the young people in our armed forces.

However, this image is also one that I think of when I think of the people leading social benefit organizations around the world, mostly in isolation, mostly with too few resources to do everything they are trying to do.



Those who lead small non profits, or are struggling to get social benefit ideas launched, may relate to this One-To-Many graphic. We're constantly reaching out in many different directions, trying to find the help we need. We're like fish in a bowl, competing with thousands of others for a limited amount of dollars and volunteers. Unless you've got a powerful marketing machine, or are well connected in donor circles, you succeed some of the time, but not most of the time, and you spend tremendous amounts of emotional capital and energy all of the time.



Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I'm trying to change this. I'm trying to recruit leaders in many places who lead strategic thinking process in their organization that aligns social benefit with corporate and organizational strategy. Such leaders will use their own advertising, visibility and resources to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that lead kids to careers, because it's a core business strategy.

See this concept map at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Many-to-1

I've been saying this for a long time, but last week I found an article on the Harvard Business Review that reinforces this concept. The article is titled Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. Written by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer.

Education and workforce development are of strategic importance for most industries. Thus, if leaders of business, health care, law, journalism, sports and entertainment, etc. are strategic, they can use tools like the Program Locator and Chicago Program Links to choose what part of a city they want to support, and what programs they want to help grow from good to great.

This isn't a strategy to support just one tutor/mentor program, or one brand name like the Boys and Girls Clubs, it's a strategy to help every high poverty neighborhood have comprehensive programs that are one end of the pipeline to jobs and careers for businesses that are strategically engaging their corporate resources to help grow their future workforce.

Over the next seven days millions of people will make charitable decisions, either for good will, or for tax deductions. Choose a program like Cabrini Connections, which I led from 1992 to 2011, or one of the others listed in the Links Library, and this will show the impact of Many to One.

--- end 2007 -----

In April 2024 I posted an article with a PDF essay showing my 30 years of "reaching out to universities".  If you skim through the PDF you'll see some great work done by interns from many different universities.  Now imagine the impact if these had been on-going programs where the work done by interns in one year was carried forward by others the next year, and the year after that.

This was just one of many articles that I've posted on this blog the invite universities to create their own on-campus tutor/mentor connections.  I'd love to help.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and/or Mastodon.  

And, if you'd like to help me pay the bills to keep this information available to you, please visit this page and send a few dollars.

Study Guide - Tutor/Mentor on Substack.com

When I became the volunteer leader of the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program in 1975 I was holding a full-time retail advertising job with the company. The program started that year with 100 pairs of 2nd-6th grade kids and workplace volunteers.

There was no way I could personally train every volunteer, so I tried to create a "learning" organization by providing information they could use via our monthly newsletters and weekly handouts.

I continued that practice through email newsletters, blogs, a website and social media through 2011 when I stopped leading a single program. I've continued that practice through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) in an effort to build more consistent support to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach K-12 kids in every high poverty area of the Chicago region and beyond.

I've posted articles on this blog since 2005 and on the MappingforJustice blog since 2011 (it was started by Mike Trakan in 2008). I've posted on the Intern blog since it was started by an intern from Hong Kong in 2006.

They are represent a curriculum of ideas that could be embedded in any leadership training program.

Since last fall I've posted a series of articles on Substack.com that aim to highlight featured ideas. Below you can see images for these posts.

You can find links to each of these at https://substack.com/@danielbassill319958

Open this 1984-85 Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program archive and you'll find copies of several newsletters like the one I shared at the top of this article. 

While the maps and much of the research points to Chicago where there are thousands of kids living in highly segregated high-poverty areas, the ideas and strategies can be applied in any city in the world.  I invite you to view them, and created your own versions, putting your own maps and ideas into them.

Then connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms and help build awareness and involvement with these ideas, and with youth-serving programs in more places. Find links on this page.

Thanks for reading.  I depend on a few long-time supporters for small donations that help me continue this work.  Visit this page if you'd like to help. 

Leverage Billionaire Funding - Tipping Point

Today I saw an article showing How Melinda French Gates Plans to Fund "Chronically," "Unconscionably" Underfunded Programs for Women and Girls.  

In addition, I've seen many articles showing how MacKenzie Scott donated more than $740 million to HBCUs in 2025 and already more in 2026.  This is just part of her 2019 pledge to "donate the majority of  here billions in wealth to charity."

And, this week I saw posts on social media suggesting that these two women team up to create a new media ecosystem.  That would be fantastic.

But, I think there's another opportunity. What if MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates teamed up to fund the idea shown below, at several universities?  Let's dig into the graphic:

In the middle of the graphic is the birth-to-work arrow that I've  used since the mid 90's to visualize age-level supports that volunteers and businesses could provide to youth, via well-organized tutor/mentor programs as well as schools. 

At the top of this graphic is the question. What can universities do differently, that might be a tipping point in terms of making well organized programs available in more places, for more years, reaching more youth, and helping them through school?

I answer by saying "build a pipeline of leaders, who work in these programs, and who work to provide the talent and resources needed by each program on an on-going basis".

So I added an overlay to the Birth to Work arrow to suggest this idea.

If you strip away the arrow, this is what's left.

Imagine a four to six year masters or PhD level college program, starting the freshman year of college.  Then visualize on-going practical learning, in which college students serve in existing programs, reaching youth as young as elementary school, with their service tied to course work being studied on campus at different points over their college career.

Imagine part of what college students are teaching youth in middle school and high school, is drawn from the same "how to" lessons that college kids are studying. If students begin thinking of what it takes to make the programs available to them, which they are part of, they will have momentum if they choose to pursue this course of study in college, and as a career.

If colleges just did the first part of this suggestion, they would  be reaching youth in neighborhoods surrounding the college and enlisting their students and alumni in various roles that help PULL kids through k-12 school, and into college, then on into jobs and careers.  If this were a continuous program, lasting for decades, it might dramatically close the opportunity gap.

This certainly would support Gate's goal of supporting programs for underserved women and girls.  And HBCUs receiving funds from Scott could dedicate some of those funds to building this type of curriculum. 

However, that's not enough. Youth and volunteers need a safe, well-organized place where they can connect, build relationships, and stay connected for many years.  Such places are constantly seeking dollars, volunteers and other resources, but are not equal in their abilities to attract those resources. Thus, too few programs are available.

Here's the TIPPING POINT:  The curriculum I am suggesting is not limited to just those going into direct service. It's a college wide humanities type course that engages students studying in different fields, most of whom will go into the business world.

Imagine that each year's class of graduates from a university include a few with degrees showing them to have a full knowledge of how to build and lead a mentor rich youth serving organization.  And then imagine another group of graduates, leaving college with an understanding of what it takes for such programs to succeed, and the role they can take in PROACTIVELY providing dollars, talent, technology, volunteers and other resources needed, including jobs, internships and learning opportunities for youth in organized tutor/mentor programs and public schools.

Then, imagine that people from both groups spend time daily, or weekly,  in on-line affinity groups, supported in part by universities, and students who are working toward their degrees, where they keep learning, from the college, and from each other, so they are constantly seeking to do more and do better, at helping kids move out of poverty, or helping solve other complex problems facing the world.

No matter how many billions Gates and Scott donate, it's too little. They need to leverage their giving so others join in.

I've attempted to communicate this idea in the past using this graphic, which you can find in this series of articles.

The problem, as I see it, is that most adults don't have time to dig through my articles and learn what has taken me 50 years to learn.  Most are not motivated to do this, nor guided through this mountain of information, they way faith leaders and college professors guide students through other information resources.

So what types of curriculum would students study?  I started building a list which I show in the graphic below. I suspect that others could add more, if they just spent time thinking about it.

As you look at the list of skills needed, compare them to courses required by colleges preparing teachers, social workers and/or business leaders.  I doubt that many are required to learn spatial thinking tools like GIS mapping, or concept mapping. Or that they are asked to learn basic coding, so they can oversee a web site or blog, to communicate ideas. I doubt that many are learning ways to support digital learning in on-line communities, or the creation of digital content that can be used to share ideas and promising practices.

Visit this section of the Tutor/Mentor library and find lists of websites that share skills which should be part of this curriculum. 

To me, this graphic also represents how students, alumni and community members, including youth, would be connecting in on-going learning to better understand complex problems, and learn about actions being taken in some parts of the world, that might be applied in other places, if resources were readily available.  If alumni who are working or have been blessed with wealth are in these conversations they would be ready and able to offer support where needed.

I've been reaching out to universities in Chicago and beyond since the 1990s to find one that would adopt the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC as a strategic partner.  Here's one of many articles showing this invitation.

It just takes one college to pilot this, and one wealthy benefactor to provide the financial incentive for a college or university to take this role.

Look at the graphic below. Imagine each of those red school icons being a place where an alumni with a Tutor/Mentor Institute degree from your university were on the staff and that others were volunteers, board members and/or donors.  Can you visualize having such an impact?  

This is not intended to help one, or even a few, great youth programs grow. It's intended to fill a growing number of high poverty areas across the US and the world with great, constantly improving, well-supported youth tutor/mentor programs that are recognized as world class, by the degrees of their leaders and by the work they are doing.

No matter how many billions of dollars wealthy donors give, it won't be enough.  However, if some of these dollars are intended to support effective, constantly improving organizations, and others are intended to educate donors, so they learn to search for organizations to support based on where they are located, who they serve, and what they show on their websites.  No Letter of Inquiry or Grant Proposal needed!

If you've read any articles on this blog, or followed my @tutormentorteam posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter or Facebook, you've seen graphics like the one below.

The message in both graphics is the same. We need to reach kids as they enter school and support them with a wide range of mentors and learning experiences as they move through school and into adult lives. While all kids need this support, for most kids, it's naturally available through family, neighbors, faith groups and community.

For each child this is at least a 20-25 year journey, starting in preschool. 

To make that happen we need to create a pipeline of new leaders.  Wealthy donors can fuel that.

Thanks for reading. Please share it. Maybe someone in wealthy circles of influence will take time to read it.  And pass it on, up the chain of wealth!

If you appreciate what I'm sharing, visit this page and send a contribution. 

Use this resource to map and analyze your networks

The information below is from a new page on my website that I launched to show work done by a team of students from the Information Visualization (IVMOOC) class at Indiana University. This is a project they had been working on for me since September 2025.  

I'm very impressed with the work they did. This visualization shows participation in one of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences held in Chicago between May 1994 and May 2015. You can see it in this article.  Open the Kumu map - click here

In the article and on my website I show several other views that I created from the interactive Kumu project. However, this was only a demonstration of what's possible.  On social media I've been encouraging youth and volunteers from Chicago tutor/mentor programs to dig into the map and find their own organization, then share a screenshot showing what conferences you were part of.

To understand the value of this project, I urge you to read the IVMOOC team final report (click here).

Then take time to study the "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. (click here).

Then look at the "How-To-Guide" that provides step by step information.

In the Project Overview the IVMOOC students wrote: "The Network Map is an event network visualization platform that helps event organizers collect participation and connection data, automatically convert it into network-ready nodes and edges, and explore insights through an analytics dashboard. Outputs can be exported to tools like Kumu.io and Gephi for deeper relationship mapping and network analysis." 

Then, look at the Git Hub page for the project. click here

On the home page you'll find this description. "Network Map - Event Network Visualization Platform. A full-stack web application for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing participant connections from events. Transform survey responses into interactive network graphs and analytics dashboards."

The Network Mapping project was the work of one IVMOOC team. Another looked at the data and created a dashboard showing participation by zip code. See it in this article.

This is the third time since 2008 that the IVMOOC project has looked at the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which has been led through Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011).  Click here to read the 2015 project report.  I'm hoping to be a client for the Spring 2026 IVMOOC, too. 

I've been reaching out to universities for help since the 1990s. It's part of an on-going invitation to engage students, faculty and alumni of universities in Chicago and throughout the world.

Read this post and find a PDF that shows 30 years of engagement, yet also shows no strategic, long-term effort where a stream of students work on the T/MC project while in college, then when they are alumni, with the goal of creating long-term impact on the lives of people living in high poverty areas. 

I invite students and faculty to help me do that, by learning about the tool, and why it's important by reading articles on my blog and in my library.  Then, by creating your own event mapping project, perhaps showing how people at your university are connected around specific issues.

Please connect and introduce yourself to me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (see links here). 

Making Philanthropy Work Better

I've posted more than 100 articles since 2005 that focus on improving the distribution of philanthropic dollars to volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with multi-year support. 

I've used this graphic often to show the need for long-term funding.  You can find it in this article.

I've also written about the role of information-based intermediaries who collect and share information that volunteers and donors and policy-makers could use to help youth and families in areas of concentrated poverty.  Here's one example.

Furthermore I've shown my efforts over the past 30 years to create a map-based program locator that could help people better understand where youth and families needed more help, and what tutor/mentor programs existed in these areas, that also needed more help.

Thus, I was excited over the past two weeks to learn of an organization called Project 990, which is based out of Indiana University.   Visit their website and see how they are "Building a comprehensive data analytics platform that integrates information from millions of tax filings, grants, and other sources related to philanthropic giving."

This is far more extensive and sophisticated than anything I was able to do in the past.  View this Tableau site to see maps they have created from the data they are collecting. 

Then visit this Smart Charity page on LinkedIn and read the stories they are creating using this data.

I started connecting with Indiana University in the early 2000s when people from IUPUI began attending the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  Then in 2008 I began connecting with an Information Visualization program on the Bloomington campus of IU.  This 2012 article shows work done in 2008.  This article shows work done in 2015 and again in 2025. 

This Tableau map shows that part of their focus is on Bloomington, where the IU campus is located.  

I've introduced myself and hope that one or more of their students will dig into my blog, website and archives and begin sharing what they are learning via the Smart Charity stories.  My goal is that some of the strategies I've piloted, that focus on active, on-going communications intended to draw donors to existing non profits, and to places where more are needed, will become part of their own efforts.  The 2006-2015 articles on the Tutor/Mentor Intern blog show what's possible.

Furthermore, I hope their model is duplicated by universities in every urban area and in every state and that over time, this fixes the funding and staff retention problems that I focus on in my articles.

1-13-2026 update - Here's another example of mapping philanthropic data. Take a look at the Nonprofit Ecosystem Mapping Project on the GivingTuesday Data Commons. click here

When I was working with the IVMOOC team last fall I suggested that they create a map showing all of the programs at Indiana University that focused on helping people.   Here's one article where I show what's possible.   Here's another.  If such a map of the IU ecosystem existed I suspect it would connect the IVMOOC program and the Project 990 group, and maybe others who are doing related work.  

I am constantly reminded of how much great work is happening that I'm not aware of.  I add links to the Tutor/Mentor Library to share much of what I find.  So, if you're aware of programs similar to Project 990 at other universities, please share the links.

Thanks for reading.  Find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon. Find links here.

If you'd like to help fund my work, visit this page. 

Mapping Learning Resources - 2026 and beyond

Over the past few years I've devoted several articles to showing uses of concept maps and other visualization tools to help organize information and ideas and create platforms that engage more people in learning and innovating solutions to complex problems.

Here's another example.  Explore this interactive map (created using Kumu.io) on the Landscape of Consciousness website. You'll find four maps like the one shown below that visualize theories of consciousness.

Scroll down on the home page and you'll find this chart, which details the information found on the concept map. 

This page is really important.  The "Implications" section "explores the real-world consequences of theories of consciousness on five profiled and challenging questions".

The Landscape of Consciousness map was shared on LinkedIn by Deniz Cem Önduygu.   This is where I get my first look at most of the Kumu visualizations that I've been sharing.

Now look at my maps.  This one shows the full range of information in the library on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  click here to open

This shows one of the four subsections of the concept map shown above.  This one shares links to information anyone can use to build coalitions and innovate solutions to complex problems.  click here to open

At the bottom of each node are one, or two boxes.  These include links to external website pages, or to additional concept maps.  click here to view this page

I've built the Tutor/Mentor library over the past 50 years, starting in the 1970s when I was looking for ideas for my weekly sessions with my mentee, then when I began to lead a program.  We accelerated this process in 1993 when we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, then again in 1998 when we moved the library to the Internet, where it has grown for over 25 years.

I've used cMapTools since 2005 to visualize ideas, strategies and the resources in the Tutor/Mentor Library. And, I use blog articles to "make sense" of the information.  

I don't have the energy or motivation to rebuild all of my maps using Kumu or Gephi, but I keep sharing examples of these tools, with the goal that one, or more, people will use my library as a resource and will use Kumu to map what's available.

Last week I posted this article, showing the visualization below, created by students at Indiana University.  It shows participation in the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago. They created this using Excel spreadsheets from my library.

Last April, I used this article to show my 30 years of outreach to local, national and international universities.

On page 39 I showed the 2008 IVMOOC project done by students at Indiana University. 

This shows that I've had success in connecting with universities on short term projects. But I've not been able to build any long-term partnerships.  Thus, while each project was valuable, the potential was lost because they were not part of any university-led on-going effort, or relay-race, where future students took the place of current and past students and constantly updated, expanded, and improved on the work done by previous students.

That will only happen if a major donor provides the money.

So as we enter 2026 I call on readers to share this with their networks, reaching out to people who could make major gifts, to a university, to build on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connections, that build on the work I've piloted for so long.

This invitation aims to reach faculty and/or administrators who might develop programs, and grant requests, that find this money.  If you're interested, take a look at this page, where I outline steps you might take.

I'd be happy to explore this idea with you.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook and/or Instagram (see links here).  

Thanks to everyone who sent contributions in 2025 to help me do this work. Visit my "Fund T/MI" page to offer your help.