Veterans Day 2025

Tomorrow the nation will once again celebrate Veterans Day, to honor all who have served in the United States military -- in wartime or peacetime, living or deceased.

I've posted a Veterans Day article almost every year since starting this blog in 2005. You can see many at this link.  

In most of those articles I also show ways to honor service and sacrifice in how you use your time, talent and dollars to help make the USA a better, safer, healthier place for ALL who live here.  Some of my articles were turned into videos by interns who worked with me in past years.  You can view the "War on Poverty" video at this link.

I don't have a section of the Tutor/Mentor library dedicated to understanding challenges facing Veterans. I added this article today. I also added this article. I found both of these by a simple search.  Maybe one of you can point to a more comprehensive, reliable, resource.

I also did a search to find a few articles showing how Trump's DEI purge in the military puts U.S. national security at risk.  Here's one.  Unfortunately, you can find many more similar articles with a simple web search. 

I was in the US Army from 1968-1971 and spent a year in South Korea. I was never in combat. I'm not sure I was that great of a soldier, to be honest. However, I did receive the Amy Commendation Medal in 1971 and an Honorable Discharge.  I've used much of what I learned in my Army Intelligence training in the tactics and strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC, and in the two direct service programs I led between 1975 and 2011.

In 2001 I received an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan for my work, partly thanks to what I learned while in the Army.

If you read many of my articles you'll see that I call on others to help gather, organize and share information that others can use to make better decisions on how they use their time, talent, dollars and votes to create a better, safer, America and World for ALL people, not just the rich.

You honor veterans for what you do.

Thanks for reading.  Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, Substack and other platforms.

I've launched my annual December 19th "Birthday Campaign" where you can support my work with a gift.  And I continue my on-going Fund T/MI campaign.  Please help if you can.

Veterans Day 2024

Tomorrow the nation will once again celebrate Veterans Day. With this week's election of Donald Trump, I wonder how much meaning this holiday has, or what memory people will have 20 or 40 years from now.

On Friday I posted an article titled "Tips for Deeper Learning".  I hope over the coming year you'll find time to read it and other articles about "learning" that I've posted on this blog in the past 19 years.

This blog and my library are a resource for that learning.  I hope they are still available after my life ends.

When I attended meetings, conferences, etc. in the past I constantly took notes on what I was hearing. I was also visualizing how what I was hearing fits with my own efforts, questions I have about what's being said, and opportunities for the future. I amassed over 20 years of files and binders with these notes. 

Since 2019 I've digitized all of my notes and put them on my Google Drive. Now you can see many ideas from the past in folders here, here and here.

Often I converted some of my ideas into new graphics, and blog articles. You can see an example here.

Here's an example of my process. I scanned my raw notes into a PDF and uploaded them to my GoogleDrive. You can see them here. If you view these, you'll see on page one, a graphic similar to the one at the left. I see the role of the organizers and partners in meetings I attend and in on-line forums, as intermediaries who are trying to connect people who can help with veterans, and places who are helping veterans and their families.

If that's the case, creating a structure similar to what I've been building, which I describe below, would support their efforts.

Tutor/Mentor Institute - Learning Network Strategy by Daniel F. Bassill

This PDF describes this graphic.

If you read the article about Deeper Learning, and look at this PDF, you'll see how my library supports the concepts of "unfurling" and "unflattening" and the "adjacent possible."
 

I hope you'll also see how my graphics are a way of visualizing my thinking that others could duplicate.

Since this is Veterans Day, I feel many would relate to this graphic, and the problem solving strategy it visualizes. Visit this page and see how an intern created a video to share these ideas. Youth working with veterans could be helping communicate their own ideas and strategies.

Step 7 focuses on building public commitment to generate long term support for efforts that are distributed across many organizations, in many places, for many years. 

Resisting the fascist goals of the next Trump administration and the far right networks that support him will require this long-term commitment. It won't be easy.

Building well-organized K-12 youth serving organizations that reach kids in every high poverty area of Chicago has been my goal since 1993. It's never been easy.  It's still not been achieved.

If others do their own Deeper Learning and visualize and share their ideas, as I have, maybe we could get closer to the goal in another 10 to 20 years.  

 This article on network building emphasizes how much the veterans' community, women's rights, racial justice, minorities and others, such as the tutor/mentor community, need to build growing support for their efforts. The 40 people in the room for a ZOOM meeting I attended this week, represented thousands of total supporters. The 60,000+ visitors to my blog each month represent many thousands more.

Imagine 100, or 1000, people writing blogs with the same content, spread over 100 cities. 

I share my blog posts and graphics on social media and in my email newsletter and hope that others who read this article will want to help me in my efforts, and help the veterans community in what I feel is an equally important effort.

I've used this graphic often to show how communities need to support youth living in high poverty, or without enough family support, as they move from birth to adult lives and careers. I feel that if the veterans' community were to embrace this they could be building networks of support for youth before they enter the military that would already be in place as they leave their service.

I look forward to sharing my ideas and helping the veterans community because they will be helping me in my efforts if they adopt these ideas.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on one of the social media platforms that I point to on this page.

And, if you value what I'm sharing, please make a contribution to help me keep doing this work. Visit this page and help fund the T/MI.

Veterans Day 2023 - Don't Give Up

Today is Veteran's Day. Let's give thanks and honor those who have served our country to protect our freedoms.  

I wrote this in 2005 and have posted similar articles most years since then. 

.... Begin 2005 article ....

I served in the US Army from 1968 to 1971. I was lucky to do time in Korea and not in Viet Nam where so many young people made the ultimate sacrifice.

I think that the best way to honor our veterans is for more people to be willing to make true sacrifices of time, talent and treasure to assure that every person in America has the same hope and opportunity as do the kids of the politicians who vote to send troops overseas to fight and die, but then don't provide funds to support those troops as veterans, or to support the many high poverty communities where poverty is breeding violence, feeding our growing prison industry, and creating two Americas.

Each person needs to look in their own personal mirror to determine what level of giving would be a sacrifice. However, we only need to look at a Military Cemetery, or a Military Hospital to see a standard for comparison.

In past blogs I've talked about how difficult it is for non profits to sustain funding over the long term. That was from the charity perspective. What about the donor perspective? If you want your contributions of time and money to add up to a difference, you need to think of what it took for you to earn that money or talent.

For most of us we were not born to wealth. We had to go to school, perhaps college, then work our way up in a job to the point where we could make charitable gifts. For those who started companies, it took many years of hard work before turning a profit, then expanding the business. For those with inherited wealth, your fathers or grandfathers did the heavy work of earning the money. It's up to you to do the heavy work of making sure the money builds a better world.

If you want your dollars to have an impact, pick a charity and a cause and stick with it for many years...or a lifetime. Get to know what they do. Volunteer time if you can. Be an advocate if you can. Help them find others who will add their support to your support. If you jump from cause to cause, or charity to charity, you may feel good about your giving, but those you give to may never be able to sustain their work long enough to do the good that your original donations intended.

If we want world peace, it is not just the responsibility of the peacemakers to do all the work, it is the responsibility of every one who benefits from peace.

We will honor our veterans when more of us take this responsibility as a day to day responsibility.
 
--- end 2005 article ---

In my study of history while in college and my US Army training I learned to use maps.  In the 30 years I've led the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) I've piloted uses of maps and data platforms to focus attention and resources on places where people need extra help, specifically focusing on helping well-organized, long-term, volunteer-based, tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in more places.

I hope you'll join me in those efforts. 

Veterans Day, 2021 - Do the Planning

That's me, in South Korea, in 1971.  I was in my third year with the US Army.  I was part of the Army Intelligence unit stationed in Seoul, having completed training for collecting information that leaders could use to support US force distribution in any war that might be fought.

That was in 1970.

Since Veterans Day is this week I encourage you to visit articles I wrote on past Veterans Day celebrations. 

On many you'll see this graphic. It shows the planning needed to make resources available in every high poverty area of Chicago and other places, to help kids through school and into jobs, where they can raise their own kids free of poverty.

You can find this graphic at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Planning as well as in these blog articles.  

If you're on active duty or in the military reserves, or a veteran, I salute you for your service. I encourage you to use the skills you learned to help neighborhoods and communities build a map-based planning process that draws an on-going flow of talent, dollars, technology and ideas to every high poverty area and sustains that support for many years.

If you're on social media I hope you'll connect with me on one of these sites.

Remembering the sacrifices of June 6, 1944 - D-Day

As America and friends around the world celebrate D-Day, the landing of Allied Armies on the beaches of Normandy, on June 6, 1944, I've been looking back at articles I wrote in past years to recognize this event.

In 2009 I posted an article with a link to the Serve.gov web site which announced President Obama's "United We Serve" campaign, intended to mobilize citizens to get involved in community problem solving. The site still promotes volunteerism, but that campaign is no longer on the site.

The introduction said, "people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools."

 "President Obama was asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth. This initiative aims to both expand the impact of existing organizations by engaging new volunteers in their work and encourage volunteers to develop their own "do-it-yourself" projects."

 

I found this photo showing troops that were landing on the Normandy Beach during D-Day. Think about what this photo illustrates, and compare that to the current mobilization of volunteers to do service. 

 These troops had been training for months. This invasion was planned for years. The landing craft were being built years be for the invasion because it was anticipated that they would be needed. The solders were well armed, well fed, and led by well trained leaders. 

That costs money. Lots of money. 

There are lots of ways volunteers can do service. Some projects, like cleaning up a park, or building a house, might take a day, or several weeks. However, these are short term. 

Other projects, like tutoring/mentoring require more consistent, long-term involvement, if the benefit is that the youth being tutored/mentored has overcome his own learning difficulties, and the negative influences of his family or community which might be modeling examples and behaviors that don't lead to high school graduation, college or productive jobs and careers. 

In both cases, volunteers time is well spent when there are leaders who have the experience to organize their efforts, and support their involvement. Sending volunteers into organizations which don't have this leadership is like sending troops onto a beach without rifles or bullets. 

I was a member of the Chicago delegation to the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, which pledged support for the 15 million kids in America who were being left behind because they lived in high poverty. Lots of great rhetoric and patriotic speeches were given by General Powell, President Clinton and others that shows the vision behind the Summit. 

The problem was, not one was thinking of the infrastructure needed across America, and in the neighborhoods where these 15 millions kids were living, which would support this flood of new volunteers, and keep them engaged for the many years it takes to help a first grader living in a high poverty neighborhood become a 12th grader graduating from high school and headed for college or a job. 

I remember sitting in a meeting following the Summit, with a business leader sitting next to me. When I asked about the money needed to support added volunteers, I was told "we're focusing on volunteers, not philanthropy." 

You cannot have good volunteerism without good philanthropy! 

And in today's economy, when many of the small non profits who are working with inner city kids are struggling to find operating dollars to keep existing staff employed, how can you expect them to ramp up programs to support more volunteers in significant efforts that can lead to a victory over poverty? (That was my question in 2009, amidst the financial crisis. The same concern is in 2021, amidst the Covid19 crisis.)

I've focused on the planning process since starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993. And, I've created numerous visuals to focus on the steps needed to fill all high poverty areas with a wide range of needed, long-term solutions. That process always includes one focused on building and sustaining public will.  That was required to win World War 2, and it has been needed (but missing) in the War on Poverty since the 1960s.  

I pointed to this planning process in this 2014 D-Day article.  View the concept map below at this link.

No elected, or business or philanthropic leader that I'm aware of has used visual essays like these, and maps, to mobilize the army of talent needed to do all the work that's needed.  Thus, we still have embedded poverty in Chicago and other cities, and in many rural areas. 

In this Tweet I point to a map showing massacres of Black Americans extending back to the 1860s.

I've not found a link with any of these maps, however the Zinn Education Project has a library articles about massacres in U.S. History. https://t.co/1NyuHJyrJJ

Sites like this make the information available. Now we need to motivate learners to visit, read, reflect & respond. https://t.co/OCT2NiHhab

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 3, 2021

The killing of George Floyd and following attention to racial justice and systemic efforts to keep Black and Brown Americans as second class citizens, invites new investigation into this history.  I have been building a section of links to articles about Black History and Racial Justice in my web library and this concept map points to several sub sections.

Good planning requires in-depth reading.  Without a broader understanding of history, we don't fully understand why we've failed for so many years to win the War on Poverty. 

States and local governments can pass laws that prevent teaching this history in schools. But as long as the Internet remains available they cannot prevent people from finding and learning from this information. 

I call again for the current President to use his bully pulpit to call on faith leaders, business leaders, civic and social groups, to reach out to volunteer based organizations like those I show on this list of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor and/or mentor programs,  with flexible operating dollars that they need to pay the rent, insurance and staff expenses. 

There's still time to point to web libraries and forums where people can gather and learn.  

 Remember:  "people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools."

We can make sure that when these volunteers hit the beach they succeed, and they stay involved until we win this war.

Calling all Veterans. Continue To Serve.

This is me, in the fall of 1968 during basic training at Ft. Polk, LA which was the home of infantry being trained to go to Viet Nam.

Lucky for me, I joined the Army in the summer of 1968 after getting a degree in history from Illinois Wesleyan University. I enlisted with a guarantee to be trained to be a SPY! Instead of the infantry I went into Army Intelligence. I never was called upon to carry a rifle into combat.

I spent a year in Baltimore and Washington, DC and then a year in Korea. It expanded my vision of the world and set the groundwork for what I've been doing in the 40 years since then. I was one of the fortunate ones who did not get wounded or killed by the conflict in Viet Nam.

In 2001 I was given an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan, in recognition of the work I had been doing to help inner-city youth connect with tutors/mentors and experiences beyond the high poverty neighborhoods they were living in. 

This work has continued to develop over the past 20 years even as the resources to do it has continued to shrink. I've combined my passion for history and my experiences in Army Intelligence and 17 years of Retail Advertising with the Montgomery Ward Corporation into a market-based strategy aimed at helping mentor-rich non-school organizations reach youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

This is one of the graphics I've created to illustrate the ideas I'm sharing. In the military every General knows that the troops in the field are only as strong as the supply chain that makes sure they are well trained, well armed and well fed...and in the right location. See the story I wrote about this in June 2008.

In business leaders use this thinking all the time to put stores in places where customers can easily reach them. They make sure stores have well-trained staff, merchandise that people want, and they use massive advertising to prompt people to shop on a regular basis.

No such system exists in the tutor/mentor world or in most of the social sector. The "intelligence" needed to gather and analyze data about what programs exist and where they are needed is not funded in any consistent way. The work needed to train young people to be leaders of tutor/mentor programs is not being done at any major college (that I know of). The millions of dollars of advertising needed to draw volunteers and donors to individual programs on a regular basis does not exist.

Thus, the battle-plan needed to win the "war on poverty" is still needed in cities throughout the world.

I would like to encourage Veterans and those who support our men and women in service to spend time today reflecting on what I've just written. Do you have a "battle plan" to reach youth in your community with long-term, mentor-rich programs that assure that more of them will be in jobs and careers and capable of adult responsibilities by the time they are in their mid to late 20s?

Who is doing the "intelligence" gathering for you? Who is doing the advertising? Who is paying for this?

I've been sharing this idea on this blog since the late 2000s when social media was just emerging.  Since then I've formed active networks on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook (see links here).  I've pointed to the #clmooc group often as a model for how people with a common interest (education) who live in different parts of the US and the world, to connect regularly on Twitter and Facebook. 

So far I've not been able to connect the people in my network, including my former Army buddies, in a similar on-going social media interaction.  I keep trying. That's what service to America requires.

Like many, I depend on contributions to continue sharing ideas and hosting a library of resources.  Please visit this page and send a small contribution if you are able. 

12 Months Until Next Veteran's Day. Make Good Use of That Time

While this year's efforts to honor veterans is past, we've 12 months till we do it again. How will  you use that time? 

I spent three years in the Army in the late 1960s, serving in Military Intelligence. I'd studied history in college prior to joining the Army, so I understood the role of collecting best available information for leaders to use in making decisions. Over the past 40 years I've amassed a large web library, that anyone can use to build and sustain volunteer-based programs reaching k-12 youth living in high-poverty areas of big cities.

Every November since starting this blog in 2005, and in the months in between, I've posted articles that call on veterans and active duty service men and women to use the skills they have learned to support an "intelligence-based" effort that fills high poverty areas with needed programs, and helps each program get the on-going flow of resources each needs to constantly improve their ability to help youth overcome the challenges of poverty as they move through school and into adult lives. 

I invite others to do the same.

This map visualizes this process. You can find an explanation of the graphic here, and here.

On the right hand side of this graphic I emphasize the use of maps. Unless leaders use maps to show all of the places within an urban area where poverty is concentrated, and where other indicators show a need for extra support, it's likely that strategies will only reach a few places, not every place where help is needed.

Step 7, on the far left, is equally important. Unless we focus on ways to build and sustain public support for this strategy, the flow of resources to all of the programs that need to be involved will be too small and or discontinued too soon. Here's an article I wrote about building public will recently. I hope you'll look at it.

Steps 2 through 6 are on-going, but they involved building a deeper understanding of the complex challenges of reaching youth in all parts of a geographic region with a wide range of supports that help them move through school and into adult lives. This deeper learning extends far beyond understanding how to be a tutor or mentor, or how to organize and lead a youth serving organization.

I encourage you to look at this graphic which shows that affluent people face many of the same challenges as people living in high poverty.

In this book titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis", Robert Putnam, see my article, shows that kids living in affluent communities have many more resources available to help them and their families overcome their challenges. Youth living in high poverty communities not only have extra challenges, but have far fewer resources to help them and their families overcome those challenges.

When I describe a Total Quality Mentoring program, I'm thinking of programs where some volunteers take on many roles beyond acting as a tutor or mentor. This PDF focuses on the extra roles volunteers might take to help youth and families overcome more of the challenges shown on the graphic above. There is no limit to what things a team of planners might look at.

TQM programs are learning organizations where youth, volunteers, staff and leaders are constantly reading research and looking at work being done in other programs, with a goal of constantly innovating ways to help youth stay in school and move toward jobs, which means they also are looking for ways to engage a wider range of volunteers who can model different types of careers, and who can open doors to part time jobs, internships, vocational training and college as youth grow up. A TQM program offers a network of support, via the Internet, that can last a lifetime. A TQM program also shares its own ideas, strategies and challenges on its own web site so others can learn from them while they are learning from others.

I don't know how many programs in Chicago, or around the country, actually fit this TQM Program description, and have never had the manpower to do the on-going searching to find out which programs already operating in Chicago have the vision and strategy that heads them in this direction. It's the type of program I led between 1993 and 2011.

Understanding where services are needed, and what types of services need to be available within a geographic area is one challenge that planners and "intelligence gatherers" need to focus on. However, another challenge is to understand the infrastructure that is needed to support effective on-going learning and mentoring within every organized tutor/mentor program. Understanding the different functional roles that need to be filled enables intermediaries, donors and third party supporters help provide this talent, and keep it in place for many years.

I want to end with a though that addresses the talent and manpower needs within the youth serving world. I encourage you to view this presentation and think of how veterans could fill many slots, in many different tutor/mentor programs, and how other veterans working in various industries and professions could support them on an on-going basis.

Citywide Youth Supports Infrastructure - a Jobs Creation Strategy? by Daniel F. Bassill

As planners look for ideas the articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 and the ideas I share in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site and library offer an extensive source for deeper learning and inspiration. Building a network of mentor-rich, Total Quality, youth serving organizations that reach youth in all poverty areas of big urban areas like the Chicago region, offers job and career opportunities for thousands of veterans, while also providing a support system that helps more youth move from poverty neighborhoods into a wide range of jobs and careers, including careers in the military.

This year's Veteran's Day celebration is over.  I hope you'll spend time over the next 12 months looking at this and other ideas for ways veterans can continue to serve and make a difference in the world.

If this article resonates with you, please visit my FUNDME page and make a contribution to help me keep sharing stories like this, while also maintaining the resources on the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC's web sites. 

Best Memorial. Make a Better World for All

I spent three years in the US Army from 1968 to 1971, following my graduation from college. I was no hero. I was lucky not to be in a combat zone. I was fortunate to spend time in Baltimore, Washington, DC and in Seoul, South Korea, where I expanded my understanding of the world.

When I returned from South Korea, with my tour of active duty completed, I spent six months working at the Woolco department store in the DeKalb, Illinois area, then came into Chicago and joined the Montgomery Ward company as a retail advertising copywriter.  Over the following 17 years I rose through the ranks and held various management roles in the advertising department between 1980 and 1990.

Leo & Dan - circa 1974

Shortly after joining Wards I was recruited to be part of the company sponsored, volunteer-led, tutoring program that connected employee volunteers with 2nd to 6th grade kids living in the Cabrini Green housing complex, which was located near the Wards headquarters complex where I worked.

I was assigned to work with a 4th grade boy named Leo, and at the end of the first year his mother said to me "He talks about you all the time. You've got to tutor him again next year." I did, and we've stayed connected for the past 45 years.

I've given this 'get involved"
message every year since 1975

At the end of my first year I was also recruited to be part of the committee of volunteers who led the program, then the next year, I was tapped to be the leader. I held that role until 1992 when I and a few others left the original program and formed a new program  (Cabrini Connections) to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have a support system that helped them from 7th grade through high school and beyond.  I led that until 2011.

As we were launching the new kids program a 2nd grade boy named Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in Cabrini Green and the media headlines were demanding that "everyone take responsibility".  I had been building a list of Chicago non-school tutor/mentor programs since becoming a leader in 1975, using it to invite peers to connect and share ideas on a regular basis, so I knew that no one had a master database of existing programs, thus, no one could lead an on-going communications effort intended to help great tutor/mentor programs reach k-12  youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

So, as we created the new kids program we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  The graphic below visualizes our local commitment to youth in one program and our global commitment to help youth connect with volunteers in other programs throughout Chicago.

I started trying to find ways of using maps in 1993

Over the past 25 years I've continued to lead that effort, with various degrees of success in different years, and also with an on-going series of set-backs and struggles, that ultimately led to the creation of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011, and a decline in what I've been able to accomplish in the years since then. 

Yet, I still maintain a web library and use my blog and newsletters weekly to draw attention to this information and try to motivate others to take meaningful, on-going roles, in helping youth tutor/mentor programs grow in multiple locations.

I created this concept map to show milestones from 1992 through 2017.  In the upper left corner you can find this link, showing milestones from 1965 to 1992.

1990-present time line - open map

 The goal of this work has been to help well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school youth programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities around the country. The strategy applies to rural areas and reservations, too, but with different challenges driven by the size of the geography and the low density of the population and pool of potential volunteer mentors.

I'm writing this the day before Veteran's Day, or Armistice Day, which celebrates the end of World War 1, and the sacrifices service men and women have made in all wars.  I've posted Veteran's Day themed articles most years on this blog. They all focus on what we can do to honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in foreign wars, from many countries, not just the USA.

I have received various awards and recognition for my years of service, ranging from the Army Commendation Medal in 1975 to an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan in 2001. 

However, the best reward is the "thank you's" I've received, such as this, and this, from kids and volunteers.

I don't find many people who have been in leadership roles at youth tutor/mentor programs for as long as I have been. I find even fewer who have spent as much time every week for 25 years or longer to help youth tutor/mentor and learning programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago or any other place in the country, or the world using the four part strategy I have piloted since 1993.

I keep looking for such people. I also keep looking for a benefactor who will recognize my efforts and provide more than a "thank you" to help me upgrade everything I've been doing, while embedding the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute in one or more  universities and/or think tanks.

Thus, this is my Veteran's Day 2018 message:

Remembering the sacrifices of those who have given their lives, bodies, spirits and loved ones to this country can be best done by making daily commitments to actions that reduce poverty, strife, inequality, conflict and destruction of Mother Earth and other forms of life.

I hope you've read this and will share it with others as you do your own remembrance.

Here's my FUNDME page. I hope you will help me continue doing this work. 

Thanks to Veterans for your past, and future, service

These are a couple of guys I served with when I was in the US Army and stationed in South Korea during 1970-71.  Prior to that I spent a year in Washington, DC in an Army language school, then 9 months in Baltimore at an Army Military Intelligence training school. Before that I did my basic training, starting in Nov. 1968, at Ft. Polk, Louisiana.

I met some great guys, from many different backgrounds, at each of these postings. I kept contact with some for many years after leaving the Army, but in the past few years I've not had contact with any of them.

This was home while I was in South Korea. It had no  insulation so during the winter I used the holiday cards people sent me to cover seams in the walls to keep the cold out. 

While I was stationed about 30 miles from the demilitarized zone, I never was in much danger while in the service.  My greatest fears came in my first couple of years as I wondered if I'd be sent to Viet Nam, where the dangers were far, far greater.

I had majored in history while in college at Illinois Wesleyan, so being part of Military Intelligence was a natural progression for me. In both situations you're collecting best available information and using it to support decisions and problem solving. Maps are a vital tool in this process.

I've applied that thinking for the past 40 years in my work, but as a retail advertising writer/manager with the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago, and as a volunteer tutor/mentor and program leader, starting in 1973 and continuing through 2011.

I have also applied that thinking in the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I formed in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, which I formed in 2011,  with the goal of helping high quality, mentor-rich, non-school youth programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago.

For the past three year's I've used this graphic in blog articles (click here) that invited veterans, and active duty military, to get involved and support the work I'm doing.  The planning skills military leaders develop could be applied in any city to support a T/MC type structure.  The leadership skills officers and NCOs learn would make them excellent mentors, tutors and program leaders.  The network of military men and women would provide a rich support system for those who get directly involved.

As we honor veterans and their memory, let's give time to think of the men and women who served in the Armies of other nations. I took this photo in 1970, at the South Korean Military Memorial Cemetery.  I hope our leaders think of these lives as they talk about taking the US into new wars around the globe. 

War on Poverty Enters New Stage - War on Freedom

A few years ago I wrote an article titled "War on Poverty" and created the graphic shown below to show the steps needed to fight this battle. I  put it in a PDF posted on Scribd.com  An intern from IIT and South Korea, later created this video, showing these steps.

I used the graphic in this in a "Veteran's Day" article last November, calling on veterans to help me develop this strategy and to lead it in Chicago and other cities.

Now that the shock of the Trump election victory is beginning to receed, the need to strategically mobilize to protect American freedoms and identify and address the needs of people who are suffering in zip codes throughout the United States, and the world, is more acute than ever.

I attended an Afterschool Conference a couple of weeks ago, and met a few people and exchanged business cards, as I do almost every week. This morning I sent this follow up email.

We met at lunch during the Afterschool Conference. While I hope you've found time to browse my web sites, I'm writing to follow up.

I have been building an on-line library of information since 1998, which I started collecting in the 1970s and 80s while leading a non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from the Montgomery Ward corporate headquarters in Chicago.

The goal is to gather people from all parts of the Chicago region in on-going learning that results in more consistent efforts to help mentor-rich, total quality, non-school learning programs be available to k-12 youth in every poverty zip code of the Chicago region, so those programs have the talent, volunteers, ideas and dollars needed to build and sustain long-term connections that help kids through school and into adult lives.

Many focus on the same goals, but most do so with too few resources, and in limited networks and silos. Thus, as I build and share my library, I'm also pointing to strategies used in some places to connect groups of people with each other in on-line learning, which can be duplicated in Chicago.

I use concept maps to show my library. I hope you'll take some time to view this map, and each of the four sections. http://tinyurl.com/TMI-library

I use a monthly newsletter to draw attention to this information and to draw volunteers and donors directly to tutor/mentor programs in my database. Here's the latest. http://tutormentorconference.org/newsletters/TMI_Oct-Nov2016.htm

I'd be happy to meet with any of you, or any others, to provide a tour of the resources that are freely available to you. Just email to suggest a time and place. I also encourage you to sign up for the newsletter.

As of Tuesday we enter a very dark journey in our city and country's history. We need to find ideas and supporters who will help us, and the kids we work with, through this journey.

I look forward to connecting with you and your networks.

I share this introduction and invitation with anyone who is concerned with the direction this country is headed, and who already has been working to correct some of the inequalities and injustices that were poorly addressed in this campaign season....by both parties.

Below is one of many presentations that I've created to introduce the work I've been doing, with scarce and limited resources, for the past 20 years.

Intro to Tutor/Mentor Institute - Version 1 by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

I look forward to connecting with you in a one-on-one, or on-line group or future conference.

Daniel F. Bassill, D.H.L.
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com
https://tutormentorexchange.wordpress.com/
Connect with me in any of these social media spaces. click here.

Calling all Veterans. Be part of War on Poverty

I spent three years in the Army in the late 1960s, serving in Military Intelligence. I'd studied history in college prior to joining the Army, so I understood the role of collecting best available information for leaders to use in making decisions. Over the past 40 years I've amassed a large web library, that anyone can use to build and sustain volunteer-based programs reaching k-12 youth living in high-poverty areas of big cities.

It's Veteran's Day, so I'm calling on Veterans and active duty service men and women to use the skills they have learned to support an "intelligence-based" effort that fills high poverty areas with needed programs, and helps each program get the on-going flow of resources each needs to constantly improve their ability to help youth overcome the challenges of poverty as they move through school and into adult lives.

This map visualizes this process. You can find an explanation of the graphic here, and here.

On the right hand side of this graphic I emphasize the use of maps. Unless leaders use maps to show all of the places within an urban area where poverty is concentrated, and where other indicators show a need for extra support, it's likely that strategies will only reach a few places, not every place where help is needed.

Step 7, on the far left, is equally important. Unless we focus on ways to build and sustain public support for this strategy, the flow of resources to all of the programs that need to be involved will be too small and or discontinued too soon. I wrote an article about building public will recently. I hope you'll look at it.

Steps 2 through 6 are on-going, but they involved building a deeper understanding of the complex challenges of reaching youth in all parts of a geographic region with a wide range of supports that help them move through school and into adult lives. This deeper learning extends far beyond understanding how to be a tutor or mentor, or how to organize and lead a youth serving organization.

I encourage you to look at this graphic which shows that affluent people face many of the same challenges as people living in high poverty.

In this book titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis", Robert Putnam, see my article, shows that kids living in affluent communities have many more resources available to help them and their families overcome their challenges. Youth living in high poverty communities not only have extra challenges, but have far fewer resources to help them and their families overcome those challenges.

When I describe a Total Quality Mentoring program, I'm thinking of programs where some volunteers take on many roles beyond acting as a tutor or mentor. This PDF focuses on the extra roles volunteers might take to help youth and families overcome more of the challenges shown on the graphic above. There is no limit to what things a team of planners might look at.

TQM programs are learning organizations where youth, volunteers, staff and leaders are constantly reading research and looking at work being done in other programs, with a goal of constantly innovating ways to help youth stay in school and move toward jobs, which means they also are looking for ways to engage a wider range of volunteers who can model different types of careers, and who can open doors to part time jobs, internships, vocational training and college as youth grow up. A TQM program offers a network of support, via the Internet, that can last a lifetime. A TQM program also shares its own ideas, strategies and challenges on its own web site so others can learn from them while they are learning from others.

I don't know how many programs in Chicago, or around the country, actually fit this TQM Program description, and have never had the manpower to do the on-going searching to find out which programs already operating in Chicago have the vision and strategy that heads them in this direction. It's the type of program I led between 1993 and 2011.

Understanding where services are needed, and what types of services need to be available within a geographic area is one challenge that planners and "intelligence gatherers" need to focus on. However, another challenge is to understand the infrastructure that is needed to support effective on-going learning and mentoring within every organized tutor/mentor program. Understanding the different functional roles that need to be filled enables intermediaries, donors and third party supporters help provide this talent, and keep it in place for many years.

Since this is Veteran's Day I want to end with a though that addresses the talent and manpower needs within the youth serving world. I encourage you to view this presentation and think of how veterans could fill many slots, in many different tutor/mentor programs, and how other veterans working in various industries and professions could support them on an on-going basis.

Citywide Youth Supports Infrastructure - a Jobs Creation Strategy? by Daniel F. Bassill

As planners look for ideas the articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 and the ideas I share in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site and library offer an extensive source for deeper learning and inspiration. Building a network of mentor-rich, Total Quality, youth serving organizations that reach youth in all poverty areas of big urban areas like the Chicago region, offers job and career opportunities for thousands of veterans, while also providing a support system that helps more youth move from poverty neighborhoods into a wide range of jobs and careers, including careers in the military.

As you celebrate Veteran's Day I hope you'll spend time looking at this and other ideas for ways veterans can continue to serve and make a difference in the world.

Veterans Summit - Ideas

On Friday I attended a summit titled "Chicago Mayoral Candidates Veterans' Summit." The invitation said, "Together the Teamsters Military Assistance Program and Veterans Housing and Employment Assistance, NFP have joined with so many veterans leaders and cordially invite YOU to participate in a Veterans summit. Our Summit will be a driving force to demonstrate the 2015 Chicago Mayoral candidates responsibility to us."

When I attend meetings, conferences, etc. I am constantly taking notes on what I'm hearing, but also visualizing how this fits with my own efforts, questions I have about what's being said, and opportunities for the future. I've countless files and binders with these notes. Some times I convert some of my ideas into new graphics, and blog articles. You can see an example here.

This time I'm trying something different. I scanned my raw notes into a PDF and uploaded them to my GoogleDrive. You can see them here. If you view these, you'll see on page one, a graphic similar to the one at the left. I see the role of the organizers and partners in yesterday's meeting, as intermediaries who are trying to connect people who can help with veterans, and places who are helping veterans and their families.

If that's the case, creating a structure similar to what I've been building, which I describe below, would support their efforts.

Tutor/Mentor Institute - Learning Network Strategy by Daniel F. Bassill

This PDF describes this graphic.

Since this group is composed of veterans, I feel many would relate to this graphic, and the problem solving strategy it visualizes. Visit this page and see how an intern created a video to share these ideas. Youth working with veterans could be helping communicate their ideas and strategies.

Step 7 focuses on building public commitment to generate long term support for efforts that are distributed across many organizations, in many places, for many years. This article on network building emphasizes how much the Veterans' community, and others, such as the tutor/mentor community, need to build growing support for their efforts. One of the panel members talked about how the 40 people in the room represented almost 60,000 total supporters. The 600-700 visitors to my blog each month represent many thousands more.

I've already sent a follow up to a couple of the panel members and hope that other veterans who read this article will want to help me in my efforts, and help the veterans community in what I feel is an equally important effort.

I've used this graphic often to show how communities need to support youth living in high poverty, or without enough family support, as the move from birth to adult lives and careers. I feel that if the veterans' community were to embrace this they could be building networks of support for youth before they enter the military that would already be in place as they leave their service.

I look forward to sharing my ideas and helping the veterans community because they will be helping me in my efforts if they adopt these ideas.

Veteran's War on Poverty Continues

This is me, in the fall of 1968 during basic training at Ft. Polk, LA which was the home of infantry being trained to go to Viet Nam.

Lucky for me, I joined the Army in the summer of 1968 after getting a degree in history from Illinois Wesleyan University. I enlisted with a guarantee to be trained to be a SPY! Instead of the infantry I went into Army Intelligence.

I spent a year in Baltimore and Washington, DC and then a year in Korea. It expanded my vision of the world and set the groundwork for what I've been doing in the 40 years since then. I was one of the fortunate ones who did not get wounded or killed by the conflict in Viet Nam.

In 2001 I was given an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan, in recognition of the work I had been doing to help inner-city youth connect with tutors/mentors and experiences beyond the high poverty neighborhoods they were living in.

This work has continued to develop over the past 10 years even as the resources to do it has continued to shrink. I've combined my passion for history and my experiences in Army Intelligence and 17 years of Retail Advertising with the Montgomery Ward Corporation into a market-based strategy aimed at helping mentor-rich non-school organizations reach youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

This is one of the graphics I've created to illustrate the ideas I'm sharing. In the military every General knows that the troops in the field are only as strong as the supply chain that makes sure they are well trained, well armed and well fed...and in the right location. See the story I wrote about this in June 2008.

In business leaders use this thinking all the time to put stores in places where customers can easily reach them. They make sure stores have well-trained staff, merchandise that people want, and they use massive advertising to prompt people to shop on a regular basis.

No such system exists in the tutor/mentor world or in most of the social sector. The "intelligence" needed to gather and analyze data about what programs exist and where they are needed is not funded in any consistent way. The work needed to train young people to be leaders of tutor/mentor programs is not being done at any major college (that I know of). The millions of dollars of advertising needed to draw volunteers and donors to individual programs on a regular basis does not exist.

Thus, the battle-plan needed to win the "war on poverty" is still needed in cities throughout the world.

I would like to encourage Veterans and those who support our men and women in service to spend time today reflecting on what I've just written. Do you have a "battle plan" to reach youth in your community with long-term, mentor-rich programs that assure that more of them will be in jobs and careers and capable of adult responsibilities by the time they are in their mid to late 20s?

Who is doing the "intelligence" gathering for you? Who is doing the advertising? Who is paying for this?