Invitation to Universities any where in the world

As school is starting for another year, millions of people are starting another round of conversations that loosely could be titled "How do we motivate kids to learn?", or, "What role does my organization have in helping kids from poverty reach jobs and careers?"

If you're one of those people, or if you know someone who is thinking about these questions, please consider my introduction and invitation:

I am president of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), based in Chicago. The T/MC was started by a small non profit called Cabrini Connection, back in 1993. I've provided web links below that I hope you'll visit to learn more about our work and our history.

I'm also a Commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, so while my primary focus is increasing volunteer based tutoring/mentoring in Illinois, my ideas apply to increasing effective volunteerism and service in all parts of Illinois.

For the past 30 years I've been accumulating knowledge and experience about how to connect workplace volunteers and inner city kids in long-term mentoring relationships that transform the lives of both youth and adults. Since I learned how to put information on the Internet in 1998, I've been putting my knowledge on T/MC web sites, so that others could learn from me. I've also been building a library of web links, that connect visitors to the knowledge of other people who are concerned with poverty and workforce development, and education and diversity. Thus, visitors to our web site can learn from many people, not just from me.

I've been reaching out all over the world looking for colleges that might take a role in helping to facilitate the use of this knowledge among students and alumni.

The goal of such programs is teach students and graduates to be leaders of programs that connect workplace adults with, knowledge, with peers, with resources, and with inner-city kids in long-term tutoring/mentoring strategies that lead kids into jobs/careers by age 25.

While we lead one program with this strategy (Cabrini Connections), we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help every tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the resources (volunteers, leaders, dollars, training, technology, etc.) that would enable them to grow in their ability to mentor kids to careers. Through the Internet, this now helps people all over the world.

In the Tutor/Mentor Connection portal (http:/www.tutormentorconnection.org) the navigation bar will lead you to a variety of sections that help you understand this strategy and that help people connect with programs, with information, and with each other in an on-going process aimed at helping every youth born in poverty today be starting a job/career by age 25.

I encourage you to visit the Program Locator section and see how we're using GIS maps and a searchable database to help people understand where programs are needed, and where existing programs are located.

I also encourage you to visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute section and read some of the power point essays. They not only illustrate our role, but they illustrate the role that companies or business associations can take to lead strategies that engage their employees in volunteerism, and in strategies that create future employees and customers.

Among the power point essays you can see a few that show how this might take shape in a university, in a hospital, and in the legal community.

You'll see that our web sites have a ton of information and that some sections focus on elearning, collaboration and innovation. If you think of our web sites as our Bible, or a Curriculum, then our goal is to help groups of people read and reflect on sections of this information on a weekly basis.

If learners tie this reading and reflection into their volunteerism, philanthropy and direct service, then each time they meet with a youth in a volunteer program, the information in the T/MC portal will become more relevant and important to them. As they become an advocate for the kids they personally get to know, some will use their talent, leadership, and wealth (obtained as they grow older) to build the infrastructure needed to help every kid in the Chicago region (or any other city) get more of the support they need to go up the pipeline into a career.

The reason I am looking for university partners is that this information needs to be packaged in a 4 to 6 year curriculum where students learn through regular classwork, and through a variety of internships, service-learning, work-study and volunteer activities. I believe that if a university adopted this as a curriculum, its graduates would soon be in demand from volunteer based programs in all parts of the country.

Furthermore, I believe that alumni who don't go into direct service, but go into industry and professions, would become leaders in workplace and government strategies that PULL kids to careers, using their employees, dollars and jobs as resources. If we can teach people to take that leadership role, we can make a huge impact on how successful non profits are in getting the resources they need to successfully do their work.

My organization is too small to do this. Universities are already doing some of this, but I've not found one who expresses the mentoring-to-career strategy, or the citywide support strategy, that we outline at the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Thus, this offers a teaching opportunity for anyone who might want to take this on.

While we host an Internet strategy, we also host a November and May Leadership and Networking Conference (http://www.tutormentorconference.org) to share these ideas and to enable other tutor/mentor leaders to network and share their own vision for how to help kids to careers. Colleges have provided space for these conferences since 1994, which has enabled us to keep the costs low.

I'm looking for a host for the November 2005 conference. If you're interested in talking about the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a strategic partner, you also might want to consider hosting the conference.

Once you've had a chance to browse the web site, I hope you'll want to meet to learn more about what we're doing and ways we might integrate what we're doing with some of the goals of your university. Furthermore, I hope you'll want to discuss how the strategies of the T/MC could increase support for all steams of volunteerism, not just tutoring/mentoring.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you'll forward it to others who might be interested.

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections (1992-2011)
Tutor/Mentor Connection (1992-present)

Commissioner
Illinois Commission on Volunteerism
and Community Service

http://www.tutormentorconnection.org
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com

(2016 note: this blog has been edited to  update web sites to current locations)

Missing the Tutor Connection, guest message from Rey Carr, Ph.D.

From Rey Carr, Ph.D. hosts a comprehensive peer mentoring and coaching resource at http://www.peer.ca/peer.html.

Below is the Letter to Editor that Rey sent to the Chicago Tribune following a story and editorial about the No Child Left Behind tutoring in Chicago. Rey sent this to the T/MC with the note, "They didn't contact me to verify, so I suppose it did not get accepted." I offered to post the letter here, as I do with many of my own letters that do not get printed in the Chicago papers.

Thanks Ray, for sharing this.

-------------------------------------

While is was disappointing to learn about the meager results of the
Chicago Public Schools tutoring efforts ("Has tutoring worked?"
August 12, 2005), it was also predictable. The No Child Left Behind
law is wreaking havoc for students across the Nation. It clearly
fails to address root causes of low or poor academic achievement and
gives for-profit businesses an opportunity to skim money from
taxpayers.

Poverty is the primary cause for poor school achievement. And I mean
both financial and relationship poverty. The Chicago Public Schools
study of tutoring might have shown different results had they
compared their No Child Left Behind Act tutoring ventures with the
non-profit, community-based, city-wide tutoring relationship services
facilitated by the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This organization
recognizes that building a relationship with a young person is
essential to the success of tutoring. By combining academic
assignments with social and interpersonal support, this kind of
tutoring has much greater success.

By agreeing with the Federal government to restrict teacher
involvement in tutoring, the Chicago Public Schools is cutting out
those individuals who recognize the importance of
relationship-building as an antidote to the power of poverty to limit
academic achievement. In addition, the schools need to build and
strengthen student-to-student peer tutoring as a way to add further
support for achievement. Without attending to relationship poverty,
the tutoring services of the CPS will continue to show dismal results.

Rey Carr, Ph.D.
*******************************************
Peer Resources
Navigation Tools for the Heart, Mind and Soul

Tel: (250) 595-3503
Fax: (250) 595-3504
rcarr@islandnet.com

Jon Bon Jovi and Polo Ralph Lauren want to make volunteerism "hip". New Operating System Needed.

From August 3-6 I attended the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service, held in Washington, DC. I attended wearing my hat of Commissioner for the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service. In that role, I focus on building volunteer recruitment and support strategies that help solve problems in all parts of Illinois. However, I draw from my 30 years of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program when I advocate for a new operating system to support volunteer-based charities.

A new operating system focuses on the infrastructure needed for successful charities. It spreads the responsibility for the success of the non profit organization to all people who benefit. In the current structure the burden for keeping a charity afloat is generally limited to the efforts of the charity and its board of directors. While this works for some programs, it is a poor system to assure an even distribution of critically needed services in all places where they are needed.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), I'm trying to create this new operating system, drawing from the help of volunteers of Cabrini Connections, and a network of other program leaders and stakeholders from throughout Chicago and the rest of the world. I'm trying to create a visual blueprint that identifies all of the things a tutor/mentor program needs to be successful. Since our goal is that our teens are starting jobs/careers by age 25, this infrastructure needs to enable us to provide continuous support to some youth for 10-15 years!

Here are some of the key elements that a new operating system would need to address:

a) development of key staff who treat their work as an avocation, not a job, and who have been trained via college or years of experience in the concepts of Total Quality Mentoring. It took me more than 30 years of leading a tutor/mentor program, plus 17 years of being a national advertising manager in a large retail corporation, to learn what I know. When new people join us they need to have learned this via formal training. It takes too long to learn from on-the-job experiences

b) more consistent public awareness (advertising) - When I was an advertising manager at Montgomery Ward (between 1973 and 1990) I was responsible for drafting an annual ad schedule that provided 3 waves of ads going out each week to nearly 20 million people in 40 states where Montgomery Ward had stores. Each ad had the same goal of drawing customers to stores near them.

Wards spent more than $200 million each year on its national advertising during the 1980s. Charities don't have these type of ad dollars and never will. Thus we need strategies in business, churches, colleges and professional groups, and among media and celebrities, that use their resources to build on-going visibility for volunteer-based charities. Jon Bon Jovi was a speaker at last week's conference on volunteerism. Just recently he helped organize the Live8 Concert. We need more people to do what he's doing. Someone needs to be doing a Live8 type event every day! However, we also need to teach leaders and celebrities to put links on their web sites that point potential volunteers and donors to volunteer centers so that they can find the programs that are looking for help.

c) flexible funding - if we cannot find the funds to create decent working conditions and to recruit and retain highly motivate and skilled people, we'll end with high turn over, which works against the first objective of retaining key staff. Instead of every tutor/mentor program in the city constantly searching for funds, we need to develop business type advertising strategies that motivate donors to seek out programs on a more consistent basis. One strategy is to find a way to put tutor/mentor programs in workplace fund raising campaigns. Another is find ways to increase planned giving bequests to tutor/mentor programs, or to organizations like the Chicago Bar Association's Lend A Hand Program, which distributes grants to tutor/mentor programs.

d) talent volunteers - one of the workshops at the National Conference focused on the concept of Talent Volunteers. The presenters showed how most volunteer recruitment advertising focuses on the soft side of volunteerism. This conveys a message that you either become a tutor/mentor or do some other form of hands-on project, or you don't volunteer. While we need dedicated people to volunteer time as tutors/mentors, we also need people to volunteer time as accountants, planners, communicators, tech support, fund raisers, etc. If we can recruit more people to help build the infrastructure of tutor/mentor programs we can expand the support for staff, students and volunteers and come closer to achieving our goals. Imagine the National Mentoring Month campaign being "Who built your web site? instead of "Who mentored you?"

e) elearning/collaboration mentality - there is so little time to network and learn from others, yet is it this process of constantly learning from others that leads to on-going quality improvement. Very few organizations are building this into their strategy. While there were over 2,000 people in Washington last week, most of us only met a few of these people, or attended a few of the workshops being offered. I was in a forum hosted by David Eisner, President of the Corporation for National Service, and Bob Goodwin, President of the Points of Light Foundation. While a few people got to ask questions, most did not. If the discussion had also had an internet component, such as at http://www.techsoup.org or http://www.digitaldivide.net, many of us could have continued to ask questions and network with each other in the weeks and months after the conference. Until we learn to link the Internet with our face-to-face strategies, we will not maximize the potential we have to mobilize the army of volunteers, and donors, who are needed to solve problems and strengthen America.

f) spatial thinking - we need to teach people to use maps to show all of the places in big cities like Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located. Without the map most cities focus on just a few programs, or a few neighborhoods. This means most kids do not have access to services and most programs are constantly struggling to stay in business. We also need charts and blueprints that show all of the different ways volunteers can be involved in a charity, and the continuous support kids need, from many people, to be starting jobs and careers by age 25.

While I share this information with tutor/mentor leaders around the country, I also share it with the volunteers in the tutor/mentor program I lead in Chicago (http://www.cabriniconnections.net). Many of the volunteers we recruited for Cabrini Connections between 1993 and today have offered time and talent and treasure to help us build the services we offer through the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If volunteers from one small program can have this much of an impact, my belief is that hundreds of volunteers from dozens of connected programs can have an even greater impact. My goal is that other volunteer-based organizations adopt this "we" instead of me strategy. It's the only way we will ever get enough people together to build the better operating system that I dream of.

While one of the featured speakers at the National Conference was Jon Bon Jovi, another was David Lauren of http://www.polojeans.com. Both men talked about making volunteerism "hip". Bon Jovi said it was his goal to make volunteerism "the new Black". Polo Jeans has launched a product and ad campaign that converts this vision to action. I went back to Chicago and told my daughter that she could buy her Back to School Jeans at Polo, even though they might cost more, because I want to support this campaign. That's the only way we can motivate hundreds of other companies to duplicate the thinking behind this campaign.

These are all just my opinions. We're trying to make this vision a reality through the work we do in the Tutor/Mentor Connection and at Cabrini Connections. If you agree with these opinions, join us. If you disagree, post your ideas on a web site and let us take a look at your strategy. We can improve what we do if we can learn from you. You can improve what you do if you can learn from us and from other organizations that operate the same way. If you know of other companies who are even more effective than Polo Jeans in making volunteerism "hip" and in drawing attention to volunteer-based organizations, please add the web site link to the new Tutor/Mentor Connection portal.

Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection

Serve Communities. Solve Problems. Strengthen America.

This has been the goal of the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service which I'm attending in Washington, DC. Today was the second full day.

My first session was a briefing on goals by David Eisner, CEO for the Corporation for National Service (CNS) and Bob Goodwin, CEO and President, Points of Light Foundation.

Eisner talked about a new 5 year strategic plan for CNS and Goodwin outlined the key focus areas of Points of Light. These were a) build public awareness of the benefits of service; b) help build infrastructure through which service is delivered; c) collect and share knowledge about what works. These points resonated with me. Maybe its because they are the same goals we have for strengthening volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

This was a pretty open session and many participants were able to make comments or ask questions. When it came my turn, I asked when they would host versions of this type of CEO interaction on the Internet where more people could ask questions and interaction one on one with the leader of the organization, or with each other.

It's not in the pipeline yet, but my question prompted one of the other participants to say "lets talk". This turned out to be Billy Bicket from www.techsoup.org. We spent more than an hour exchanging ideas, with lots of scribbled designs on paper and a commitment to look for ways where our organizations might collaborate.

That was my goal in coming to DC in the first place. Meet people, get good ideas, build collaboration.

Today's lunch was a general session dedicated to recognizing corporations for the good work they do to support volunteerism and service. The featured speaker was David Lauren, Sr. Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications for Polo Ralph Lauren. While we expected another corporate self promotion, this was the real deal. I urge you all to visit www.polojeans.com and learn about The G.I.V.E. Jean. Yesterday Jon Bon Jovi said he wanted to make volunteerism hip. Polo Ralph Lauren is putting this vision into action.

I networked with a variety of other corporate and volunteerism leaders this afternoon, but the focus of all of my efforts were to show people how they could use the good ideas they learned from the companies like Polo Ralph Lauren, to motivate businesses in their own communities to duplicate these ideas in support of local charities. Buy G.I.V.E Jeans this fall and you'll send a convincing message to other companies that marketing volunteerism is good for the community, and good for the company.

In a few days I'll add links at www.tutormentorexchange.net to the various companies who received awards this week so that these can be used as models in local corporate involvement campaigns. If you know of other companies that are as innovative as Polo, send details and a web site to me or tell me by posting a comment on this blog.

I'll be back in Chicago late tomorrow where I'll also be trying to use these good ideas to create greater support for tutor/mentor programs and other volunteer-based charities in Illinois.

"If you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you got." Robert Woodson, Sr.

Today was the official opening of the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service and the kick off featured a string of high profile people, including the rock star, Jon Bon Jovi. To me the highlight was the speech by Robert Woodson, Sr, who is founder and president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE) https://nationalcne.org/

Woodson's speech was introduced by a young man who had his life turn around thanks to Bob Woodson. The young man said "He was sent to me from Heaven. What I owe him is for me to stay on the straight and narrow path."

Mr. Woodson's speech lived up to this introduction and if any reader ever gets a chance to hear him, take the opportunity. Woodson started off saying, "Those of us in the trenches fighting forces of evil have made a public commitment. We do not serve youth out of compassion, but of Godly obligation." That's a powerful statement.

He went on to say "Give me strength to tell and pursue the truth, even when it is inconvenient to me." Then he said, "Self examination and self-criticism is the highest form of maturity."

All of this was meant to challenge us to search our soul for why we do what we do, and to not be settled for the easy solution. I find that the biggest obstacle I face in approaching businesses, universities and foundations is that they are so invested in what they are already doing that they are not sitting back to see if that is enough, or if that is all they could be doing.

Mr. Woodson's speech was preceded by comments by Anthony Williams, Mayor of Washington, DC, Marsha Bullard, CEO of USA Weekend Magazine and Cokie Roberts of ABC NEWS and NPR. Ms. Roberts said "business is making volunteerism a "core business function". While that may be true, I'm not sure if business is maximizing the impact of volunteers. One of the later workshops talked about "talent recruitment", which meant searching beyond one-on-one volunteers for talented people in a company who can perform many important roles in a volunteer organization.

The final remarks were from Jon Bon Jovi, who seeks to "give back to people who have given so much to him". Bon Jovi wants to make volunteerism 'hip'. He said "I want volunteerism to be the new 'black'"

Later in the day I attended two workshops. One focused on recruiting volunteers for more roles than direct service with kids. This was a valuable workshop because it highlighted an important marketing issue. Most ad campaigns like national mentoring month, or the America's Promise campaigns focus on the act of mentoring a kid. I've felt for a long time that this gave the volunteer an 'all or nothing' proposition. For those who could not mentor, there were no other options. This workshop confirmed that and said that companies and non profits should target talented volunteers who can serve other roles. Imagine if in stead of "Who mentored You" the slogan for the 2006 National Mentoring Month Campaign was "who built your web site?"

I ended the day by visiting the trade fair. I ran into four people who I'd gotten to know over the internet and met for the first time today. Two were with Business Strengthening America, one was Adam Aberman of www.icouldbe.org, and one was Kristi Zappie-Ferradino of the National Mentoring Partnership. It was electric when I introduced myself to each of these people and they recognized me as someone they had come to know via internet conversations.

Hopefully some of the people I met will continue to connect with me and others in internet forums that bring us back together in the next few weeks and months. If that happens we'll be more likely to put the commitment of a Robert Woodson to work in more places.

See you tomorrow.

Tribute to Harris Wofford; First Day of National Conference on Volunteerism

I'm posting this message from Washington, DC where the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service is being held. I'm a Commissioner for the Illinois Commission and was able to get a scholarship to attend.

Tonight was a dinner sponsored by the America's Service Commissions. I sat at a table with representatives from Ford Motor Co., America's Promise, and leaders of the Ohio, Michigan and California Commissions. I think a leader from Campfire Girls and City Year was also at our table.

The event honored the lifetime leadership of Harris Wofford. There were too many good things said about his lifetime of service and commitment to volunteerism, but here were a few:

David Eisner, CEO for Corporation for Volunteerism and Community Service, reads some quotes that originated with Senator Wofford.
- What mattered most were his actions. The way he turned words into deeds."
- We can solve our most serious problems by working together"
- Someone called Harris "GUMP" because he was in the middle of so many important things

Rober Goodwin, CEO Points of Light said of Harris, "he's always drinking in knowledge and always sharing what he knows"

Melinda Hudson of America's Promise read a list of five challenges attributed to Harris' vision about a person's potential to change his/her community
- be about something bigger than yourself
- never stop asking questions; be creative and curious
- collaborate, synthesize; never go alone (down with turf, up with e pluribus unium)
- never give up on the dream
- it is up to us

Harris Wofford spoke after all of these tributes and started his comments with
"this reminds me of the story about Mrs. Astor on the Titanic. Her last words as an iceberg crusher her cabin were, "I asked for ice water, but this is ridiculous."

He finished with this thought: "When I wake up every morning I have to decide if this is a day I want to save the world, or a day I want to enjoy it."

That's a good thought to go to bed on. Tomorrow will be a full day of networking with volunteers from throughout the country.

A tutor/mentor program is a place where idealism meets reality. Day 2 at o-net.

I was only able to attend the O-net conference for half a day Saturday. However, I read through all of the summary reports and blogs this morning. I hosted a conversation on Saturday, focused on creating a group of active o-net members who work to draw people from universities into o-net conversations, with the goal of recruiting resources to support o-net projects.

As I said after Friday's day-long session, I'm really impressed with the talent of the people who are participating in the conference, and who have posted introductions at www.omidyar.net. One person I talked to yesterday was a PhD student at Purdue, who is organizing information intended to be used to help connect people doing good work with resource providers. Another person was a technologist who had great ideas of creating alternative currencies that would encourage people to share talent with each other. A third was a women with an idea of creating visual databases to map assets.

I was really inspired by the Peace Tiles project. I hope we can duplicate this in Chicago tutor/mentor programs and connect our kids with kids in African and on other continents.

When I read one of the blogs, one person was questioning whether or not O-net was just a lot of talk, or if it was stimulating action (providing resources for O-net members to do their various projects). I'm hoping that my participation accelerates the rate at which people help each other, or draw new resources into o-net that end up helping members of the community do their work.

However, until this happens it is idealism within a world where the daily papers remind us of reality. A few weeks ago I did a Mind Map of the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Today I did another. I found a really great story written by Mary Schmich, one of my favorite writers, telling how people had responded to an earlier story about a computer center in Cabrini-Green being flooded, with all computers destroyed. Because of her first story, people provided new computers, and everything else needed to get this site up and running again. That demonstrates the power of the media.

However, in the same section of the Tribune Metro section was a story about a boy being fatally shot at a playground on the far South side of Chicago. There was another story on the same page about a Muslim teen center re opening, after being closed since 2003. These neighborhoods don't have a feature writer of the Chicago Tribune, or SunTimes, writing regular stories about life in these neighborhoods. Most of the times they get in the news is when something bad happens.

My mind map linked these stories. Every time I read a story about Cabrini-Green, written by Mary Schmich, I just wish she'd end with "and this is just one neighborhood of Chicago where kids live in poverty and need extra help with volunteers, donors, technologist, etc." (and provide a link to web sites that people could use to learn about other places where volunteers, donors and technology are needed).

If she and other reporters were doing this regularly, maybe people would have been helping the Muslim teen center get computers, and maybe the boy shot on a playground (or the shooter) would have been inside sitting at a computer rather than out on the street where something terrible happened.

When I sit with my friends at O-net and talk about ideas, it is with an urgency of putting these ideas to work to help more kids in cities like Chicago have safe places where they can gather to learn, be mentored, have access to computers and the world around them. The reality is that while we talk of great ideas, we are losing kids to the streets and to poverty.

Maybe I cannot convince the media to consistently tell the rest of the story when they write their stories about individual tragedies or triumphs, but maybe I can enlist a few technologist at O-Net to help me create a map gallery that would show where negative news happens and where volunteers and donors are needed. If hundreds of friends at communities like o-net were to take on the same goal, we might create a much larger public involvement and flow of resources to every place in the world where good people are trying to do good work to help people who need extra help.

What about you? Can you help?

O-Net Conference in Chicago, day 1

I attended the O-Net conference in Chicago (Oak Park) today. More than 20 people from different parts of the world gathered to brainstorm ideas on how we might work together to make this a better world.

The wonderful thing about this is that up till today, most of the people had never met face to face. They had met in the www.omidyar.net portal. The conference was the result of the efforts of just a few people who said, "let's get together" and who then used the o-net space to plan the entire event, even raising nearly $4,000 to provide scholarships so that seven people could attend, from as far away as Germany!

I met many people who shared exciting ideas and who may someday be partners with the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I even met one person who had come to a Tutor/Mentor Conference many years before. The conference will continue tomorrow, and hopefully on the Internet after that.

I hope that tutor/mentor stakeholders participate, and that some begin to use the new www.tutormentorconnection.org portal as a meeting space where some of them can launch actions that lead to more people coming together to help each other do good.

Thanks gang.

Making connections

Today was a busy day. I hosted a visitor from a mentor program in the UK, who was in Chicago on a Winston Churchill Fellowship. I attended the MY HERO AWARD lunch hosted by the Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Lend-A-Hand Program of the Chicago Bar Association. This recognizes lawyers, judges and law firms for their involvement in tutor/mentor programs. It as are love-fest for Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, the inspiration behind the Lend A Hand, and for mentoring as an activities that enriches all who participate.

Then I met with a guest from Northwestern University who was learning more about volunteer based tutoring. On the Internet if responded to people from Seattle and Kentucky who had contacted me after I was quoted in a news article about youth using the Internet.

These are all connections intended to increase the number of comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the Omidyar.net conference in Chicago and next Thursday and Friday I'll attend the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service in Washington, DC.

My goal from all of these is to find people who'll work together to increase the flow of volunteers and flexible operating dollars to all of the tutor/mentor programs that are now operating in different parts of Chicago, and to groupw who want to start new programs to fill voids where there are no programs.

The Lend A Hand Lunch is an example of how an industry can begin to draw the attention of its members to tutoring/mentoring. The Lend A Hand not only raises visibility. It raises dollars. If such programs duplicate in every industry, and in every major cities, it can lead to a distribution of volunteers from different backgrounds into tutor/mentor programs in every poverty neighborhood, and a flow of resources so that experienced staff is in place to mentor students and volunteers to build long-term, life changing relationships.

I'll post my results, and my observations over the next few days.

No Child Left Behind, what's missing?

It's not too early for American's to be thinking of the 2005-06 school year and efforts that need to be taken to help more kids get the help they need to succeed in school and move on to the next level.

The big attention-getter in inner-city education is the No Child Left Behind law. It's causing schools to set aside money for private tutoring services to provide extra tutoring to kids attending poorly performing schools.

On the surface, this sounds great. But something's missing.

What's missing is a strategy to engage adults beyond the poverty belt in the work of raising kids and preparing them for careers.

There are more than 135,000 school age kids in Chicago who qualify for supplemental tutoring. I'm sure that other big cities have similar numbers. While the number of children receiving these services is growing, it's still far short of where it needs to be, and the quality of the tutoring is suspect in many cases.

However, I'm not here to debate the quality or usefulness of the Supplemental Tutoring Services. My point is that this is not enough.

Supplemental tutoring only focuses on academics. It does not focus on social, emotional, civic engagement, or aspirations or enrichment. It's not a vocational education program aimed to keep teens in school and headed to jobs.

Kids living in areas of high poverty come to school with far fewer learning experiences than do other kids because their families and neighborhoods don't have a wide range of people working in different jobs and careers. Instead, they have a greater number of adults who model illegal work, are ex-convicts, or on welfare. Instead of a network of adults helping kids move to legal careers, just the opposite exists in too many poverty neighborhoods.

Supplemental tutoring does not increase the diversity of adults, or of experiences, available to inner city kids. Thus, volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs that connect youth with volunteers from many work backgrounds, and/or connect kids with arts, technology, literacy, college & career readiness, travel, etc., all offer additional supports that cannot be provided by the neighborhood or the family. In many of these programs kids and adults stay connected for many years. This seldom happens with Supplemental Services or paid tutoring services.

If we accept the value of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, then the next concern should be the availability of such programs for kids of every age group, in every poverty neighborhood. At www.tutormentorexchange.net is a Program Locator that you can search by zip code and age group to determine if tutor/mentor programs are available in a neighborhood of Chicago. In too many cases there are few programs, or the programs that exist only serve small numbers, or are limited in scope.

There's not enough programs.

So, let's go back to the No Child Left Behind law. By only engaging a para-professional tutor to be an additional adult in the life of a child, the system is not strategically trying to expand the resources available by attracting and educating adults from beyond the poverty belt who could be a growing army of tutors/mentors, leaders and advocates. It is not creating a bridge between the workforce and diversity needs of American industry and the kids who need consistent, on-going, long-term help to get to careers.

On July 28th the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association (http://www.lend-a-hand.net) will host a MY HERO Awards event to recognize lawyers, judges and law firms who have become involved in tutor/mentor programs. This is an example of a capacity-expanding event. As lawyers get involved with tutor/mentor programs they are beginning to work collectively to raise new, private-sector money, that can sustain existing programs and help fund new programs.

This is what's missing in the No Child Left Behind Strategy. Their is no attempt to build a bridge between non-poverty and poverty. Their is no recognition that we need to be tutoring and mentoring adults, so they do more of what they need to be doing to make sure every child born in poverty is starting a job/career by age 25. Unless we expand capacity, we don't expand or sustain services.

It's not to late to take action to change this. Anyone can become a foot-soldier to help mobilize more people to be part of tutor/mentor programs as school starts in six to eight weeks. If you'd like help, visit http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and join in the on-line discussion forums.

What's missing does not need to stay missing. It's up to us.

Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Imagine the benefit if business was competing to see who could do the most good for inner city kids and familes.

Yesterday morning (July 5th) I opened a letter from the leader of a program in Lawndale, titled Young Men's Educational Network. His first paragraph said, "It is getting HOT here in Lawndale. And not just the temperature!Yesterday, one young many was killed, and another boy was critically shot. It seems that the heat of summer is often accompanied with increased violence. He went on to say, "I must admit, I don't look forward to summers here in Chicago! Many of the young men in YMEN share my feeling. They don't mind the time off of school, but they understand how easy it is to get into trouble when you have so much empty time on your hands."

Shortly after reading this a teen in the Cabrini Connections program came to the T/MC center and told us that a student who had been part of Cabrini Connections during the 2002 and 2003 school years had been shot in Cabrini-Green.

Thus, I share the feelings of my friend who leads the program in Lawndale. He could have been speaking about any inner-city neighborhood, in Chicago, or New York, Detroit, Dallas, LA. The details would be different. The problem would be the same.

However, this is a year-round problem, not just a summer problem. Tribune articles this past week have reinforced the link between poverty and poorly performing schools. They say that low income kids who are part of schools where most kids are not living in poverty get better grades than the same kids attending high poverty schools. While it would be ideal to think that all 200,000 school age kids in Chicago who live in concentrated poverty could be bussed to some suburban school with open space, it's not realistic. Let's instead talk of ways to make schools in high poverty neighborhoods better. Let's talk about providing alternatives to gangs and street violence.

The Cabrini Connections teen who was shot in Cabrini-Green was Devon Otis. He was with us during his 7th and 8th grade years. We don't know why he stopped coming. He was here more than 83% of the time during his second year. I do wonder if we could have done more to keep him involved with Cabrini Connections. It frustrates me not to havethe resources to do more of the things I know need to be part of the services we offer.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I looked in the news and metro and obituary sections of the two major Chicago papers (Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes) for information about Devon's shooting. Sometimes the papers turn stories like this into headlines, and follow with editorials that shout "Do Something!" Most times a shooting in Chicago gets a small paragraph in the Metro section. For the past two days I found no mention of this shooting.

Maybe the local news media think their readers would rather read about American's being killed in Iraq instead of in American cities. Maybe they don't want to scare the people buying high priced condos near Cabrini Green. Maybe there's just too much of this to report every death with a profile like the ones of soldiers killed in action. If not enough people care about what's going on in our cities, maybe some day they will be breeding grounds for future terrorist. Instead of killing each other.... I hope not. That's why we work so hard to make volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available in inner city neighborhoods.

Programs like Cabrini Connections can expand the network of mentors and learning experiences available to inner-city youth during the non-school hours. But they cannot do this with the type of inconsistent support thatmost of them receive from various funding sources.

This is why I'm proud to have been a partner in the growth of the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association since 1994. The CBA is raising visibility and recruiting volunteers and donors to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region. They don't pick just one program, like some business and professional associations do. They use the T/MC database and maps as a guide for providing support into all neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed.

If we can encourage accountants, engineers, alumni, civic and social groupsto take on the same mission, we can dramatically increase funding for tutor/mentor programs and that will improve the consistency and quality of staffing and services.

The only way this vision will be a reality is that volunteers who are connected with inner city kids, and who are accountants, engineers, lawyers, and members of alumni associations from various colleges, go back to their networks and say "We've got to do something more than what we're already doing."

The purpose of this Blog is to reach out to people who are tutors, mentors, board members in tutor/mentor programs all over the country. We're using our web sites as a meeting place where you can talk about your involvement in a tutor/mentor program, and you can brainstorm ways to make tutor/mentor programs more effective, and more available.

Where can you find more information? Where can you talk about this with peers from Chicago or from other cities? Visit the new T/MC web site, that has been created for us by IUPUI. By mid August this will replace the content at the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site.

Anyone who reads this blog can forward it to people they know who are already involved with tutoring and/or mentoring programs. The links have examples of what some business and professional groups are doing. If more people use the web site, we'll gather additional examples. Then as we point business and professional people to web sites that show what competitors are doing, maybe we'll spark a competitive interest that will encourage others to duplicate the best work being done by others. Imagine the benefit if business was competing to see who could do the most good for inner city kids and families.

When I come to work each morning, I have an "If it is to be, it is up to me" attitude.

I invite you all to take that same ownership approach to making comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs more available to more kids in Chicago and in other major cities.

Daniel F. Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection

An Urgent Call to Action

As we celebrate freedom this weekend and honor the men and women fighting overseas, I hope we'll also honor those who are fighting poverty and terror in America's inner-city neighborhoods.

Below I've posted the first two paragraphs from a call to action article on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site. They state this call to action better than I can.

I hope that after you read this you'll use the links at the left as a path to your own growing involvement in this war on terrorism.
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This Nation must take immediate and decisive action to intervene in the problem of juvenile violence that threatens the safety and security of communities -- and the future of our children -- across the country. Demographic experts predict that juvenile arrests for violent crimes will more than double by the year 2010,1 given population growth projections and trends in juvenile arrests over the past several decades.

There is, however, reason for hope. Juvenile violent crime arrests are increasing, but only a fraction of youth (one-half of 1 percent) is arrested for violent crimes each year. We can interrupt this escalation of violence based on identified positive and negative characteristics -- protective and risk factors -- that are present or lacking in communities, families, schools, peer groups, and individuals. These factors either equip a child with the capacity to become a healthy, productive individual or expose that child to potential involvement in crime and violence. Of equal importance, communities are learning that they can make dramatic changes in delinquency levels by taking steps that successfully reduce the risk factors and strengthen the protective factors in children's lives.

Read the rest of this appeal at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/action/urgent.htm

Increasing visibility without advertising dollars

Last week I did a mind map showing all of the stories in the Chicago Tribune that illustrated how poverty leads to poor school performance, to at-risk behavior and to a greater percent of minority youth going to jail rather than college. I found 18 stories that I could connect as either illustrating the problem or a potential solution.

This week I tried the same thing, but other than a couple of small reports on street violence (a shooting in Chicago that kills two gets less attention than a shooting in Iraq that kills two. Why?), I could not find any.

Yet, during the week there was a full page story about the deplorable conditions of bathrooms in some innercity Chicago schools, which certainly contributes to a lack of focus on learning. The Tribune did not even print the report on segregation released by the Chicago Urban League. The competing Chicago SunTimes devoted 2/3 of a page to this. Of course there also were stories about the Leave No Child Behind tutoring programs.

What this illustrates is a lack of media strategy to use this resource to provide more consistent attention to issues of poverty. We don't see Sears/K-Mart or other retailers in and out of the Sunday paper every week. They know that if they don't keep telling potential customers that they have the products and services people want, when they want them, and at a convenient location, customers will shop some place else when they are looking for these goods or services.

Tutor/Mentor programs and other non profits serving youth in poverty have the same need for weekly advertising that tells what the problem is, and ways cutomers (donors, volunteers, leaders, etc.) can find a way to help at a convenient location.

It might take a stretch to define "convenient" since the poverty neighborhoods of Chicago are so large. However if we can get a potential donor or volunteer to look at a map, many can see that the work in the downtown area but live in the South, West or North suburbs. The train routes go right through the poverty neighborhoods. So do the expressways. That means that if people were to car pool they could meet downtown after work and drive to a tutor/mentor location near an expressway to tutor or mentor before going the rest of the way home.

Or, a company might use T/MC maps to see that they have many business locations in inner city neighborhoods. This could lead to a strategy of providing philanthropy near where a company does business, not just in a few high profile places.

Unless we can increase the number of times we put our call to involvement in front of the public, and our ability to do this more consistently, all of the money that does go into public awareness will not be doing enough.

Our solution is connecting our message delivery with other non profits and with businesses, faith networks and media, and using the Internet to expand the reach and frequency of our message delivery. However, it would be great to see some consistency from media, even if only on web sites, so that every day the news leads people from bad things into a path that leads to good things.

Visit the web links at the left to learn how we're doing this and ways you might get involved.

Record number of ex-convicts return to streets. Two-Thirds will be rearrested within 3 years.

Have you every heard of a concept called mind mapping?

You take a clean sheet of paper and put a circle in the middle. Add a topic, then start brainstorming everything you know. As you think of things, draw spider lines from the circle and write down each idea. As you think of related ideas, add them as lines extending from main thought lines.

Example of mapping media stories, created in 2007

Today I applied this thinking to my Sunday, June 19, Chicago Tribune. One front page article headline was "Record number of ex-convicts return to the streets." As the topic of my mind map I decided to map out all of the articles in today's Tribune that were related to this, or that were offering a strategy to keep youth from prison in the first place, or help them to meaningful jobs after prison so they would be less likely to return. I don't know how to put a graphic on my blog yet, so if you'd like me to fax you my mind map, post a comment below.

I found 18 stories, including two full page advertisements, that I could relate to this topic.

In addition to the front page story, which was followed by two-full inside pages and a map showing that most ex-offenders go into just a few West side and South Side neighborhoods, there were two other stories that I would call "negative news".

For instance, there was a page two story titled, "Happy slap” jobs breed fear, anger" which talked about anti-social behavior associated with working-class youth in Britain’s urban centers." Prime Minster Tony Blair was quoted as saying, “It’s time to reclaim the streets for the decent majority. People are rightly fed up with street corner and shopping center thugs…” I've read similar editorials in Chicago papers over the past 12 years.

There was a page 3 metro story with a headline "3 killed and 4 wounded in weekend shootings." This was not Iraq, this was inner city Chicago.

In the story about ex-offenders, President Bush's 2004 State of the Union speech was quoted. In it he said, “America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”

In same article, Douglas Marlowe, director of the Section on Criminal Justice Research at the Treatment Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, was quoted as saying “All of our solutions have been simplistic.”

That's the problem. Our solutions have been much to simplistic. I seldom see anyone holding up a chart like you can see on the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site, that shows a timeline from birth to a career, with elementary school, middle school, high school, college/vocational training, job, as stages that inner city kids go through. I don't see people showing prison or juvenile detention as just a detour on this journey.

My mind map was not a simplistic drawing. It showed the 18 stories that could have been connected in an editorial or Internet strategy.

If we're going to have a sophisticated strategy we should not just be focusing as prison as the place for "corrections". If you think of the growth of a child from birth to the beginning of a job/career by age 25, a few years in prison or a juvenile detention center could be looked upon as just a detour between birth and a career.

The time before prison should be an opportunity for young people to "get it right the first chance. Most should not need the second chance President Bush calls for. If the country were investing more consistently, and in more places where poverty is the enemy, to make prevention, youth development, education, and career aspirations programs more available, we might not need to be talking about so many people in prison and returning to the streets with no skills and few employers waiting to hire them.

While parents, teachers, social workers, mentors, etc. push kids to stay in school and reach their potential, some kids live in neighborhoods where there are too few people modeling positive aspirations and providing significant support. In these neighborhoods business needs to be more involved, using its people, dollars, jobs, youth apprentice and vocational education programs to influence choices kids make, starting as early as 3rd and 4th grade.

Programs that try to change behaviors that have been learned over the first 15 to 20 years of life are doomed to failure, unless there is a significant investment by industry to create career paths for ex-offenders. It's far less expensive to do it right the first time.

The map in the Tribune article shows that many neighborhoods on the west and south side of Chicago are dumping grounds for ex offenders. Statistics show that 2/3 of these will return to prison. If these are the role models for kids between age 3 and 10, what career choices do we expect these kids will make?

Let me go back to my mind map. Here were a few other stories that I put on my mind map. These were not negative news. They were positive.

On page 1 of the Metro section there was a story about teens who get up early in the morning to take public transportation from one end of the city to another, just to get to a good school. On page 2 of the Metro section were two stories telling about a kids video project and a youth with “empathy for the poor”. In the Tribune magazine insert there was a story about a youth program called Changing Worlds. And in the Sports sections two pages recognized scholar-athletes.

However, nothing tied these stories together. There was no mind map, or blueprint in the Tribune, or on its web site, suggesting that these are all part of a problem/solution mosaic that could be leading the 600,000 readers of the Sunday Tribune into a learning/reflection/innovation process that leads more Chicago area residents to take responsibility for making sure that every child in the Chicago region has a better chance to reach a job/career, even if he had a detour in jail.

All of the stories in the Perspective section and in the Editorial page of today's paper were about Dad’s and Father’s Day. No effort was made to talk about how programs like the video project or Changing Worlds could be in every inner city neighborhood, providing an alternative to street life, and building aspirations that could compete with the careers modeled by ex offenders.

There were even two stories in the Business section that could have tied in to this. One talked about how GM pays workers who are laid off, but still on the GM payroll. Another talked about the highest paid CEOs. There was no brainstorming in the commentary section suggesting that these CEOs could be using some of their huge income to support charities that mentor kids to careers, or ex cons to jobs. Neither suggested a strategy on the part of the car company to engage non working employees as coaches or mentors to ex offenders or inner city youth.

I think about these concepts all the time. I'm trying to get others to think about them too. I don't have an advertising budget. But as Sunday's Tribune illustrates, there were many stories that reminded me of the problem and showed me many solutions. However, this is not a simplistic process. We need people who will help us see eduction, violence, public health, incarceration, workforce development, etc. as part of a web of issues related to poverty and too many simplistic solutions.

I encourage you to take next Sunday's paper and create a similar mind map. The stories will be different, but the problems will probably be the same, regardless of what city you are in. As you do this, think of ways your map and my map might connect, or how we might draw more people into this thinking.

I think this would be a great project for kids in a high school or college service learning program or internship. It really shows how events are connected. I think it's a strategy that can get more people involved.

If you can put your map on a web site or blog, let me know what your web site is.

Must Reading! Why the system does not work and why the Tutor/Mentor Connection seeks to reverse it

Thank you Gita Rao for sending me this article. I'm posting it here and will be sending email to all of those who care about how we help kids move through school and into careers. If we cannot change the funding process we can never change the outcomes.

Please read this and forward it to anyone who has ever considered making a donation to support a charity:

The Looking-Glass World of Nonprofit Money: Managing in For-Profits’ Shadow Universe, by Clara Miller
http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/section/704.html

New research shows juvenile offenders at risk to die early

On page 3 or the Metro Section of the June 6, 2005 Chicago Tribune, an article reports on a new study published in the June issue of Pediatrics. The study concludes: Early violent death among delinquent and general-population youth affects racial/ethnic minorities disproportionately and should be addressed as are other health disparities.

Here are some quotes from the Tribune article

"Leaders in violence prevention say the study is a wakeup call to the needs of a wide variety of poor and minority youths. Delinquent African American males in the study had the highest mortality figures. The next highest rate was for Hispanic males."

"This should be recognized and used as a red flag not to body-slam these (delinquent) kids, but to give them some services and some protective factors," said Carl Bell, a child psychiatrist and president of the Chicago Community Memorial Health Council.

I agree. Now, how can we connect with the media, the health council and others to put this message on the front page instead of page 3 of the Metro section? How can we build a strategy that connects news and research to advocacy and to web directories that show what agencies are working in inner city neighborhoods to prevent kids from entering the juvenile Justice system, or to provide meaningful paths out of the system and into jobs/careers?

In a world where most people are focused on their own concerns, their own health issues, or the challenges of raising their own kids, how do we get people to become passionate about helping kids who don't look the same, have negative media images, and don't even live in the same neighborhood?

In a world focused on war, terrorism, politics, how do we draw attention to the unequal opportunities of kids living in poverty?

I believe the internet, blogging, web forums, etc. offer tools to connect those who care about these kids in a virtual forum that draws more consistent attention and resources to young people born in poverty. If you agree, join the Tutor/Mentor Connection in this effort.

Jesus or Martin Luther King, Jr. As CEO: Think about it.

A few years ago a supporter of the Tutor/Mentor Connection sent me the book, Jesus as CEO, written by Laurie Beth Jones. (link updated)

It took me a while to get around to reading the book, but when I did it became an inspiration that continues to support me in my work to this day. It shows how much impact a single person can have in this huge world.

As I think about all the challenges facing kids living in poverty, I'm prompted to ask, "What would Jesus do if he were CEO of the business of helping every child born in poverty be in a job, career, by age 25?"

I've also been inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech where he said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. " You can read the entire speech here. (link updated)

What if Dr. King were the CEO of the business of making this dream a reality?

Walk with me on a little mental model. Imagine you are in the first planning meeting with Jesus or Dr. King and they are introducing their vision and strategy. What would they say that inspired you to work to accomplish the goals they outlined? How would they have presented this information? Two thousand years ago tools like power point, animation, electronic white board and visual brainstorming were not available. I don't think they were even available 50 years ago.

Yet today we have many technologies that support business planning, brainstorming and visioning. I've listed a few below.

So, imagine that Jesus and Dr. King have web sites, and have access to power point, animation, auto cad, etc. Can you imagine how they would have presented their vision using these tools? What types of graphics would have been used to convey Dr. King's vision? How would Jesus have communicated a 2000 year timeline and expansion strategy?

If you can imagine what these presentations might have included, can you put your mental map on paper, and on a web site? Do you know of people who have already done this? If you can imagine how Jesus or Dr. King's presentation would have looked like, can you create a similar business plan that "leaves no child behind" and achieves Dr. King's vision?

Maybe if we create such a plan our public leaders might adopt it and lead it.

The goal of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (archived site) is to find people who are using mental modeling, backward mapping, virtual brainstorming and other innovation tools to create a plan that engages business, philanthropy, schools, hospitals, community based organizations and public leaders in a hundred-year campaign aimed at helping kids born in poverty be starting jobs/careers by age 25.

We want to host this process on our web sites and encourage others to do the same. We want to link to other web sites where this process is already being hosted in churches, alumni groups, universities, law firms, engineering associations, fraternities and sororities all over the world. In such a network we are all constantly learning from each other and some of us are constantly working together to provide resources that others can use at low or no costs to support this action plan in every neighborhood where kids need help to get to jobs and careers.

That's our dream. In the Tutor/Mentor Institute web site you can see how we describe this using the tools we have available to us. Below are tools that I've seen on the Internet which I wish were available to the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

I keep sending proposals to Chicago area foundations asking for funds to incorporate these technologies into the Tutor/Mentor Connection, but have had limited response. Thus, I'm casting my net to the rest of the world and to other communities that have the same need for a strategy that succeeds in helping kids born in poverty be entering jobs/careers by age 25. If you have expertise in these technologies or in these planning processes and would like to help turn our mental model into a real blueprint, please email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

If you are already building such a model and have it on your web site, please let me know so I can add a link from my web site to your planning model. I'm sure that Jesus and Dr. King would have had to include a section on their plan for evangelization and advertising. If no one looked at the plan, how could they expect to make it a reality?

They also would have been benchmarking competitors and innovating constant improvement based on what they were learning. By putting your vision on your web site you enable others to compare what they are doing to what you are doing and learn ways they can constantly improve what they do to help kids. While most businesses keep their innovations secret, we want to share our innovations in ways that others can duplicate them.

By linking our web sites we increase the number of people who look at our vision and our plan, without increasing the cost of attracting these visitors to our web sites. We also increase the sharing of good ideas and the number of people who work together to increase the flow of resources to support innovation and process improvement.

I'm sure all of these concepts would have been in the strategies outlined by Dr. King and Jesus. Imagine what we could learn from them if we could find their plans some place on the Internet.

You can find links to the web sites I've referred to in this message and to many others at Learning and Management Blogs section of the Tutor/Mentor web library to find more examples of knowledge management, decision support, innovation and creativity.

Memorial Day: Just Don't Forget

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are.

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like:

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids. Here are the titles of just a few recent publications that I have links to on T/MC web sites:

Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Workby Lauren J. Kotloff

One Child Many Needs
A growing number of people understand that, if we want to improve children's education, we must reform the inadequacy and unfairness of our state's school-funding system. But that's only half the work necessary to do the job right, according to a new report by Voices for Illinois Children.


A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, on the Pathways to College Network web site.

These are just a few articles and research reports that can be found in the LINKS and Resources sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?. Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers. You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time. In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child.

Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years. For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project. Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades, or to the media covering them? It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement.

In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green.

This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers. On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action" In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world.

Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

What do you think?

Tutor/Mentor eConference, Today, May 23, hosted by IUPUI

For nearly 30 years I've been sending out invitations for others who work of volunteer with tutoring/mentoring programs to come together to share ideas, network and collaborate.

A few years ago while hosting a conference at a Chicago hotel, a man from another conference at the same hotel stopped by our registration table to introduce himself. He was from Indianapolis and had an interest in mentoring.

A couple years after that people from IUPUI in Indianapolis began attending the Tutor/Mentor Conferences in Chicago. It turns out the first person who accident I started talking to, and who I had added to my email newsletter list, had been forwarding my email to others.

Today IUPUI will be hosting a Tutor/Mentor eConference, using the Internet as a meeting place. The web site is http://econference.uc.iupui.edu/

This shows what can happen by one person creating space where others can meet and network.

I hope that some of the people who attend today's even will be new partners and leaders in the Tutor/Mentor movement one or a few years from now. That's our goal in hosting these events. We want to stimulate actions that lead to more and better volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in places where they are needed.

You're welcome to join in. It's Free. If you cannot join today, visit http://www.tutormentorexchange.net and join one of our eGroups. The next conferences will be in November, but our focus now is on volunteer recruitment as school starts in August and September.

Thanks to everyone who is taking part in today's event, especially to IUPUI for hosting and organizing the slate of speakers.

If you participate in today's eConference and would like to provide comments or feedback, please add a comment to this message.

Can we meet? Can we find ways to work together?

I was getting ready to send this email to a person that I respect as a community organizer. I decided to post it as an open invitation to anyone who would like to work with the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Can we meet again soon to talk about next step strategies?

There are many people collecting information that shows how youth and young adults in low income areas are at a disadvantage in moving through school and into jobs/careers. Some have better contacts than others, some have better strategies, and some have better funding. Few do all three.

I've been aggregating information and web links at the Tutor/Mentor Connection (now an archive) and  http://www.tutormentorexchange.net. These show the connection between different advocates. While the T/MC Leadership Conferences and e-Conferences draw a growing number of people together, I don't have the clout (or skills, and money) to draw many of these different people together on a consistent basis to talk of ways to work together on key points.

You might have the facilitation or marketing ability to do this.

I attended a Welfare Symposium in Chicago in late April, co-hosted by Jerome Stermer of Voices 4 Illinois Children. More than 200 people were there, including a few dignitaries. I attended a dinner hosted by the Academic Development Institute. Dr. James Comer was the speaker and nearly 100 people attended. I attended a breakfast hosted by Jack Wuest of the Alternative Schools Network. More than 200 people attended, along with Emil Jones, Arnie Duncan and other state leaders. I updated my organization's information at http://illinoisparents.org this morning. I also put the next meetings of the Illinois College and Career Access Network, the Illinois Afterschool Alliance, and the Chicago Coalition for Community Schools on my calendar.

It seems that almost every week someone is gathering a group of people to talk about some part of the problem of helping disadvantaged kids move through school and into jobs/careers.

There's an overlap of who attends these meetings. It's a small fraternity of people who care and are active in trying to make things better for disadvantaged communities. However too few people are involved and there's a common void. Too few business leaders are at these meetings or strategically engaged in the mission of these organizations.

There's also a strategic void. Each meeting focuses on the agenda of each organizer and few use maps of Chicago or Illinois to point to where the problem is as part of a strategy of drawing private and public sector resources on a more consistent basis to organizations in poverty neighborhoods who are already working to help kids move to careers. That's because few organizations are maintaining such databases or mapping the information for purposes of drawing volunteers, dollars, leaders, business partners, etc. directly to existing organizations.

In aggregating this information on T/MC web sites I'm trying to fill this void. However, the common challenge we all face is not enough people are paying attention. When I look at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, the few stories that draw attention to the challenges poor neighborhoods have of raising kids are not connected to each other, nor to the web sites and the meetings each group holds. there does not seem to be a strategy that connects news and commentary to web sites where people can get information and get involved.

That means each gathering only reaches a few of all of the people who need to be reached on an on-going basis. We're not increasing the size of this army of concerned citizens fast enough to change the future for kids entering first grade next fall.

Only by linking our strategies, our meetings, and our strengths can we create a larger on-going visibility that will not only draw immediate resources (volunteers, dollars) to all of the organizations who need a consistent flow of dollars to build stability and constant improvement into their work, but will also increase the size of the choir of people who are needed to influence public policy and public funding on the state or national level.

I may might not be the best person to do the inviting or to facilitate a meeting of all of these people. The T/MC is too small and it's underfunded. We don't have the clout or money to rent out Chicago's Union League Club for a fancy breakfast, or to attract a panel of high profile leaders. I don't need to be that leader if I can find ways where others take that role, and where others link their meetings to on-line forums and to a network of web sites that provide paths of involvement and lead to a distribution of resources DOWN to agencies doing the work in every neighborhood where kids need extra help.

I hope that anyone who reads this will forward it to a few other people who might want to take a lead, or support the work the T/MC is doing. Maybe you can help us find ways we can generate new funding so that the Tutor/Mentor Connection can continue to provide a linkage between various organizations via what we do on our web sites and the way we are piloting the use of a GIS to show the connections between groups, ideas and advocacy. You can email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net if you'd like to talk.

2022 update:  I've continued this work since writing this article in 2005. The same challenges exist. In 2011 I created Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to try to keep the T/MC alive in Chicago.   It's been a challenge. Most of the sites created in the 2000s are now only archives.  

Volunteers Make a Difference

On Thursday and Friday, May 12 and 13, more than 140 people gathered at the Northwestern University Law School in Chicago for the 23rd Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. Participants came from California, Texas, Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, etc.

From May 6 to 12 a Tutor/Mentor eConference connected even more people with each other, and with information that we hope helps people innovate ways to connect tutors, mentors and change agents with children and youth living in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, poorly performing schools and many other social/economic barriers that kids must overcome to reach jobs and careers. Another eConference will be held on May 23.

This is all made possible by volunteers. The speakers at these conferences are volunteers. People who help organize the events and host the econferences are volunteers. The Conference was co sponsored by the Children & Family Justice Center at Northwestern University Law School, and held at the Law School. Even the web sites that the Tutor/Mentor Connection uses to host a library of Tutor/Mentor information were created and hosted by volunteers.

This shows the potential of civic engagement. The challenge is helping volunteers find information and financial resources to support on-going involvement, while creating a larger, and on-going public awareness that encourages a growth of the number of volunteers who get involved.

I've hosted these conferences since 1994 and have led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program since 1974. I cannot tell you how good I feel when I watch the interactions of tutor/mentor leaders with each other, and of volunteers with teens and youth in tutor/mentor programs. It's because I know that lives are changed because I and other volunteers have helped create space for these gatherings to take place.

This blog is a new space. I hope it also helps connect tutor/mentor communities and volunteers with each other and with needed resources. As we head to the next econference on May 23, I hope to continue this process and expand the network of volunteers who are working to create a brighter future for those who were born to more disadvantaged circumstances.

"It takes a village to raise a child" is an over-used phrase. However, in the Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conferences, members of this village are coming together to learn ways to create a stronger community of support for children and youth who need extra help.

I hope you'll join us.

Calling all tutors, mentors! Let's connect.

This morning I spoke with one of the people who did an on-line workshop in yesterday's econference and she told me that she'd already told two people about her role in the econference and in the May 12 and 13 conference in Chicago. One told how she'd been helped by a mentor when she was a teen and the other expressed interest in the tutor/mentor networking that we are doing.

That's the purpose of these conferences and this blog. There are thousands of people in this country who have been helped by a mentor, or who have been a mentor or donated money or time to lead a tutor/mentor program. Many of these people are no longer active, but have great experiences and loyalties to the concept of tutoring/mentoring.

By setting up econference portals and on-line communities, and by hosting face to face gatherings in Chicago and other cities, our hope is that people who attend these events will talk to others and that this will draw others who have been involved into this on-line community where their commitment can turn into actions that help support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in all parts of the country/world.

When you read this Blog, or visit a T/MC web site, or attend a conference, all you need to do is tell one or two other people about your experience and give them a web site address where they too can get connected.

As we increase the number of people in the conversation we'll be able to brainstorm ways we can share the responsibility for building greater visibility and a more consistent flow of volunteers, dollars, technology, leadership, etc. into every single tutor/mentor program in every city in America.

By changing the flow of resources we can increase the quality and the availability of programs.

eLearning and Collaboration

Today another round of on-line workshops were held in the www.alado.net/econference portal. the last one was followed by an extended conversation between four or five people in several different states and two countries.

The question was, "how do we find owners/partners to embed reflective thinking forums in hundreds of business, faith groups, social and alumni groups, etc?"

I spend a lot of time thinking about what it takes to make effective tutor/mentor programs available in all of the place where they are needed. I draw on research that tells me why we need to do this, maps that show where such programs are needed, and the example of many programs to give me ideas on what types of programs could exist in any neighborhood.

How can we encourage and support this same type of thinking in hundreds of different places, but use common maps and volunteer databases to point people to places where they are needed, and to make it easier for volunteers and programs to connect?

Can anyone frame this question better?

Chicago Schools Graduation rate low. Media misses opportunity.

Today, May 9, 2005, the headline in the Chicago Tribune was "City's college-bound rate a third less than thought, and in the Chicago Sun-Times was "City Schools Study: 47% go to College". Both articles pointed out disturbing information, but neither pointed to additional information that readers could use to know more about the problem, it's impact on Chicago, alternative paths to careers, or ways readers could become personally involved in solutions that help mentor kids to careers.

On Friday, April 29, I attended a forum in Chicago titled Youth on the Streets: Lost in the Wilderness. It was hosted by the Alternative Schools Network, The Chicago Community Trust and the Woods Fund of Chicago. I wrote about this in my blog. The research shows that youth who don't go on to college earn far less and cost society more than youth who do go to college. This is just one of many reports that show why people in business, churches, universities, and living in the middle class and affluent parts of the Chicago region, should be reading headlines link today's and looking for ways to get involved.

The problem is, too few people putting out the research or controlling the media, are thinking of ways to use the Internet for learning and collaboration and community problem solving.

Yesterday I met for about 4 hours with 39 people in an internet chat/networking forum that was part of the Tutor/Mentor eConfernece (http://www.alado.net/econference ). More than a dozen countries were represented. Information shared showed how people can use the Internet to learn and collaborate, while the econference illustrates how anyone can send an invitation and gather people to discuss a specific topics.

While I hope others will join the econference workshops today through Thursday, or that others will attend the face to face Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference being held at the Northwestern University Law School on Thursday and Friday (http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com) , my larger vision is that others will integrate this thinking into their own actions. When someone publishes research and when someone writes a story that calls attention to the problem, both should learn to point to places and on-line forums where people can meet to learn more, reflect on the information and on potential solutions, and find places where they can get involved to solve the problem.

We don't have million dollar ad budgets yet we have million dollar messages. If we link these messages to innovation, collaboration and problem solving networks, we can increase participation and results without dramatically increasing expenses.

As Merri Dee (WGN TV) is fond of saying, "If it is to be, it is up to me."

Each of us should reflect on what this means to us.

It Takes More Than Caring to Lift Hard-To-Reach Kids

Here's a message written by Bonnie Bracey, at BBracey@aol.com, that I feel is worth repeating:

Certain schools are having success in dealing with formerly low-performing students, writes William Raspberry. But precious few school systems are showing much consistent improvement in educating the children we know to be hard to educate: children of low-income black and Hispanic households, children of single-parent school dropouts -- children, in short, for whose parents school didn't work. What is hard for us to get our minds around is that school improvement is fairly easy to accomplish for children whose parents were successful in school and are enjoying some success in their lives. Threats of retention, loss of privilege, even the prospect of embarrassment, can nudge such parents into more active participation in their children's schooling. But for parents who have not enjoyed success or seriously envisioned success for their children, it takes more than reorganization and parent coordinators and the like. It takes a consistent, nonjudgmental effort to reach and teach parents how to prepare their children for learning.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002252721_raspberry26.html

I put this here because it challenges us to think deeper. I post maps and charts on T/MC web sites that show poorly performing schools to be more concentrated in poverty than in other neighborhoods, and to show that kids in poverty don't have the same range of adult mentors and role models in their lives. Instead they have a different mix of role models who demonstrate different, and more negative career aspirations.

Blaming teachers, parents and school leaders without creating a more comprehensive adult support system in these neighborhoods is not fair. A comprehensive tutor/mentor program attracts a mix of adults who model a wider range of career aspirations and help open doors for kids who participate in these programs.

Unfortunately, there are too few programs in most neighborhoods where they are needed, and too few people in business, government and media who are spending time providing leadership to a mentoring-to-career strategy.

Want to talk about this? Post a comment, or join in one of the conference or econference forums that we host throughout the year.

eConference, first day

The first wave of workshops is now archived at www.alado.net/econference.

I joined the portal at 6am and found Phil Shapiro from Washington, DC, and a second person already in the portal. Due to changes in the Saturday schedule, we had decided to move my presentation from Friday at 7am to Saturday at 6:30 am Chicago time. This is so the group in Thailand can participate live.

Since Phil was already in the portal, we had a nice one-on-one conversation. He had never used this technology, so was able to get a good feel for how it works and how he might use it in DC. Phil is an active Digital Divide.net blogger, which is how we first met. I hope that through this round of networking I can meet one or two more friends with as much passion and talent and commitment to helping others as Phil.

It's off to work now to prepare for next week's conference. I hope you'll visit the econference and view the archive and that you'll join us tomorrow for more econferenceing.

Dan

Tutor/Mentor eConference Begins!

Tonight at 2am Chicago time the May 6-12 Tutor/Mentor eConference will be launched by Lukas Ritzel who will be delivering a live welcome from his home in Switzerland. I'm afraid I'll need to look at the archive to hear that. I'll be in bed!!

My welcome will be delivered tomorrow at 7am Chicago time. I hope you have some coffee and will join me. If you are not able to participate in a workshop when it is live, you'll be able to log in later and review the presentation. If you come to this blog, you'll still be able to ask questions.

It's exciting to see so many people from around the world joined together in this common effort. Credit for putting this together goes to Andrew Pincon of the Digital Workforce Education Society of the City Colleges of Chicago. I hope you'll join in workshops, and add your comments in blogs hosted by myself and other speakers.

I'm hoping to have a Directory available by Saturday that will enable anyone who enters an econference portal to register and post an introduction of themselves. This will enable any participant to directly contact any other participant, during or after the econference. For those planning on coming to Chicago for next week's conference, this will help you make plans to meet people you may want to meet.

The space is now open. We've done all we can to attract good speakers and to send invitations to thousands of people. It's up to each of you to make this work. Have fun! I hope you meet some new friends.

Dan Bassill

Networking and Collaboration: Critical Components

There's lots of talk about collaboration these days, yet unless someone maintains a database of interested parties, and sends out an invitation for people to come together, it's not likely that most of the organizations that might collaborate will every meet often enough to build a shared understanding of issues, along with the trust and understanding needed for a collaboration to work. In fact, it's highly probable that most of the organizations who might collaborate and learn from each other will never connect.

For more than 30 years I've been building a database of people involved or interested in volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring, as well as those interested in school reform, poverty reduction, workforce development, diversity, civic education, democracy, etc.

Prior to the internet my database included Chicago and Illinois based organizations. Now it includes organizations in all parts of the world.

One of the strategies for building this network, and for helping organizations meet, build shared understanding, trust, etc., has been to invite people to come together every six months for Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conferences. As Internet collaboration and elearning tools have become more available to small non profits, we've begun to move part of the conference to the Internet, meaning more people from more places can connect with each other, and with those who attend the conference in Chicago. More importantly, they can stay connected, which is essential to putting the learning to work.

On Friday, May 6 the 2005 eConferences will begin. Visit http://www.alado.net/econference and you can find a schedule of workshops being delivered from different parts of the world. As you participate, I encourage you to come back here to blog your comments, or to connect and network with others.

If you host your own blog or list serve, set up your own space for information sharing and networking. Tell me about it and I'll add your link to the links list on my blog. These links will remain in place after the conference to encourage continued networking, elearning and collaboration.

The eConference is free. Participate as much or as little as you like. We've created the space. It's up to you to make it work for you and your organization.