Changing the way philanthropy works

Chris Warren, who is serving a one year fellowship with Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, has written a blog post showing how the T/MC seeks to work with teams from universities, professions, businesses, hospitals, etc.

We have many groups growing within the Tutor/Mentor Connection Ning.com page, and our aim is to help each group adopt the ideas Chris is writing about, so that they innovate new ways to draw volunteers, operating dollars and other needed resources to constantly improving, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

You can learn more about this concept in discussion posts on the T/MC main web site.

As these teams form, and do their brainstorming, planning and implement their strategy via these open Ning forums, each team will learn from its own work, as well as the work of other groups focusing on the same goal in other cities. Thus, each year the impact of each team will grow based on how well the learn and innovate from the work of the entire universe of teams working toward a common goal.

As these teams learn to take on the intermediary role of helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs get the resources needed to grow in more places, their work will model a new way of supporting the growth of needed social benefit programs, in cases where the same type of program in needed in thousands of locations.

Changing the way non profits get resources will change the impact of social benefit organizations all over the world.

Search Google "images" for 'tutor mentor'

I post images in my blogs to help communicate ideas. For instance, this one illustrates all of the work that goes on each week, and which needs to be funded, just for us to support weekly tutor/mentor sessions at Cabrini Connections each Wednesday and Thursday evening.

Have you ever searched Google for the words "tutor mentor" then looked at images?? I did today and there were dozens of pages with images I've put on our web sites over the past 10 years. In addition there were images from other tutor/mentor programs.

I think this is a potentially great way to connect with others who may be doing similar work. I encourage you to check it out.

Team Work

On his Cabrini Connections Blog, El Da'Sheon Nix used a football anology to describe how we're building a team of volunteers, students and donors to help the youth at Cabrini Connections move through school and toward college and careers.

On the same blog site, you can find links to blogs written by Chris and Vjeko, both of Cabrini Connections. On this blog you can find blogs written by Nicole and Mike, both with the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

On this blog, and on the T/MC site you find a list of other sites where I actively network, and an even large list of blog sites that I post on our site because I think they have great information. I wish I had 72 hours in the day to read, reflect and comment on each of these.

All of these groups represent a "virtual team" of people who have ideas about how to help kids living in poverty, or who are showing ways that we can work together to help tutor/mentor programs operate in high poverty neighborhoods throughout Chicago.

All of this information represents a "learning library" that any of us can draw from at any time, and on an ongoing basis, to support our own thinking and the way we act to help kids in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods have pipelines of support that lead them to college and careers.

On the Cabrini Fund Raising blog we show how other members of the team are helping raise money for us to do this work. I hope you'll contribute to this part of the team as well as all other parts if you can.

Are you driving by problems in Chicago?

I encourage you to read Mike Trakan's 2/27/09 blog article in which he shows maps of the neighborhoods where four Chicago school kids were killed in the past week. Mike works for me, and thus his maps and articles are intended to help further the Tutor/Mentor Connection's goals.

In this article, Mike points to the lack of tutor/mentor programs, and the role the media can take to keep attention on all of these neighborhoods, so we draw more resources into the neighborhood to help tutor/mentor programs grow, and then we use those programs to help kids connect with a wider range of adults who can mentor different choices and aspirations than what kids see everyday in the neighborhood.

Yesterday I used a Village Map graphic to illustrate the need to draw people from many different backgrounds and business sectors into this strategy of helping kids from poor neighborhoods go through school and into college and careers.

While it may take years for a tutor/mentor program to change the thinking of kids in a neighborhood, nothing will ever happen for poor kids unless we educate the adults who drive by poverty every day, read about it's impact in the newspapers, but are not personally connected, so only are involved with random acts of kindness.

I keep saying, "If these were your kids, wouldn't you do more?" They are "other people's kids" and involvement in one-on-one tutoring/mentoring is one strategy that can change that.

The map on this article shows how Chicago's major expressways bring millions of people through poverty neighborhoods and into the city every day. Imagine a virtual sign over each expressway saying "visit here for a few hours a week".

Through our blogs, maps, media stories and the role of many leaders, we need to educate those not living in poverty of all the ways they can "visit for a few hours" and give time, talent and dollars to help kids in these neighborhoods have different futures than what is now available to them.

You can help by passing these articles on to others and by setting up a learning circle in your family, business, hospital, professional or social group. Use the articles on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, and in these blogs, as part of your discussion material. You'll find that as you understand this information you'll see many paths to greater involvement and greater impact.

Creating Public Interest in Race, Poverty, Education issues

I attended a forum this morning hosted by Voices for Illinois Children in which the 2009 Illinois Kids Count Report was distributed. The focus of this year's report was the growing gaps between rich and poor and good schools and poorly performing schools in Illinois. The statistics can be seen in the report. They are appalling. I've seen them before.

The focus of today's symposium, and this year's Kids Count is to go beyond traditional thinking to innovate new ways to help kids get through school and into adult lives. A variety of panel members spoke. Judy Erwin, of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, was part of the morning panel, and she said "we need to look at a continuum of learning; we need to get out of our silos".

I agree. The graphic on this page represents some of the different silos that need to be connected in a learning process that focuses adults on the type of reports that are produced by Illinois Kids Count, and which you can read in the T/MC links library. We need an adult learning process, that builds public and private sector investment in solutions to this complex problem.

I created the graphic above using a concept map tool and I've had it on my site for a while. It means something to me, but maybe not to most people. Thus, I was pleased this week to have two graduate students from the University of Michigan School of Information spend their spring break with my organization in Chicago. They decided to animate this village map, in order to help people better understand the idea behind it. You can view their project here. You can meet Malhar Gupta and Garima Garg and read more about their work on this project in the T/MC Ning page.


I could not have created this animation on my own. But I've been reaching out to graduate schools to help me convert my ideas into animation, and this year was the second year we've had students from the University of Michigan work with us.

We actually had a third student this week, and I'll write about his project next week. You can meet our technology interns on line and if you like what you see and want to get your university involved, just introduce yourself on the Ning.com site.

Letters to President Obama

Last night in his speech to the nation, President Obama read a letter from a little girl.

In January Cabrini Connections, a Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program that I lead, encouraged our teens to write letters. One wrote,

"Gang violence is a huge problem in the community today. People are getting killed left and right for these unnecessary reasons. There are drive-by-shootings, gang wars, and people getting jumped and beat up for having their hat tilt to the wrong side. Innocent youngsters are dying and getting hurt for something they did not cause or have any notice of. The solution is getting these “wanna-be-gangsters” off the streets. Provide more programs for them to be doing something more productive. After-school programs only go up to 13-14 years of age then just drop kids off out on the streets. There has to be a better way to go about this.

You can read these letters here, and here.

At http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com you can find maps showing where there are poorly performing schools and high concentrations of poverty. You can see some showing where shootings took place. These are areas where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can make a difference, if they exist.

In some place there are programs, and we provide contact information via a searchable program locator database, so people who want to help President Obama keep his promises can offer time, talent and dollars to these specific programs.

In other places there are no programs, which means the businesses, faith groups, colleges and hospitals could be taking leadership roles to help new programs start and to help all programs in a neighborhood grow.

The information on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web sites is intended to help businesses and non profits learn from each other, so that they can become more strategic and connected in how they help tutor/mentor programs connect with youth in many neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.

Our role is to mentor this process, to help people find and use the information. Contact the Tutor/Mentor Connection or join our Ning group if you'd like our help.

New Interview with Tutor/Mentor Connection

I encourage you to read this article, titled "Raisin’ the Buzz: At the table with Dan Bassill", written and posted By Sidney Hargrove, who is a program officer with a community foundation in Columbus, Ohio.

Thanks Sidney for helping us tell our story.

Network building - role of interns

Today was the final day for our two interns from Illinois Institute of Technology to serve with Cabrini Connections. Rack and Alan both posted reflections which show how they have gained from the six weeks with us. As you read their reflections view the work they did and you'll see how much we gained as well.

Alan created an animated version of the T/MC strategy map which you can view here and in the menu bar of the Tutor/Mentor Institute.

While Alan and Rack are leaving today, we are welcoming three new interns from the University of Michigan. They are graduate students from India and Korea who are part of the School of Information's Alternative Spring Break program. Through this program we're getting high level talent to help us visualize our strategies. Through their blog articles, we're being introduced to others from the University of Michigan network who might help us.

You'll be able to meet Taeho, Garima and Malhar on the T/MC Ning page.

Expanding the Network. Role of Interns

On Chris Warrens blog he has written about networking with a purpose. This graphic illustrates what this means. If you are the RED dot, then if you pass on this blog message to people you know who are in business, faith groups, hospitals, etc., you have expanded our network.

If you go beyond that to hosting "learning circles", like a Bible Study class, to help members of your network learn where tutor/mentor programs are needed, why they are needed, and what ways members of your group can provide time, talent, and dollars to help one or more programs grow, then you are building the network. This is an intentional, and active role.



I've been creating graphics like this for almost 10 years to try to convey these ideas. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words". In the past few years I've had interns join me from Korea, Hong Kong, the University of Michigan, Illinois Institute of Technology, Indiana University, etc. who have created animated graphics to communicate these ideas.

I encourage you to visit the Korea Group on our Ning site to see work that has been created in the past few weeks.

In the discussion forum on the T/MC site you can learn about other forms of service learning, and the work of other interns.

For example, this week we'll have three students from the University of Michigan Alternative Spring Break Program. One is from Korea and two are from India. Thus, the ideas they bring are from different parts of the world, and the ideas we share will go with them to different parts of the world.

The work that will be created will help us communicate complex ideas in ways that make it easy for leaders to read, and hopefully, adopt these in their own actions. This will bring more consistent support to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities, and hopefully to the Tutor/Mentor Connection as well.

In the end, the work we do is intended to help kids who are entering first grade today, be in a job or career by age 25. This is a long term project that needs to be happening at the same time in thousands of locations. This requires on-going support. Since non profits are not good at advertising, and not all are good at fund raising, we need to reverse the system, and educate donors and volunteers to shop maps to choose where to get involved.

One group of interns that we have not yet recruited are those in business schools around the country. These students are learning marketing, advertising and communications. Why not apply that learning to drawing resources to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the home city of the university? This is an idea we express in the Business School Connection. While we have this on a wiki, this is an idea that could be converted into a visualization by one of the interns with us next week, or by a student group in Europe, Asia or Australia.

The ideas expressed above are network-building ideas. They are seeds that I plant in order to mobilize resources and partners who will spread these seeds to more places where they take root in various forms of leadership aimed at helping kids move through school and into careers.

If you'd like to get involved with this just call 312-492-9614 or email tutormentor2 at earthlink.net

Earlier this month I wrote an article about social networking with a purpose.

Chris Warren, our Public Interest Fellow from Northwestern wrote a follow up article on this topic, titled "Who's in your Network?"

If we each try to connect people from our networks with tutor/mentor programs, where they can donate time, talent and dollars, we help these programs expand their own range of support, and sustain their services during this economic nightmare.

As you socialize this weekend, or attend religious services, think of ways you and point the people you talk with to places where they can help us help inner city kids.

Have Fun. Do Good. Save the Date!

Read about Jimmy Biggs, and his vision of mobilizing 100 business leaders who give time, talent and dollars to support Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The July 16, 2009 Jimmy Biggs Memorial Cabrini Connections Golf Benefit is a time and place where these leaders connect, socialize, and show their commitment with the donations they make.

Be one of those leaders and help raise the funds needed to continue this work in 2009.

Thank you!

Dan Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Chicago Public School Student Shot - First in 2009

In encourage you to read Mike Trakan's article about the shooting of 16 year old Johnel Ford at about 4:30 p.m. on February 12, 2009. Mike works for me at the Tutor/Mentor Connection, making maps that are intended to help tutor/mentor programs grow in areas where there is too much violence, too much poverty and too many poorly performing schools.

With each map Mike creates, he writes an article that shows how businesses, churches, politicians and others in the area of the shooting could work together to help tutor/mentor programs grow and serve kids in that part of the city.

He points two two programs which we have listed in our database. One is the Arab-American Youth Program and it's web site says they offer tutoring/mentoring. Mike points out that it's difficult to know how much of an emphasis this is from the information on the web site. The other program listed is a church based program. We're not quite sure what scale of program this is because they don't seem to have a web site, and we've not had contact from them to update the information we have. If you know anything about this program, please contact us.

These are the only two listings we show in an area with several thousand young people. There should be more and Mike shows how people could be using T/MC maps to think about who could be involved in helping more programs grow in the area.

We post links to more than 200 web sites in the Chicago program Links section. Not all of the web sites are great. But some, do a wonderful job of showing what a program offers.

Our goal is to teach program leaders, educators, and donors to use these sites to collect good ideas of what is happening in some places, which could be happening in many places, if only the volunteers, dollars and leaders would be available.

Here's an example. This is a blog managed by a volunteer with Cabrini Connections. It shows how a couple of volunteers are working with a few teens to teach them uses of technology. In today's post they are demonstrating lessons learned in the past week.

Imagine if businesses and faith groups were helping recruit volunteers for programs in the area where this last shooting took place, or in other neighborhoods of the city with poorly performing schools. This could be happening if our leaders and media would just write some stories and encourage it to happen when ever they are reporting bad news.

Tell the REST OF THE STORY. Show the good news that can happen.

PS: Visit the NICE Network on Ning and join this week's mentoring discussion.

Using Maps to Leave No Tutor/Mentor Program Behind

Last Thursday I posted a map that Mike Traken of the Tutor/Mentor Connection created, showing the distribution of $217,000 in grants to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago by the SunTimes Marovitz Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program.

Over the weekend Mike wrote a blog post showing the 2008 and 2007 distribution of Lend A Hand Grants, and doing an analysis to help all donors innovate strategies that not only provide continued funding to many programs, but also expand the range of funding, so a larger percent of all of the volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the city are getting the operating dollars they need on a continuing basis.

A week earlier Mike had written an article showing how businesses, faith groups, hospitals and universities in the 9th Legislative District of the Illinois Legislature could be working together to fuel the growth of tutor/mentor programs in that district.

Wouldn't it be great if the newspapers were writing articles about collaborations such as this, instead of articles about graft and corruption among state and local elected representatives?

Lawyers Lend A Hand to Chicago Tutor/Mentor Programs

In the face of the economic crisis that is challenging non profits to do more with less money, one hero organization deserves recognition. It's the SunTimes Marovitz Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth program, which awarded $217,000 in grants to 27 different Chicago tutor/mentor programs in December 2008. Cabrini Connections received a grant to support its one-on-one tutor/mentor program serving 7th to 12th grade teens. The Tutor/Mentor Connection received a grant to support its efforts to build capacity in tutor/mentor programs throughout the region. We've been a part of the Lend A Hand's growth since 1994 and have written often of the good work they are doing.



This photo shows Dan Bassill receiving 2008 grant from Genita Robinson, the new Executive Director of Lawyers Lend A Hand.

Our aim is to help Lend A Hand raise the funds they award, and to encourage other industries to duplicate their efforts so that every tutor/mentor program would have multiple streams of revenue and sources of volunteers, which assures continuity of service and constant improvement of impact.

Thus, I encourage you to visit the LAH web site and read about the Eighth Annual Barristers Big Band Benefit Ball which will be Saturday, March 14, 2009. By participating in this event, or sending a donation, you help provide the dollars that fuel work at many tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.

In my previous post I wrote about the volunteer recruitment event hosted last evening by WomenOnCall.org. My hope is that the business and professional women recruited by one organization will duplicate the Lend A Hand effort, in their own industry and that this total effort will be duplicated in other cities all over the country.

Without your help it will be difficult to find the dollars to sustain these programs, let alone help new programs grow in areas of Chicago that did not receive 2008 Lend A Hand grants, partly because there are few volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs operating in those areas, or because we don't yet know who those programs are.

If you know of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the areas of this map where we don't show any grants being awarded, please forward contact information to the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and the Lend A Hand Program, so we can add them into our umbrella of support.

Fall in Love with a Non Profit

Last night I attended an volunteer recruitment and networking event hosted by WomenOnCall.org. This organization hosts a web portal that seeks to mobilize women who have been successful in business and other careers as volunteers in non-profit organizations throughout the Chicago region.

The guest speaker was Sheli Z. Rosenberg, who has been hugely successful in her business career. I searched Google to find a link to go with this, and one shows the network of people and organizations connected to Ms. Rosenberg.

During her remarks Ms. Rosenberg talked of how successful women have an "obligation to give back." She emphasized the core values of WomenOnCall when she said "Non profit organizations don't have access to the type of skills that highly successful professional women have to offer" and that "volunteers can make short, small commitments, that have a big impact."

She referred to a book written by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright has written in which she said ""There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women."

She concluded by saying "If we don't make life better now, our kids and grandkids will have the same mountains to climb."

This is exactly what I've been saying for years and it is great to hear people with a much more influential network than mine give the same message. Now my hope is that such leaders will take an active role in the forum created by WomenOnCall, and where ever they have such opportunities, to not only call on people to give their time and talent, but to also give their dollars.

This will lead volunteers and donors to volunteer-based charities serving all social sector issues, but will also lead them to the Tutor/Mentor Connection, where they will use our maps and program locator to search out leadership and volunteer opportunities in all parts of the Chicago region, and with the T/MC itself.

Stimulus Package for Volunteer Based Organizations

There are three articles I encourage you to read.

Cabrini Fund Raising - Stimulus Package for Tutor/Mentor Programs

Cabrini Blog - It Takes the Right Players

Social Edge discussion - Issue Fatigue - what does it take to keep donors and volunteers and leaders focused on your cause?

In the Tutor/Mentor Institute we post a variety of essays with charts illustrating that it takes 12 years for a youth to go from 1st grade to 12th grade graduation. Sounds like a simple idea. Yet there is very little public policy, or leadership, that keeps donors and volunteers focused on non-school tutor/mentor programs on a consistent basis that it takes for the kids we serve to finish high school, let alone finish college, or have volunteers helping them get job interviews when they are in their 20s.

Non profits who engage volunteers and connect them with kids are providing many services, not the least is that they provide jobs! While the government may not include us in the stimulus package, volunteers who are part of tutor/mentor programs, serving on boards, or who have been mentored by someone in their journey to a job, can build their own stimulus strategy, distributing funds that not only sustain existing programs, but which enable programs to add new talent from among all of the people who are out of work.

While building a bridge might employee many people, it might take a year or more for the project to be off the ground. Send me $60,000 today and I can hire and provide health benefits for two more people to help me at Cabrini Connections. Send the same money to many of the other Tutor/Mentor programs listed in Chicago Programs Link and you get the same immediate impact.

You say this is not possible? Look at Lawyers Lend A Hand and you'll see that they have raised new money and awarded grants of $217,000 in 2008 and $240,000 in 2007. One of these enabled us to employ a full time coordinator for the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which is enabling us to bring more programs together and do more to maintain the database that we point parents, volunteers and donors to so they can help tutor/mentor programs in all of Chicago.

For us to keep this position in 2009, the stimulus package you provide needs to provide the dollars for us to do this. Isn't that what this is all about?

Make donations at http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate/donate_online.asp

So Many Years. So Little Change.

I attended a symposium at Loyola University In Chicago on Friday, under the title of "Separate and Unequal? The Socioeconomic Realities of Public Education in America"

The first speaker was Veronica Anderson of CATALYST which has been hosting school policy forums that I've written about in the past few months. I encourage you to visit their web site and listen to the recordings of these.

Veronica talked about Charles Payne's book, "So Much Reform, So Little Change"

I encourage you to visit these sites and read some of the research showing that 77% of the kids in Illinois get an inadequate education, and poor and minority kids fare much worse.

So, why is this happening after so many years and so much funding? Is the issue funding, or is the issue CLASS AND RACISM?

Is this an issue of leadership and morality?

Ralph Martire, Executive Director for the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability was a speaker. I've followed his work for many years. He makes a strong case for tax increases.

However, he said, "it won't happen" because "it's not a question of logic, but one of BUMPER STICKER POLITICS".

What he means is that when any elected official says "I'll increase taxes" to pay for something we all know is needed, someone will run against that person saying "HE RAISED YOUR TAXES".

Thus, until we create the public will in thousands of people in Illinois to support law makers who provide the funding needed to educate ALL of Illinois' kids and make sure businesses want to locate in this state because of the quality of the workforce, the quality of schools, and the low costs of poverty, we will continue to reap the negative benefits of what actions we do not take.

I support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs because they connect people who don't live in poverty, and don't share the same racial/ethnic/social economic background as most people who do live in poverty, with kids and families and schools that do have this challenge at the root of every problem in their daily lives.

I've seen volunteers transformed as they became involved with the youth they mentor and seen how many of these volunteers go to great lengths to help the child. Some even become leaders, donors, board members, and advocates, such as myself.

Increase the number of programs like Cabrini Connections who engage 70 to 100 workplace volunteers with inner city kids each year, and help these programs nurture and educate the volunteers so they do more to help the kids, the programs, and ultimately, the schools and legislators, and we'll build the PUBLIC WILL POWER that is missing in these discussions of education.

This is a marketing challenge, where the education we provide is directed at adults who need to be more responsible, not just the kids, families and teachers who are living in high poverty neighborhoods.

Help us do this work. Be the CHANGE.

Closing the poverty and learning gaps in the Illinois 9th Legislative District

A new set of maps has been posted on the MappingforJustice blog, showing the need for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Illinois 9th Legislative District. Read the article and see how these maps can be used by leaders from business, universities, faith groups, hospitals, non profits and political organizations to support the operations of programs that help kids to careers in this district.

New article describing Tutor/Mentor Connection

I want to thank Paul Mondesire for writing an article for THE LOOP, describing the role of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, titled "How Connecting People Increases Power".

I hope you'll all read the article and use this information as Paul is recommending.

Mentoring Youth to Careers - Math Mentors Needed

An article came across my desk this morning with the headline of "Teens prepared for math, science careers, yet lack mentors".

The maps we post at MappingforJustice.blogspot.com show the high poverty areas in Chicago and locations of poorly performing school. You can use the Program Locator to search by zip code for contact information of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in different parts of the city.

Thus, if you're someone who agrees with the MIT article about math mentors, and who has a math/science background, why not give some time as a mentor and tutor in one of these tutor/mentor programs. Better yet, why not help new programs grow where none now exist?

If you're an alumni of MIT, or University of Chicago, or Northwestern, and thinking of where to put a $300 million donation, why not donate it to groups who can build an infrastructure of non-school volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs serving inner city kids and with goals reflected in this strategy map.

Thanks to our volunteers. What Kids Say.

I've had a growing number of donors ask me for all sorts of documentation showing changes in habits, test scores and other indicators that will show them why they should continue to invest in Cabrini Connections.

I don't have those types of reports, or the manpower to create them. I do have videos of kids saying "thank you" to their mentors. See this site if the CC page does not open properly.

Here's another video showing impact of volunteers in the Citizen Schools program.

I hope you'll view these. If you feel it is important for this to continue, send your donations to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il 60642 (or use this Pay Pal form).

If you don't want to support Cabrini Connections, you can search the Chicago Program Links and other volunteer search databases and find similar organizations who are also connecting kids and volunteers and send donations to them.

Good tutor/mentor programs depend on the donations of time and talent from volunteers, but it takes money to pay the rent, insurance and staff costs that support volunteer involvement.

Please help us with your own donations.

New Chicago Schools CEO. Here's Some Homework.

Mayor Richyard Daley has appointed Ron Huberman, age 37, to replace Arne Duncan as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, saying, the system needs a good manager, and "I have the utmost faith in him (Huberman)."

However, Marilyn Stewart, Chicago Teachers Union President,says "a good manager can't manage anything if he doesn't understand what he is managing."

I remember a scene in a WW2 war movie where Robert Mitchem said "He does not need to know how to fly as long as he can point to where we want to go."

This map shows all of the poorly performing schools in Chicago which is where you need to be mobilizing more resources, not just dollars, to help kids in Chicago get through school and into jobs and careers.

Thus, I am assigning some homework for Mr. Huberman. These are a few articles and books that you should read so you're better prepared to take on this leadership role.

For instance, you might read Charles Payne's new book, titled So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools.

You also might visit this web site focused on the High School Drop-Out Crisis and read some of the articles.

You definitely should visit the web site of the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools and read articles about social and emotional learning.

These are just three out of more than 140 web sites I point to in the T/MC Research Links with information you need to digest and understand in order to be a more effective leader. You can find a few more in the discussion forum section titled "Understanding the Issues."



As you absorb this information, you'll see that you face challenges that GOD herself, or even Barack Obama, cannot solve without a whole lot of help from many people working toward the same goals, for a long time.

Thus, I encourage you to try to unite the education and business community behind a common vision of helping any child entering Chicago schools in fall 2008 being anchored in a job and starting a career by age 25. This graphic illustrates the role of parents, teachers, mentors and tutors, who PUSH kids to make good decisions and build the habits needed to achieve this goal. It also illustrates the role that our business and university communities need to take in PULLING kids through school and into adult careers and responsibilities.

It also illustrates that the day has three time frames and they all need to be filled with good learning opportunities and extra adults who can mentor kids to make good decisions and provide social and emotional support.

Don't try to manage programs in all three time frames. You have enough to do to make good schools. Use your leadership and vision to mobilize the business and faith community and the private sector to build a network of strong support programs that reach kids during the non-school hours. Get others to share ownership and responsibility with you.

I encourage you to use this Tutor/Mentor Connection Strategy Map as your own. Just change the blue box at the top to read Chicago Public Schools, or Ron's Vision, and see if it doesn't do a good job of outlining a vision and strategy that might unite many people in Chicago toward a goal we might all share.

As long as I'm able to find volunteers and donors to support Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I'll do what I can to help you learn what you need to know, and help you mobilize all of the people and resources you'll need to succeed in this job.

Call me if you'd like to learn more. I'm at 312-492-9614 and my email is tutormentor2@earthlink.net

Your friend,

Dan

Social Networking with a Purpose

I've written many articles over the past few years intended to draw attention to volunteer-based tutoring mentoring as a form of service learning that engages adults beyond poverty as change agents in the lives of kids living in poverty.

In these articles I point to information created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection and others that people can use to build their own understanding and commitment, then focus actions on specific locations in Chicago or other cities.

I've more than 14,000 people in my Filemaker Pro database and am probably connected to many more via the way I network and the way people find the T/MC and article I write when they do Google searches. However, I've never had a good way to illustrate who I was connecting with, and how I was focusing their attention.

Until now. This graphic is a photo from image created in Facebook. It shows how I'm connected to different groups of people from Chicago and from around the world, and pulling them to the information we share on the Internet.



Our goal is to teach leaders and volunteers at Cabrini Connections and other tutor/mentor programs to constantly tell their story to people in their networks, in ways that increase the number of people who shop a map to choose what neighborhoods of the city, and what programs in each neighborhood, they want to support as volunteers, or donors, or business, college or education partners.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection we're trying to coach individual programs to use these tools, to help them build their own programs, and to help build support for all programs in the city. Read the article written by T/MC Coordinator Nicole White, that she wrote about meeting with Chicago HOPES, and helping them create their own blog strategy.

Read this article written by Chris Warren, our Public Interest Program Fellow from Northwestern about how he is reaching out to health care organizations.

I encourage you to book mark these blogs and follow the work they are doing to help tutor/mentor programs grow. Then visit my Facebook page and view the network photos, to see how we describe our network and how it grows.

Day 3: Education Maps - Changes in Chicago School Performance, 2008 vs 2007

It is the third day of the Obama Presidency. To support his commitment to education and social justice, we've posted a new map and article on the Mapping For Justice blog, which shows the change from 2007 to 2008 of Chicago area schools on the under-performing list.

As readers and leaders look at this map, I encourage you to download and listen to the presentation from the December 2008 School Policy Forum hosted by Catalyst.

Be sure to view the power point from the December session. Note, the first part of this shows a student leadership program at Orr High School. Starting on page 16 you can find the presentation by Dr. Michael Woolley, showing the importance of extra adults in the lives of inner-city kids.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan, please look at this map, and this presentation. Use your leadership to encourage private sector investment in the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the non-school hours and in neighborhoods around every poorly performing school in Chicago, New York, Detroit and every other urban area where high concentrations of poverty and high numbers of kids have a huge influence on poorly performing schools.

Don't lock these programs into test scores and school curriculum. Give them the flexible funding to to connect kids with mentors, and keep them connected for multiple years.

If you're a business leader, at a university, or lead a faith group, you can use these maps to build strategies of engagement in every neighborhood where you have a facility and where you do business. Don't wait for the President to show you where. These maps show where you are needed and you are needed TODAY.

After the Excitement, Day one. Achieving the Obama vision.

Yes. I was glued to the TV yesterday. I was inspired.

I think I'm going to post that photo of the Washington Mall, showing almost 2 million people, and thousands of flags, on my wall. Like many of my fellow world citizens, I was really exicited and inspired by the events that took place yesterday.

I loved the interviews with a couple of 10-year old boys who told of how they were inspired to be leaders because of the example of Barack Obama. I hope such inspiration has infected kids throughout America, including my own 11-year old son and 18-year old daughter, not just kids living in the high poverty neighborhoods of this country and this world.

However, unlike millions of others, I've been working to mobilize volunteer time, talent and dollars to help inner city kids "be like Barack" for more than 35 years. Thus, my hope is that this new leadership, and new energy, brings reinforcements to our efforts and more strategic, and long-term, thinking to our leaders.

Making a speech is only one step in mobilizing an army. Such speeches need to be given by many leaders in many places, for many years.

However, mobilizing an army and pointing it in the right direction, or making sure it does the right work, at the right time, requires a lot more sophistication. I hope leaders in Washington, and in local state and city governments, as well as in business, colleges, healthcare and faith groups, are searching the internet for blueprints they might borrow so that as they mobilize, they can also point volunteers and flexible operating and innovation dollars to all of the places where help is needed.

Even if we point troops to the right places, getting them on the beach in the face of a determined, entrenched enemy, will be a failure without proper training, proper weapons, and without the support of many different people and organizations. The VILLAGE needs to be mobilized and working together. The battle plan for solving poverty, should be a complex map, showing the infrastructure needed to keep troops in battle, in many places, for many, many years. Again, I hope that leaders are searching the internet for models they can use.

If you're goal is to help inner city kids get an expanded network of adult support that helps kids come to school better prepared to learn, and supports them as they grow from first grade, to a job and career, then I encourage you to view this strategy map and some of the other strategy maps the Tutor/Mentor Connection has created.

If you're looking for ideas of how to mobilize others, and for ways to use maps to make sure you're reaching youth in all poverty areas of Chicago, or other cities, visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute and browse the articles posted there.

If think these ideas are useful, borrow them and apply them in your own service. As Obama and many other have said in the past 24 hours, "it will take the individual contributions and sacrifices of many of us".

If you are part of one of the 1500 links on the T/MC web library, I hope you'll reach out to me so we can find ways to work together, if for no other reason than to help your ideas, and my ideas, get more readership.

These ideas have little value if too few people view them or understand them and act upon them. Thus, I encourage you to use your blogs, advertising and personal networking to increase the number of people who use the information we provide ( meaning the T/MC and the other 1500 organizations we point to on our sites) to guide their actions so that we have a well-supported army of volunteers, leaders and business partners helping kids in every high poverty area of this country rise to be whatever their aspirations point them to.

This is day one. When you get up on day two, look in the mirror and decide what you will do and where you will get the information that guides you. When you end the day, look in the mirror and report what you did. If enough people do this every day for the next 4 years, we'll all be able to look at a mountain of accomplishments, and maps showing where we have a foothold, or making some progress, in solving the complex social problems President Obama faces as he goes through Day One.

Messages to President-elect Obama

This photo is from a 1999 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference where Barack Obama was a speaker. During this conference he helped pass out best practice awards and grants made by the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association/Foundation.



This graphic illustrates the role we hope President Obama will take in the coming weeks, months and years. If he encourages people he influences to take on leadership roles, and to provide personal sacrifices of time, talent and dollars, in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other urban areas, his leadership can change the way non profits working with kids are supported, and can provide real pipelines to jobs and careers for kids who will be watching the inauguration from their first grade classrooms.

Be the hope! Be the leader. Point people to maps and program locator search portals that enable people to understand where and why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, and ways they can help keep such programs connected with kids and volunteers throughout the 4 to 8 years you will be in office.

During the coming week every member of the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection staff will be writing blog articles and spreading messages on Facebook, Linked In and Ning.com to tell the story of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs and to encourage leadership involvement. I hope that others will do the same and that they will link stories as suggested in this blog exchange article.

Visit the new Tutor/Mentor Institute section to find more ways to support a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program strategy.

Tutor/Mentor Institute - New site launched

For the past 10 years we've been using the same web site to share ideas that originated with Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. This site has finally been rebuilt, and launched today. Visit the new Tutor/Mentor Institute and use it often to help you build a volunteer-based tutor/mentor strategy for your own community.

Leadership Strategies using Maps

In less than two weeks the United States will have a new Commander in Chief. We face huge challenges locally, nationally and around the world. How can one man focus his attention on all of these places and problems at the same time, and consistently for the next four to eight years? 

I focus on how volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can connect kids living in poverty neighborhoods and attending poorly-performing schools with a adults who don't live in poverty and who can model and open doors to a variety of career aspirations and learning opportunities.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) creates maps that show where poverty and poorly performing schools are located, and where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are located. Then I create overlays showing assets, such as businesses, churches, colleges, etc. who could provide volunteers, technology, ideas, talent, etc. to help tutor/mentor programs grow in every part of the city where the business, college or hospital is located.

This example shows Allstate Insurance company offices in the Chicago region. Using this map, company leaders could create communications strategies connecting offices in each section of the city with community-based organizations and schools in the same section. Or, leaders of non profits in each section could target company locations in their own part of the city with requests for help.

Getting the attention of business leaders and drawing their consistent support for your non profit are challenges. With multiple non profits doing the same work, but in different places, they are all competing for the attention of the same donors. Some win. Most lose. This next map shows the 5th District of the Illinois State Legislature. The map below this shows insurance companies with offices in this district.

You can see that this District is a narrow strip that stretches from the Near North Cabrini-Green area, South to past 63rd Street. While the far North and most of the Southern part of the district have neighborhoods of high poverty and poorly performing schools, one part of the district cuts through the West Loop, with many businesses, including many insurance companies. What could the State Representative of this district be doing to connect these businesses with non profit tutor/mentor programs in the district?

This last map shows Christian, Catholic and Baptist churches in this district. As faith leaders committed to social justice, what could they be doing to connect the rich people in this district with the poor people?

In the Tutor/Mentor Institute there are a variety of pdf essays on collaboration, leadership and ways individuals can use maps and their own personal and professional evangelism to draw attention to poverty, and draw resources to places in poor neighborhoods that are trying to help kids make decisions that will change how well they do in school, and how well they are prepared for jobs and careers.

If President Obama, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, point to these maps on a regular basis, and encourage public and private partnerships in every state to create and use strategy maps like these, they can use the visibility of the Presidency, as well as leverage of public funds, to encourage private sector involvement in high poverty neighborhoods and tutor/mentor programs throughout the country.

Each week the President does a radio address and a web cast on the internet. Why not highlight one of these maps each week, and provide links to maps for every city and every state, keeping attention focused on what needs to be happening in the neighborhoods to help create the CHANGE that this President has promised.

See more maps like these in the MappingforJustice blog, in the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery, and in the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

These maps are made possible by a generous donation made in 2007 by an anonymous donor. If you'd like to help us continue to provide these maps, please consider becoming a sponsor or supporting the Tutor/Mentor Connection with a donation. 

(2022 note: The Map Gallery and Program Locator are now only available as archives, due to the lack of funding since 2011 when the  Tutor/Mentor Insgitute, LLC was created to continue the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago.)

Create Virtual Events during Inauguration Week

There will be millions of people trying to get the attention of the new administration and many are paying thousands of dollars to attend one of the events in Washington on January 20, 2009.

It's almost impossible to get attention in such a crowd. It's even more difficult to get your message across. Why not try a different strategy. If you write a blog article about how the Obama administration can help your organization help kids, and link it to others doing the same thing, you can contribute to a splash of public attention that draws people from the inauguration celebration and all of the policy forums to what you and others have to say about how public and private leaders can help you do your work.

So, write an article anytime during the week of the inauguration and if you put a link in your article to this blog, you can add your link in a list I'm building on the T/MC web site.


Or you can post your blog link (and article) on our Ning page . If we can build a blog action list in many place, linking them all together in web hubs, like the T/MC Links library we can make our own light shine brighter, and perhaps capture some of this attention for our own efforts.

I can't be in DC and don't want to be one of a hundred, or a thousand faces in a crowd in Chicago. Yet I want people to hear my message, reflect on it, then act on it. You do too, don't you! So write a blog article that connects public policy, private sector involvement and the work you do to help kids in poverty have a ladder of support that makes it possible for more of them to be a leader in business, education and government in the future.

Let's see what kind of noise we can make. Write your blogs. Share your links.

Information visualization - use of maps

If you've visited this blog more than a few times, you've seen me use maps to illustrate where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where volunteers, donors, leaders and business partners are needed to support long-term connections of programs and volunteers with youth.

Here's an interesting article on information visualization that illustrates uses of maps and other visual tools to communicate ideas.

If you work in this area and would like to add your talent to the mission of the Tutor/Mentor Connection please contact us. You do not need to be in Chicago to contribute your time and talent to this work.

Give your Ideas to the new administration

President-elect Obama innovated ways to use the Internet to get elected. Now let's help him use the same tools to mobilize citizen power to solve some of the problems facing America.

I encourage you to visit this Obama Urban Policy site and cast your vote for ideas presented, or add your own suggestion. It only takes a few minutes but makes you an engine of change.

Add Support for Volunteer-Based Tutoring/Mentoring to your New Year's Resolution

Yesterday when I came to the office I received an email telling me about a funeral being held that morning for the 2-year old daughter of a former Cabrini Connections student. The message came from the volunteer who began mentoring that youth in the mid 1990s and who continues to this day --- more than 15 years later -- to still be a mentor in the life of this youth and his family.

I went to the funeral. It was tragic. The minister said "nothing I say can make sense of this tragic death" but "God has a purpose and maybe this death brings us together and changes our own life direction".

While he was addressing the family and friends of this young man and his wife, he did not realize he was also addressing the Cabrini Connections family. I had not talked to this volunteer in more than a year, or to this young man in about the same length of time. At the funeral I saw, and talked with, others who had been part of Cabrini Connections, or the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini Green Tutoring Program prior to 1992. I'd not seen many of these young people for many years, but have been making an effort to reconnect via Facebook and our Linked in pages.

Maybe this tragedy will be the catalyst that gets more of our former students and volunteers reconnected to our current students and volunteers and each other.

Mentoring is not about reading, writing, test scores, and teacher-directed tutoring. It's about relationships that form because a program like Cabrini Connections is available in the neighborhood, and creates an introduction during one year, that we hope lasts for a life time. Well organized tutor/mentor programs support the match between youth and adult, with the goal that they last for additional years so the bond between young people and volunteers, and the organization, grows and remains supportive as everyone grows older.

Once in Cabrini Connections, always in Cabrini Connections. I've been saying this for many years. I mean it.

Being at this funeral and giving support is just one small example of the type of support mentors can give to youth, and each other. Recognizing that these young adults, who were in elementary school or middle school when we first met them, still need our support for them, and for their own children, is what this community is really all about, and why we need donations from people who read this blog or visit our web sites.

January is National Mentoring Month. As you make your New Year's Resolution I hope you'll read the blogs we write, and learn more about this long-term form of mentoring, and ways that you, your church, your family and your business can support it in 2009 and beyond.

You can make a donation at http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate if you want to help us continue this work in 2009.

SunTimes “Stop the Killing’ Special Report misses opportunity

Over the past weekend the Chicago SunTimes ran a series of stories profiling the personalities involved in three shootings that took place in a 59 hour period of April 2008. Today, a full page editorial titled “Gang-related’ Killings much more than that” focused on the causes of inner city violence, saying “When we fail to face up to the real causes of violence in Chicago, when we chalk up hundreds of murders with a dismissive “gang-related” as if all that is needed is a bigger crackdown by the cops---we let ourselves off the hook.”

"Poke beneath the surface of any shooting on that weekend of April 18 and you will likely uncover a tangle of social woes that only an entire city, as a whole, can do much about. The police can clean up mess after mess, but more messes will be coming along."

You can read the full editorial at…http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1352626,CST-EDT-edit29.article

If you click the links to the left on violence, or media, you’ll find that this is not a new story. In fact, as the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes shows, the media have been calling for public involved in solving this problem for a long time.

So why is so little happening? What’s the opportunity that was missed in today’s editorial?

It’s right on the front page of today’s Chicago SunTimes, which featured the headline “SAVING TROY” . Page 2 and 3 were devoted to this heart-warming story, about a homeless man who was helped off the street by a Chicago businessman who connected with him by chance on a cold morning last April. As much as this story was about Troy, it was also about how one volunteer got personally involved, and because of that involvement Troy’s life is changes. However, the life of the volunteer has also been changed. Pete Kadens has gone from personal involvement, to joining the board and becoming a leader of STREETWISE the newspaper that helps the homeless in Chicago. He is quoted as saying, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It’s been one of the neatest, proudest, happiest times of my life.”

I did not read anything in the “Stop the Killing” report that suggested strategies for getting people who don’t live in poverty personally engaged so that they use their time, talent and resources to make life different for those who do live in poverty.

Yet, that’s what can happen when volunteers join structured, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections, or many others that you can find in the Program Links section of the T/MC web site. I encourage you to read some of the volunteer profiles from Cabrini Connections. As you skim the web sites of some of the other tutor/mentor programs from Chicago, you’ll see similar stories.

If we can increase the number of business volunteers connecting with kids in tutor/mentor programs, we can increase the chances of fewer kids growing up as gang-bangers, and more kids growing up and becoming contributing members of society, perhaps even a future President.

I want to thank the Chicago SunTimes for writing these stories. I’d also like to thank them for making a $2 million award to the SunTimes Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend A Hand Program in the fall of 2006. Money from that award was distributed as $240,000 in operating grants to 31 different tutor/mentor programs in 2007 and another $217,000 in grants in 2008 (even though the stock market dive has seriously eroded the original $2 million award).

As we enter 2009 there will be more killings and more opportunities for the media to write stories calling on the public to build long-term strategies to bring hope to the hopeless, and an end to the violence. I hope that each time the paper writes a story about violence and poor schools, it will point to the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site, and our database of Chicago area programs, where people like Pete Kadens can get involved, and stay involved for a long time, in helping change the future for kids born into concentrated, segregated, inner-city poverty.

I hope they also point to the articles on our web site that readers can use to build their own understanding of these issues, and to be more involved in helping comprehensive, mentor-rich volunteer-based programs grow in inner-city neighborhoods. Finally, I also hope they will use the maps in the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery, to encourage business, hospitals, colleges and faith groups to become strategically involved in all of the areas where they do business or have facilities, not just a few high profile places, or a few pilot programs.



If there is one media story and reference to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in a major newspaper of Chicago each week for the next five years, there will be an army of volunteers like Pete Kadens, and a growing support system to prevent some young people from growing up to become involved in “gang-related” killings on Chicago streets. If our business, faith, and political leaders point to programs in neighborhoods where they do business, on a weekly basis, they can help this network of programs and army of mentors grow, and stay connected to kids for many years.

Can this happen? That's my wish for 2009. Help me make it come true.

Creating Communities of Practice

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) is attempting to create a "community of practice" as defined in this article by Etienne Wenger.

The T/MC community consists of every organization listed in the Links Library and Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, as well as people who are linked in each of the web sites we point to. It also includes anyone we reach via email newsletters, or participation in on-line forums. It's a galaxy of people and organizations connected by a gravity of common purpose. We all want to help kids born in poverty connect with adult support systems that result in kids finishing school and starting jobs/careers by their mid-20s.

I encourage you to read the article by Etienne Wenger and use your understanding during 2009 and beyond to help us connect members of this community to each other.

2017 Editor Note: I've updated the link to Etienne Wenger's blog to a more recent article since links to the 2008 story are lost.

President-Elect Obama Promotes Mentoring

The December 19, 2008 edition of The New York Times included a public service advertisement showing President-elect Barack Obama encouraging readers to "Be the change: mentor a child."

The advertisement is a call to action from ServiceNation and National Mentoring Month partners - The Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR and the Corporation for National and Community Service - and is timed to coincide with January's National Mentoring Month activities. The call to action also is benefiting from the leadership of Be the Change, Civic Enterprises, City Year, and the Points of Light Institute.

Newsweek magazine has also agreed to print the Obama ad pro bono, and additional publications are being approached to do the same.

See the full New York Times story.

On the National Mentoring Month web site, a section points to 10 Things You Can Do In January. Number 10 is Make a Donation to a Mentoring Program in your Community.



I'd like to see the nation get a jump on the January campaign by emphasizing point Number 10 in December, when donors are making holiday gift decisions and year-end tax decisions. Without building the funding infrastructure of volunteer-based mentoring and tutoring the PR campaign will send new volunteers into battle as ill equipped as we've sent soldiers in war in Iraq.

Furthermore, I'd like to encourage people from around the country to think of the meaning of the charts and maps on this blog. What are all of the ways we need to work together, using our time, dollars, talent, and the leadership of people like President-Elect Obama, to create a infrastructure that would support on-going, mentor-rich programs in high poverty neighborhoods of every city in America?

We can't find this solution until we get more and more citizens involved. With President-Elect Obama's commitment to service, and out-of-the box thinking, we have a great opportunity.