This graphic is from this PDF presentation which was presented by Kim Silver of Mission Measurement at a January 2012 Philanthropy Club of Chicago meeting. I hope you'll read it. It shows a path out of economic darkness for non profit sector organizations who are able to incorporate these ideas into their strategies.
When Kim presented this she repeatedly used examples of tutor/mentor programs to illustrate her message, but out of over 40 people in the room, there were only five or six such programs represented. I said to myself, "What would it take to bring this presentation to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, where leaders of dozens of different programs could be engaged in an effort that identifies the "hot spots" that would motivate business leaders to dip into the $6 trillion dollar bucket of available funds to support programs throughout the city who do work that helps build a future workforce, while also providing learning and networking opportunities to their current workforce."
I spoke to Kim about this and she said one challenge would be that every tutor/mentor program has different goals and serves different age groups. It would be almost impossible to build a set of common metrics that CEOs would respond to. She also said that I could not afford their services.
The first challenge is that most programs use words to describe the services they provide, and those words don't communicate long-term or shared goals as well as pictures. Visit the Chicago Program Links and browse web sites of nearly 200 Chicago youth organizations to see how differently they each define mission.
I have used graphics for many years to communicate a vision of helping kids through school and into jobs and careers. If a program is working with 4th grade kids what does that organization do to help build the support system these kids need in 5th grade and beyond? If a program works with 10th through 12th graders, what does it do to assure the neighborhood has feeder programs working with elementary and middle school youth. What is the "hot spot" of a business that each of these programs addresses? Are their common hot spots?
How many programs define the different activities as part of an on-going, age-appropriate set of supports intended to help kids through school and into work?
How many businesses encourage volunteer involvement in programs throughout the city, in roles beyond tutor/mentor, which include board, communications, tech support, planning and leadership development activities? How many companies use maps to understand their footprint in the city and to plan future impact? If CEOs would adopt this ROLE OF LEADERS strategy they would develop learning, research & development, and marketing teams in their companies, drawing from web libraries that show benefits to business, and that show what competitors are doing that they could duplicate in their own work.
While companies compete for business they should be working collectively to develop the talents and skills of current and future employees. With states like Illinois cutting funds for eduction it is up to business to take steps that assure they have the workforce they will need 10 and 20 years from now.
As I said, Kim told me I could not afford her company's services. That's the final challenge.
If we can see where the $6 Trillion dollars in corporate talent and resources reside, who can work with myself and other tutor/mentor program leaders in Chicago to help us define and communicate visions and strategies that motivate CEOs to reach into this pool of resources to support career-focused tutor/mentor programs as part of corporate self interest?
Instead of dozens of individual programs hiring consultants and trying to figure out ways to tap into this resource, why can't dozens of programs doing similar work try to find ways to motivate corporations to support all of us?
I've been collecting business cards for more than 20 years. While I have three full Rolodex files I also have cardboard boxes with hundreds, or thousands, of cards representing people who I've lost contact with. I keep these with hope that some researcher will want to do an analysis of the network I've been building to show how others might duplicate this effort. The people in my file represent just a fraction of those on my database who used to receive printed newsletters or in my email list who now get monthly email newsletters.
As I was going through the Rolodex this morning I came across this card, which I collected in the mid 1990s after a meeting with Michelle Obama when she was at the University of Chicago. Hmm. I wonder if this has any collectors value.
When I met the future First Lady I did not know who she was married to. In fact, when State Senator Barack Obama was a speaker at the 1999 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Confernece I did not know as much about him as our other speaker, Congressman Luis Guitierrez. I also did not make the association with him and Michelle Obama.
In this image from the Summer 1999 newsletter, you can see a photo of Barack Obama, who was a speaker at the May 1999 conference.
I wish I could say that these two connections, or the appearance of Congressman Guitierrez at the conference, had led to life long support for the ideas and strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, but that has not yet happened.
But it can happen tomorrow, or in the future because since 1999 I've put most of my ideas on web sites where anyone can find them and spend as much time as they want looking, reflecting, and thinking of ways to incorporate these into their own leadership.
Using Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, Google+, Mobile phones and other communications technologies we're all only a few steps away from each other and the most powerful people in the world. In the Education Technology & Media #ETMOOC that started in January I've been exposed to more than 1600 people and a wide range of ideas for digital learning and story telling. One participant, Paul Signorelli, from San Francisco, has written a series of articles showing the value of the #ETMOOC. I encourage you to read them and visit http://www.etmooc.org and read more about this way of connecting and learning from others.
As President and Michelle Obama leave the White House in a few years they will still be young people and well able to lend their time, talent and fame to bringing people together on-line and face-to-face to support this effort and many like it taking shape all over the country. We have time for them to find their way here. However, we have an urgency that they get here quickly as we lose young people to poverty, violence and poor schooling every day.
Today the Chicago Tribune introduced us to 17 Chicago area residents who are among the richest people in the world. You can meet them here.
I saw another article in the paper talking about how the Chicago Bears were considering offering naming rights to their new facility in Lake Forest, which might generate up to $2 million a year in revenue.
That got me thinking. I wrote this article in August 2011 suggesting that we might offer naming rights to different components of the Tutor/Mentor Connection or Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, just the way sports teams, colleges, hospitals and art museums do.
Take a look at these logos. Could a local or national advertiser or benefactor put their name on one of these platforms?
How about the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference? The Broad Foundation funds a number of initiatives intended to build stronger leadership of public school systems. Why wouldn't a philanthropist fund an effort to build strong leadership for community based and non-school initiatives that expand learning opportunities and help prepare youth to come to the traditional school better prepared to learn?
I created this list of Think Tanks a year ago. Look at how many have the name of a benefactor. Why can't the Tutor/Mentor Institute have the name of one of Chicago's wealthiest people associated with it?
Or how about putting a sponsor name on the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator's Interactive Map. Investing more dollars will not only enhance the features of this map, but it can also increase the number of people in Chicago who use it to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas. It could lead to the Program Locator being used in other cities, not just Chicago.
Attaching a benefactor's name to these assets can generate revenue to fully develop them and the ideas shown here. It can help us and others connect, share ideas and work together to enhance the growth of programs that help youth overcome poverty and reach their fullest potential. However, a benefactor making this investment would also be signaling his/her commitment to the strategy shown in this map.
It does not cost anything, or generate revenue for the Tutor/Mentor Institute, for a leader to adopt this strategy and put a page with this information on his/her web site. It does require a commitment to long-term actions that reach youth in more places with age-appropriate supports that help those young people grow up and find places in work and neighborhoods where they can raise their kids without worrying about someone shooting them while they come and go from school every day.
I've been a fan of the Internet since it was first introduced to me by one of my volunteers in 1997 or 1998. I love the potential that anyone can post an idea to a blog or web page and that idea can be viewed by anyone in the world, even by one of the seventeen billionaires in Chicago.
Or by someone who has less wealth but a deep commitment to use the wealth they have to support the ideas shared on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site.
Over the past few months I've uploaded copies of newsletters from the 1990s and began to post maps showing participation in past Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences.
I use these to demonstrate work I've been doing for more than 20 years, and to invite support to continue this work in the future.
I've hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months since May 1994, to connect programs and supporters with each other, share ideas that can help each program constantly improve, and to create greater public attention for all tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.
From 2006 to 2011 I was supported by alumni from Northwestern University who were part of a Public Interest Fellowship Program. I encourage you to read articles they wrote about past conferences.
The November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference was a Success, Nov. 2008
By organizing conferences every six months, and a Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaign every August/Sept. from 1995 through 2003, I was able to generate a number of stories in print, radio, TV and the Internet, expanding attention and support for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs all over the Chicago region, not just for the Cabrini Connections program I was leading in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago.
This strategy was part of an on-going effort intended to build greater support for tutor/mentor programs so each could borrow ideas from other programs in Chicago and the US and constantly improve their impact on young people. This strategy was never consistently supported by CPS, the Mayor's office, philanthropy or business, yet it continued year-after-year for 20 years.
Due to changes at Cabrini Connections in 2011 I'm no longer operating under a 501-c-3 non profit structure so it has been much more difficult to find the money needed to do this (even though it was almost impossible in the past!). Yet, as this article says, "the difficulty of success does not relieve one of the obligation to try".
The next conference will be held on June 7, 2013 at the Metcalfe Federal Building. I'm organizing workshops now. See this list of suggested topics and use this form to submit a workshop proposal.
I'm not operating as a non-profit yet still need sponsors to support the conference and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. I wrote this article to suggest that if companies are willing to put their names on race car driver uniforms, we should be able to encourage the same type of support for people helping youth become their future workers.
20th Year of Tutor/Mentor Connection.
I've shown what I've been able to do with a little money in the past. I hope you'll help shape the future with a donation or a sponsorship.
Mr. Jones wrote about how the creative community has begun to use their talent and national platforms to draw attention to the gun violence in Chicago. He wrote that artist are not only trying to put a face on victims, but are "trying to search for causes, solutions and prevention".
He also wrote about a “common theme” that is gaining strength. “Geography, or where you live in the region, does not inoculate a city, a region, a nation, from responsibility.”
He asks “Are the stories behind the violence in Chicago understood in a Wheaton or Winnetka? and other communities far from high poverty neighborhoods?
To the past 20 years I've been using maps and the stories on this blog to try to tell the same story, with the goal of attracting support from people who don't live in poverty for volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring and learning programs operating in high poverty neighborhoods. See example.
I posted an animation on Friday showing how sports stars could be more consistently drawing attention to these issues, and drawing needed resources to tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods.
Imagine how many different ways this story could be told by creative people. Imagine if when Anne Hathaway ended her Oscar acceptance speech by wishing for a day when stories of poverty were only in the movies and not in reality, if she had pointed to a web site where more videos were drawing fans to places where they could become personally involved in the lives of youth and families living in poverty.
I've been exploring new ways to share the ideas from this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site. This animation demonstrates a role athletes and coaches can take to support the growth of mentor-rich programs in high poverty neighborhoods throughout the Chicago region, or in other cities.
This is a pilot video. Others can do this much better, with more creativity. Athletes with their access to high quality creative and video production talent could remake this video with themselves as the featured character. Point to the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and Chicago Program Links Library if you're in the Chicago region.
I’ve written many articles in the past about learning and network building and since mid January I’ve been part of an Education Technology and Media MOOC #ETMOOC where more than 1600 people are gathering on-line to share ideas about learning, digital story telling, on-line collaboration, etc.
Education Technology and Media which you can read about here While I could write a summary of everything I’ve learned, this recap by Paul Signorelli does a great job of showing the value of the ETMOOC.
Paul’s article includes this statement. “Outside of the course, on the other hand, I continue to see snarky comments from those who either haven’t had or aren’t willing to seek out these opportunities and the benefits they offer.”
I have this same problem. This week I was interviewed by a local newspaper reporter doing a story about mentoring. The reporter asked ‘what do I do” and expected a short, easy-to-understand response. I responded, “I collect and share information that is intended to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods. I try to bring people together to look at that information. I encourage the learning they do that supports their own actions and decision making.”
“What does that mean?” the reporter said.
I was not able to provide an easy answer in one sound byte.
When someone says MOOC, I immediately know what it means, because I’ve been following the growth of this process for more than 10 years. Others don’t know what I’m talking about or why I place so much value in the process.
I created this page to announce the 20 year anniversary of Tutor/Mentor Connection which I formed in late 1992 and launched in January 1994. I included a 2003 quote by Mr. Tim Wilmot. Chief Knowledge and Evaluation Officer, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation: "When nonprofit and community leaders share ideas, insights and information in ways that promote social impact...knowledge-sharing can improve organizational effectiveness. When we share what works and what doesn't... it results in accelerated learning, less reinventing the wheel, better service, and measurable results."
To bring people together to share ideas means someone has to build a list of people a) who have ideas to share; and b) who might come to an event, or an online space, to connect with these ideas.
Since 1975 I’ve been building a list of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs, researchers, reporters, business and philanthropy leaders, etc. for over 30 years and have used this to share ideas via print and email newsletters, conferences, and in one-on-one mentoring of different people who are looking for help in finding a tutor/mentor program, starting a program, improving a program, etc. I formalized this process when launching the Tutor/Mentor Connection 20 years ago. I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 to continue this work.
This information collection/sharing process requires constant updating. It’s no small task. Writing newsletters, blogs, maintaining a Twitter and Facebook presence, organizing conferences twice a year, meeting with people to expand the network, etc.are also time consuming, This has been no small task, especially in the third largest city in the US and with less than 2.5 full time staff devoted to the project at its peak. Yet this work is necessary to support the learning of much larger groups of people throughout the metropolitan Chicago region, and the nation, who are also concerned with the well-being of inner city youth and the productivity of our labor force.
In the ETMOOC there has been a lot of discussion about “content curation”. Here's one article.
In the Tutor/Mentor Connection links library I point to numerous web sites talking about “knowledge management” such as this article. To me these are versions of the same idea. Someone has to be collecting and organizing information so that others can use the information to support communities of practice and collective efforts intended to solve social problems.
I’ve been building a knowledge library for more than 20 years, intended to support the involvement of youth, adults, business, media, faith groups, philanthropy, political leaders and anyone else who wants to be part of the “village” needed to help kids in poverty move through school and into jobs and careers.
I’ve been learning from the ideas of people throughout the world and as I learn a good idea or find a good resource, I add it to my library and share it via my blog, email newsletter, or in one-on-one mentoring of other people.
The ETMOOC focuses mostly on how traditional classroom educators might use these ideas to engage k-12 youth in more effective and motivated learning. My target is adults, not for adult literacy, but to educate them on more ways they might use their own resources to build birth-to-work systems of support in inner city neighborhoods.
Yet the people I’m trying to engage in this MOOC-like learning and action planning process are people who have busy full-time lives. That means the first MOOC we need to build is one where many people are sharing ideas for engaging busy people in on-going learning intended to solve social/environmental/health problems that plague many different parts of the US and the world.
Knowledge Management and Content Curation involve collecting and making sense of information. However, there’s also a marketing process involved, intending to constantly increase the number of people to become involved in this learning, and who then become involved in supporting the growth of birth-to-work mentoring, tutoring and learning programs in local communities.
Using the internet we can gather information that helps us better understand a problem, and that shows how people in other places are working to solve the problem. Instead of constantly reinventing the wheel, or starting from scratch, we should be able to innovate ways to apply good ideas from other places to the work we do in our own communities.
This requires content curation, knowledge management, marketing, information facilitation and many other skills.
As I said to the reporter I spoke with, “Solving the problem of inner city poverty, youth violence, poorly performing schools and showing the role of mentors in volunteer based tutor/mentor programs is more than a sound byte and one media story”. It requires in-depth learning, thinking and planning that continues over many years with thousands of people involved.
I’m trying to support that process through the work I’ve been doing for the past 20 years. Until others spend time learning about the process and understanding its benefits to their own work and lives I’m not sure how I can explain the value to them, or describe what I do, in a few words.
If you're not aware of it, the National Center for Education Statistics has a wealth of data that can be used to understand education issues in Illinois and the US. This map image is one that I created from the data set on this page.
This is an article about high school graduation and drop-out rates on a state-by-state level, using an interactive map and data from the NCES site.
I saw this article in today's Sun Times and posted my own comment to it, encouraging the Mayor to use some of the ideas I've shared on this blog so he supports constantly improving tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty neighborhood, not just the traditional high profile programs that attract the most support.
My first suggestion was to use maps, such as provided on the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, to identify and support programs in every high poverty neighborhood, and to encourage new programs to support where none exist.
My second suggestion was to support programs that show a strategy that supports youth for multiple years and engages volunteers from the business community as tutors, mentors, tech support, organizers, communicators, advocates, etc. Look for a "theory of change" or a "logic model" on the organization's web site with graphics and history that demonstrates this commitment.
My third suggestion was to encourage every industry and professional group to build a strategy that provides volunteers, operating dollars, technology and other needed support to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in every part of the city, such as the Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program has been doing since 1994. Note. the Lend-A-Hand Program launched it's on tutor/mentor program a few years ago and discontinued the grants to other tutor/mentor programs in 2021.
This ROLE of LEADERS PDF is one of many created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1994 that the Mayor could share to encourage leaders in business to support the growth of mentor-rich programs.
This STRATEGY MAP is one the Mayor could adopt and put on his own web site, and that he could encourage other leader in business, religion, higher education and public health to adopt as part of their own commitment.
In a few years will we look back and see a few million dollars distributed to a small group of organizations or will we see a "virtual corporate office" created where volunteers and leaders from every sector are taking roles that support the growth of mentor-rich youth programs in every zip code of the Chicago region where kids have economic disadvantages that most kids don't face?
Or will we see a model of support that is being duplicated in every city in the country?
In today's Chicago Tribune Salim Muwakkil wrote an article urging us to use Black History month to do more learning about the root causes of poverty and inner city violence. I agree. In fact, I think this learning should take place all year long and in many places. I've written numerous articles about learning and network building on this blog since 2005.
I've also created an extensive library of research articles that any group might use for reading, reflection, discussion and learning. And I've created a map based Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that anyone can use to find and support existing tutor/mentor programs or determine where new programs are needed.
However, I think that we must find ways to make this learning more important to people who don't live in poverty and who may not be people of color. In the Tribune article retired cop and 20th Ward Ald. Willie Cochran was quoted as saying, "If we are not going to address the traumatic and social and emotional issues, if we are not going to address the economic issues, if we are not going to address the education issues in an honest way, then we are going to continue to have these problems."
I go a step further to say if we don't figure ways to get thousand of additional people personally involved, building empathy, understanding and commitment to actions that support comprehensive youth and workforce development systems in high poverty neighborhoods we will continue to be looking at faces of innocent kids lost to inner city violence over the next 20 years or more.
I host a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every six months for this purpose and to help mentor-rich programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods. The next is June 7. I hope some of you who read this will help me find sponsors to pay for the event, and/or will organize workshops to attract more people who care about these issues.
While I've incorporated maps in many of the articles I've written on this site, I've also hosted another site focused completely on maps, titled Mapping for Justice.
From 2008-2011 the maps and articles on this site were created by Mike Trakan, who was the GIS map maker on the Tutor/Mentor Connection staff. Due to funding cuts and changes in structure Mike's not been with me since early 2011. I've continued to post maps on the site and I encourage you to browse recent articles.
I encourage you to add budget time monthly to browse the articles on this site and the Mapping for Justice site, and use the ideas to form coalitions that help build and sustain mentor-rich non-school programs in your neighborhood or your city.
I received an email from MENTOR today announcing that photos, videos and workshop presentations are now available at this link.
I’ve been working on a final recap expressing some of my observations. I wrote here and here showing some of the people I met and comments I heard.
President Obama is coming to Chicago this Friday in response to the shooting of 15 year old Hadiya Pendleton. Thus, I hope some leaders will read what I share below, and browse some of the other articles I’ve written, and develop comprehensive, long-term youth development strategies in high poverty neighborhoods of the city and suburbs. This is not a problem that will go away after the high profile attention of this past two weeks.
As I listened to Congressman Elijah Cummings, MD, talk about mentors in his life, saying “I’ve had one mentor since I was 16;” and “We must do our part so they can deliver their gifts to the world;” I though of my own mentee, Leo, who I met in 1973 when he was in 4th grade. We’ve stayed connected ever since then. A few years ago we met on Thanksgiving morning at a Starbucks in Chicago and passed a video camera back and forth recording how important each of us had been to the life of the other.
Lack of market-based data
While many workshops focused on data and evaluation and accountability, I was struck by how little data was used in keynote presentations to show the distribution of programs and resources in different parts of the country. Furthermore other than showing a commitment to build the public will, I did not see an outline of a year-round strategy, or the engagement of partners from many different sectors to support the advertising frequency and reach needed to gain and sustain public and private sector support for a decade or longer. I did not hear anyone talking about building a distribution plan to make programs available in more places.
This does not surprise me. In my frequent Google searches I can’t find sites that focus on this the way I have done since 1993.
Use of Maps
In the main sessions of the Summit I saw lots of story telling, but too little data showing where mentoring is most needed, or where programs are already available. What numbers of kids need mentoring, based on age, demographics, economics, or other indicators?
If the data were being collected, it can also be mapped. No maps were used in the keynote sessions, or in workshops I attended, to show what populations of young people MENTOR seeks to serve, based on poverty, school performance, violence, or any other indicator. Such information is being mapped in many places and could be used on a national level to focus attention on areas with greatest need. The New York City initiative could have included maps in its presentation but did not.
Maps could also be used to demonstrate level of program distribution in these areas, and to highlight under-served areas. Without this information it’s difficult to lead any kind of on-going effort intended to reach kids in more areas, and to know if there is a growth in program reach from year to year.
Unclear priorities
New forms of mentoring, such as those targeted at adopted youth and youth with special learning needs (ADHD, etc)are exciting. However, they make the target for mentoring a mixed bowl of fruit. I think that in most forms of mentoring, our goal is to help youth grow up to be good citizens and productive adults (is it?). However, youth from different social/economic backgrounds have different levels of support already available in their lives. I think maps could help clarify the areas of the country where kids need the most help, while other forms of visual organization can still show that kids from many different backgrounds have a need for specialized forms of mentoring and extra adult support.
Marketing and Year-Round Strategy
I also did not find any workshops that showed strategies, or talked about building strategies, that would support year-round efforts intended to reach some of the goals of MENTOR, such as building public will, or increasing the number of volunteers, or the number of dollars supporting tutor/mentor programs. While National Mentoring Month is in January, events need to be taking place in other months. National Mentoring Month is led by the Harvard School of Public Health, not MENTOR. Perhaps other events throughout the year could become part of a year-round effort to draw attention and mobilize resources for mentoring programs and networks in various cities and states.
Expand Role of Media
With the need for year-round strategies that mobilize resources for programs in different neighborhoods and cities, I feel the media also have an expanded responsibility. The PBS American Graduate effort and the NBC Education Nation campaign are two of many media campaigns that focus on different parts of the same overall problem, but seem to compete for attention. If every media outlet in each city included a "take action" section on their web site, encouraging companies, faith groups, universities and individuals to do something today -- volunteer, donate, partner, etc. --, every story could be part of a larger on-going effort to build public will and draw needed operating resources and talent to all tutor/mentor programs in each city.
MENTOR could put together a calendar showing all of the different media events, and work to have them point to the MENTOR web site and other sites where people can become involved in local programs. As media become more focused on generating resources, not just attention, I’d like to see the September American Graduate and Graduation Nation events move into late August, or have a build up that starts in late August, to have greater impact on volunteer recruitment in the first few weeks of Sept. Programs have screening, matching and other work to do with a volunteer before they are matched with a youth, which could last until mid October, which means the first six weeks of the school year is lost and for some kids who get into the wrong peer group, they may be lost forever.
In the same line of thinking, National Mentoring Month could have a December launch, intended to influence more charitable support of mentoring programs, not just the intermediary organizations.
Need better data collection tools
I’ve been trying to automate the collection of information about tutor/mentor programs since 2004. I’ve also been working to create maps that show who attends a conference and the composition of my network. I’m doing this with volunteers, but learning from some of the brightest people in the world through forums like the Education Technology and Media MOOC #ETMOOC at http://www.etmooc.org
Tracking impact of our campaigns and showing flow of attention and resources directly to local programs would be a useful tool. I created this graphic to illustrate the idea. Can we develop tacking system that automatically captures “opens” on different web sites resulting from a “campaign” such as the Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska Coaches Recruitment Competition?
The Coaches Competition organized by Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska is pretty unique and could be duplicated in other states if the leaders and resources were available. Lots of work was involved in organizing this. Playbook of the three states organizing this is available.
However, this is not the only effort involving celebrities and athletes. I know sports organizations are involved in other cities, like Memphis Grizzlies Foundation is in Memphis. A national effort is the United Way Team NFL which has a goal of 1 million mentors. 300 United Ways involved. Another national effort is the Corporate Mentoring Challenge
It would be great to have someone keeping a master list of such campaigns. A map showing colleges or sports teams with mentor mobilization campaigns could be useful. A map showing businesses with strategies for mobilizing and supporting volunteer-based mentoring programs would be useful.
It would be even better if every city had a master database of tutor/mentor programs that various campaigns were using throughout the year to point volunteers and donors to, and that were being used to show the effect such campaigns were having on the distribution of programs in places where they are needed.
I wrote down many of these thoughts as I attended workshops at the Summit this year and in 2012. I could only attend a few of the workshops and probably won't find time to go through all of the archives to learn what else was presented in other workshops and planning sessions. However, I did not see any presentations outlining tipping points, or theory of change, focusing on strategies that build and sustain mentor-rich programs in high poverty areas of big cities for the many years it takes for a youth to go from first grade to first job.
Perhaps these were being shared in workshops I did not attend, or are on web sites of some of the organizations partnering with MENTOR to host the Summit. If they are, please share links so I can expand my own library of strategies and collaborations. As we learn more of what works in different parts of the country we can use blogs, MOOCs, Facebook, Linked in and other on-line media to share these ideas so they can work in more places.
I hope that by sharing my ideas others will be stimulated to share their own thinking on blogs like this or on wikis and web pages and that we can connect and gain greater attention to such strategies as we move from this year’s Summit to next year’s summit.
If you’re writing on topics like this please share a link to your web site in the comment box or submit a link to the library at http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Library
Today's Chicago Tribune Editorial titled "Protecting our Own" shows photos of six high profile killings since 1984. The editorial laments "we've been there before" and repeats "it will take more than new policing strategies". It ends with "Chicago needs a new commitment to protect it's own."
I've been giving this message for over 20 years, since 1992, when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in the weeks following the killing of Dantrell Davis. This front page of the October 1992 Chicago SunTimes has the same call for involvement.
While the media are once again highlighting this problem, and we're starting a new year, I encourage you, your company, your high school, your social and civic group, to organize reading and reflection circles that read the articles I've posted, follow the links to the other web sites I point to, and consider advertising based strategies that draw needed attention and resources to every high poverty neighborhood, so that more needed youth and family services grow in places where they are needed, and so they stay in place and constantly improve over the next 20 years.
I don't expect anyone to understand all of this in a few days. I've spent 35 years thinking about ways to connect volunteers and youth and keeping a tutor/mentor program operating in a high poverty neighborhood. Had city leaders adopted some of the ideas I've been sharing since 1993 perhaps we'd be in a different position today.
Adopt these ideas now and perhaps in 20 years we won't have another set of pictures with a new call to responsibility.
As I browsed my Sunday Chicago Tribune this article stared me in the face.
Every one of these kids had been part of the tutoring program that operated at at the Montgomery Ward Corporate HQ in Chicago since 1975, or the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Programs that took the place of the Wards program in 1990. Or Cabrini Connections, which I formed with the help of seven other volunteers in 1993. These programs were non-school, volunteer-based. That means kids went home from school then had to come to the tutoring center on Chicago Ave after 5pm. Once they showed a commitment to participate they had to attend at least 3 or every 4 weeks to stay involved. We had the same requirements of volunteers who came from a variety of different companies in Chicago. Ronnie and his siblings participated when they were in elementary school and we tried to get them to participate in Cabrini Connections when it started in 1993. Carlos was beginning to participate when he was killed in 1995. Ronnie was not interested at all.
Just motivating older youth to participate regularly for 3 to 6 consecutive years is a huge challenge. It does not happen without a considerable effort on the part of program leaders. By 1992 the original tutoring program and the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program had over 440 k-8 youth involved along with 550 volunteers. When I and six other volunteers formed Cabrini Connections in the fall of 1992 we had five 7th, 8th and 9th graders. By 1998 nearly 100 teens were participating regularly. From 2000 to 2012 the enrollment capped at 80 teens due to lack of space.
By the time Carlos was killed in 1995 I already knew from the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) maps that there are too few programs in most parts of Chicago. I knew from my own fund raising efforts how frustrating it is to try to get consistent, flexible operating dollars for these programs. I created the T/MC in 1993 to try to bring people together and create advertising-type visibility that would draw support to all programs in the city. I've never been able to get significant support for this ideas. I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 to try to keep this going.
After Carlos was killed, I wrote this letter which was printed in the Chicago Tribune. In this letter I appealed to people who were reading about these tragedies to provide the consistent support I and others leading tutor/mentor programs in Chicago needed to have more power to attract kids like Ronnie and Carlos and to keep them involved long enough for the program to make a difference.
In the National Mentoring Summit held last week (see my recap) the theme was “Mentoring WORKS”. One leader said “We absolutely know that mentoring works.”
What others were saying at the conference and in other forums that I have participated in for many years, “it works for some kids” and “it works if resources are consistently applied for many years”.
We need to define the many different young people and adults who are targets for mentoring, then define what “success means” for each group. I contend that success for kids coming from high poverty neighborhoods with the type of violence Chicago has, mentoring works when kids are in college and jobs, and have a much broader adult support system to help them with their adult lives, as a result of the programs they participate in from elementary school on.
I see an awful lot of people aiming for public dollars when states like Illinois are almost bankrupt. Thus, I look for people who will “Think Retail” as the Chairman of MENTOR’s board of directors said in his opening remarks, and who will try to build a virtual corporate office that supports high quality mentoring, tutoring, arts, technology and jobs programs operating in thousands of high poverty neighborhoods.
As we do this I feel there is a tremendous potential to reach out to alumni of various mentoring and tutoring programs who are now working in their own careers and raising their own kids, as well as volunteers who have had their own lives transformed by their participation in these programs.
There is an Army out there that is not being mobilized.
The Chambers family does not have any more kids to give to street violence and inner city poverty, yet many other families will continue to bleed their youth out on the streets and in under motivating classrooms unless more people step back and look for massive systems changes in terms of how we fund programs, where we get talent to lead them, how we keep talent in place for decades, how we learn from each other so we constantly improve, and how we use the Internet to engage, share ideas, and create a massive, on-going advertising campaign that motivates people to support youth programs all over the country with the same generosity that comes after major natural disasters.
I’ll keep reaching out on social media to young people and adults who I’ve met since 1975 in my role of leader of a tutor/mentor program, and to people who lead other programs in Chicago and other cities, as well as to those in business, philanthropy, government and religion who have the same anguish as I do when I open the paper and see bad news.
Yesterday I posted an article with some quotes made by mentoring leaders at last week’s National Mentoring Summit. I also posted a map showing people I met. I do this to draw attention to the need for operating resources and to try to connect with others who will add their time, talent and dollars to building a year-round public attention and resource generation strategy that supports tutor/mentor programs in every neighborhood of Chicago and every city with flexible, constantly flowing operating and innovation resources.
I was able to attend only one workshop in each time frame out of six or seven offered. Thus, unless others are sharing their reflections from the workshops they attended, most of us will only benefit from a fraction of the ideas shared.
I’ve been part of an Education Technology MOOC since Jan 13, in which more than 1600 people are sharing ideas with each other. My hope is that on-line learning events like this can grow in the youth development, mentoring, tutoring fields.
All of the workshops I attended were full of value. Visit this page on the MENTOR website for workshop descriptions, downloads of handouts, and bios of all speakers.
One workshop and one keynote offered a unique new perspective on mentoring opportunities.
The workshop was The Rudd Adoption Mentoring Partnership at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Renee Moss and Jocelyn Nelson of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County, MA and Dr. Harold Grotevant and Jen Dolan from the university, described a mentoring partnership in which college students who had been adopted were matched with middle and high school students who had been adopted.
This project focused on a specific population of special needs youth, matched with college mentors who had the same life experience (adoption) and who met the BBBS stringent guidelines for match compatibility.
Dr. Grotevant provided an overview of some of the issues adopted youth face that only others who have been adopted themselves can really understand. Today he sent an email with links to two presentations that tell more about this unique program.
A couple of highlights: The university gave class credit to the mentors, who were required to participate in bi-weekly feedback sessions. Thus there was tremendous coaching provided by the university. Dr. Grotevant reported that the unique program has begun to attract students to the university who have an adoption background.
Renee Moss, the BBBS leader, has been in her role for 27 years! We need to find ways to encourage this depth of experience in thousands of programs. A needed research project might develop information showing tenure of leaders and staff of tutor/mentor programs.
The second special needs program was Eye to Eye, a mentoring program focusing on LD/ADHD youth, which was featured during the Friday lunch time session. This project matches college and adult mentors who have overcome learning disabilities with LD/ADHD youth still in middle school and high school. Visit the web site and see how volunteers serve as Think Different Diplomats to share this program with others.
As with the adoption model, the mentor having the same experience as the mentee was the basis of the match, and the population served cuts all economic levels. Neither of these programs focus primarily on youth living in poverty.
I would expect both models to expand rapidly since affluent parents of adopted or ADHD youth will be more than willing to provide personal philanthropy and fund raising leadership to make such programs available to their own kids.
The second morning workshop that I attended was titled: NYC Mentoring Investment – The Young Men’s Initiative Click here to view workshop description and down load power point presentation.
The most impressive thing about this initiative is the number of organizations involved and the huge financial commitment behind the initiative. The New York City public school population is close to 1 million and the number of youth at risk of drop out in New York City is huge – 532,434! I've written in the past about the unique challenges of big cities with school-age populations over 100,000 youth.
One of the partners in the Young Men’s Initiative, is the department of Probation, which operates the Neighborhood opportunity networks (NeON) among other programs.
I would like to have seen a use of maps in this initiative, to show where the drop out problem is concentrated, and to support marketing efforts aimed at building a flow of needed operating resources, volunteers, ideas, etc. to all of these neighborhoods, and all of the partners in the initiative.
On Thursday afternoon I attended a workshop that described the Coaches Mentoring Challenge
I wrote about this in an article last month. Since I’ve wanted to unleash the power of coaches and athletes to mobilize volunteers and dollars to support tutor/mentor programs in all part of the Chicago region, this was a workshop that I really wanted to attend.
Mentoring network leaders from Iowa (Sarah Hinzman and Chad Driscoll), Kansas (Nicolette Geisler) and Nebraska (Suzanne Hince) described how head football coaches at Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Nebraska were leading a competition to see which state could recruit the most mentors between September and December.
The planning was broken down to “pre season” “game day” and “post game” with lots of information on the web site. See details here and here.
A lot of work goes into this and the mentor leaders deserve a lot of credit. They did a great job of showing the challenges of working with high profile coaches and universities.
This puts a bit of a damper on my own hopes because 99% of the work comes from the Mentor Partnerships while the coaches and universities lend their names and get credit for the good will generated.
I’m idealistic. I want coaches and other leaders to spend quality time trying to make mentoring and tutoring available, just as other volunteers do. If we do all the work for them, the commitment is not really there, nor are we benefiting from the talent and creativity these leaders might apply to building tutor/mentor infrastructure in their cities and states.
I don’t have the manpower, or brain power, to do all of the thinking that is needed to ensure the coach’s involvement has the desired impact. Will need partners to help with this.
This was probably the most valuable workshop of all that I attended. Why?
The facilitator was Janet Forbush, a consultant supporting mentor program growth. We’re both part of the mentoring email list hosted by Dr. David DuBois of UIC. Janet set the stage for the workshop when she said: “You can’t run mentoring programs without money” as part of the introduction to this workshop.
That’s my own view and the efforts I’ve led for past 20 years have attempted to increase the flow operating resources to all tutor/mentor programs in the city.
Trudy Perkins, Office of Congressman Elijah Cummings, MD, was the first speaker on this panel, and provided valuable insight for reaching out to elected officials. I’ve not been very effective in this myself.
Heather Harvison, founder of My Sister’s Circle, , described a girls mentoring program that she formed in 2000. I appreciated this program because it focuses on helping girls from 5th grade through high school and college, and keeping volunteers involved for all seven years. In addition, Heather has been reaching out to build networks with other tutor/mentor programs in Baltimore, similar to my efforts in Chicago since 1976.
I think that there is too little effort to determine the different types of mentoring programs in each city, based on who they serve, and based on how broad-based and long-term their support of young people extends.
Conference speakers said “MENTORING Absolutely Works” but they did not say what that means or that it works when programs are able to support youth and volunteers effectively and sustain youth and volunteer involvement for multiple years. In the rush for “numbers” many programs are not designed to keep youth involved for multiple years. I’ve been trying to build a distinction between different types of tutoring and/or mentoring programs in Chicago since 1993, but never have had the resources to go beyond creating a database of providers which breaks down by age served and type of program. See http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net Connecting with leaders like Heather who also are trying to build a connection with peers, is one step toward gaining more attention and support for this intermediary role.
The final member of the panel was Lynn Sherman, Baptist Health Center in Jacksonville, Fl. Lynn described the Tipping the Scale mentoring program lead by the hospital with partnership from a local CBO. It includes a mentoring and a workforce development component.
This program seems very similar to the programs in the Hospital Youth Mentoring Partnership network, which I connected with in late 1999. Members of the network attended one of the T/MC conferences in 2000 and I was a speaker of a HYMP conference in Baltimore in 2001. As it turns out, Lynn also attended that conference!
I’ve written many articles on the role hospitals can take in building networks of mentor-rich programs in their trade area, but have failed to find a champion who would rebuild the HYMP and expand its focus to one of community network builder from just innovative mentor program operator.
This article describes the partnership and the program at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
This is a press release from Ceasar’s Siani Hospital, which also was part of the partnership
This PDF includes a Commonwealth Fund Report on Hospital Youth Mentoring Partnership from circa 1999
The final workshop I was able to attend on Friday before heading to the airport was one focused on Mentoring Central, an on-line training resource that can be used to provide pre-match training to new volunteers. Mentoring Central includes research-based, pre-match blended learning mentor training curriculum; post-match Web-based mentor training on special topics; post-match mentor support resources; and many tools to support mentoring program staff. I was impressed with the creativity and quality of the training modules that were shown during the workshop.
Visit this link to see other workshops I attended and people I connected with.
Summary: For the past 20 years I’ve built a database of Chicago area tutor/mentor programs and a web library with links to research, editorials, programs in other cities, “how to” info, etc. Through the Internet I attempt to connect with representatives of these organizations with a goal of getting help in maintaining the library, and in building public will needed to support tutor/mentor programs in thousands of locations with public and private dollars and volunteer talent. I have hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months with invitations to those in my network to come and share their own ideas and build relationships with others who they may not know.
There are dozens of conferences and events around the country that have workshops and speakers with equal value to the MENTOR Summit. Due to financial restraints I’ve never been able to participate in many of these. While I try to get to as many events in Chicago as I can, I’m so committed to connecting people who attend these conferences via the Internet because with more the 650 attendees, no one is able to connect with more than a few other participants.
You never know who you will meet and what will happen. At the end of the first day of the Mentor Summit as I was collecting my coat a man introduced himself and handed me a book that he was sharing at the Summit. I said thanks and stuffed it in my bag with everything else I picked up to read. Since my flight back to Chicago was delayed, I had time to read the entire book. I found it uplifting, and maybe you will to. It’s titled Mentor: The Kid and the CEO and was written by Tom Pace. Learn more about this book and Tom’s work at http://www.mentorhope.com/
This Forbesarticle was in my email today. It talks about the need to support the program infrastructure connecting many different programs in efforts to help young people succeed in school and life.
The Tutor/Mentor conference in Chicago in May/June and November is part of an on-going effort to build a collective commitment that supports tutor/mentor programs in all high poverty neighborhoods of the Chicago region. It will be held on June 7 and I hope some of you will help recruit speakers and workshop speakers, as well as a few sponsors. However, the next opportunity we have to connect and share ideas is today, tomorrow and any time you’re motivated to reach out to me on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Skype or via email or the traditional telephone.
I spent last Thursday and Friday at the National Mentoring Summit in Washington, DC. In this week’s blog articles I’ll try to share some of the ideas and resources that I connected with.
I created this map to show some of the people and organizations I connected with out of the more than 500 people who attended. The green nodes are people I've connected with prior to the Summit. The light blue nodes are new people who I hope to build relationships with in 2013. The link to this map can be found at http://preview.tinyurl.com/MentorSummitMap2013
The “theme of the Summit was “Mentoring Works” and David Shapiro, CEO of Mentor was the first speaker to reinforce that message.
Below are quotes from David and others who spoke over the two days. I tried to Tweet some of these as I listened. I’m sure others were doing the same. If you attended the Summit, I invite you to post comments below to add quotes you were inspired by, or point to your own blog articles where you have posted your own comments.
“A supportive mentor can make the difference between trouble and success.”
My goal is to “Bring a caring mentor to every child who needs one.”
Willem Kooyker, MENTOR Board Chairman
“Let’s think retail. It takes a village. We need partners in the private sector. Focus on the emotional part, not just the IQ part.”
Comment from workshop “New York City’s Mentoring Investment and Evaluation – A Key Strategy in the Young Men’s Initiative”
“There is a connection between chronic absenteeism and future success. Need to catch kids before it is too late. We need to repurpose resources.”
Afternoon lunch panel – day 1
The Honorable Congressman Chaka Fattah (PA)
“We need all departments of government involved.”
“We can’t afford to leave any child behind if we are to compete with huge populations of China and India.”
Omarina, Cabrera, Student at Brooks Academy (was mentee at Middle School 244, Bronx, NY, when in 7th grade. Watch American Graduate Video featuring Omarina.
“It (mentoring” is something every child should have. It’s not fair when one doesn’t”
“Challenge is to organize enough adults so there are enough “People Power” in places that need it.”
We need to become “Insider traders for social good.” Use knowledge of what works to expand impact.
“We have to value student supports.”
“You can have the best curriculum in the world, but if students don’t attend class it does not matter.”
Catherine Miller, Teacher who worked with Omarina, Middle School 244, Bronx, NY
“You hold up a dream for a child until they are strong enough to hold it up for themselves.”
Michael Selkis, Director of School Development and Support and Director/Network Leader, fhi360
“We need to help understand connectivity around how all these things work. How do we use collective impact? Asset analysis?”
Morning, day 2
The Honorable Congressman Elijah Cummings (MD)
“Our children are a living message to a future we will never see.”
“We must do our part to life them up so they can deliver their gifts to the world.”
Lt. Governor Brian Calley, Michigan
There are “few areas where we have the ability to affect the world 50 years from now, as much as how we mentor kids who need help.”
“Those who have the most stacked against them are once to concentrate on first.”
Eric Dawson, founder of PeaceFirst
“We do not call them (youth) to anything.”
“What about the power of young people to be assets of change?”
“What are we going to ask of young people?”
Eric announced the Peace First Prize, a “Nobel Prize” for youth leadership.
I'm sure there were many other great quotes from all the different speakers. These are what I captured in my notes. I think they are enough to inspire us in efforts that mobilize resources and talent needed to support volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in high poverty areas, as in special need populations.
All of these speakers and many others talked about the power of mentoring and the need for resources to support mentoring in many places. My next article will introduce you to some of the workshops I attended. My final article will post reflections on what this all means and what the next steps should be in 2013.
If you want to help young people in Chicago, browse the maps on the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and look for tutor/mentor programs near where you live or work. Offer your time, talent and dollars to help each program move from what they are today to becoming the best in the world at helping young people find their own paths to positive futures.
Browse the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site for more ideas on where and how you can become involved, including offering your support to the Institute so it can continue its intermediary role.
How to use this blog: Each article includes graphics. Click on them to get enlarged versions. Each article has many links (which are often broken on older articles). Open the links to dig deeper in the ideas and strategies I share. On the left side are tags which you can click to find articles that focus on the same topic.
Note: the PO Box address shown w many graphics no longer is active.
Learn more about me at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/dan-bassill.
I combine 17 years of retail advertising, 3 years in Army Intelligence and 40 years of leading site-based tutor/mentor programs, the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Few people in the US have a similar depth of involvement and experiences.
I describe my work as information-based problem solving and host a library of my own ideas plus links to more than 2000 other sites which people can use to build and sustain volunteer-based non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs in high poverty areas.
You meet me in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or other links shown below.
If CEOs would adopt this ROLE OF LEADERS strategy they would develop learning, research & development, and marketing teams in their companies, drawing from web libraries that show benefits to business, and that show what competitors are doing that they could duplicate in their own work.
While companies compete for business they should be working collectively to develop the talents and skills of current and future employees. With states like Illinois cutting funds for eduction it is up to business to take steps that assure they have the workforce they will need 10 and 20 years from now.
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