If you read the local Chicago papers, the financial mess in Chicago and Illinois means there's not going to be enough money available to fund Chicago Public Schools, resulting in staff cuts and class sizes increasing. There's also going to be a cut in state funding of non-profit youth serving organizations, meaning staff cuts and lost of services. With all of this weighing us down, I'd like to try to stimulate some future thinking.
I've used this graphic often to illustrate the three time frames when youth need support from caring adults (school day, right after school, evening, weekend, summer). This also emphasizes the responsibility we have of helping kids move through school and into jobs and careers, not just high school graduation.
I led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago for more than 35 years. Our sessions were held from 5:15 till 8pm, when workplace volunteers were available. In the Cabrini Connections program (1993-2011) we tried to recruit kids in 7th and 8th grade and keep them coming back until they finished high school.
This means we needed to find money every year to pay the bills. That was always a challenge. The graphics below illustrate this challenge.
There's a tremendous amount of wealth in Chicago, and the US, but much of it is not yet being focused on helping build and sustain great learning and mentoring opportunities in high poverty neighborhoods, reach kids at school, and in the non-school hours.
If these graphics resonate with you then let's find places on the Internet, and in Chicago, where we can begin to connect and look for solutions.
I started taking part in MOOCs several years ago and am now part of the 2015 Connected Learning MOOC #CLMOOC. We're in the second week, and each week a newsletter introduces a new theme for learning. The theme this week is Re(Media)te with ME, which means participants are encouraged "to choose something (an artifact, a story, a picture, a video clip, an anything) and over the course of the week remediate it through one or more different media."
This is something I've been doing for nearly 20 years. Many of the graphics you see on this blog started out as doodles on a notepad during meetings I've attended. This drawing is one example:
This is the visualization that I created from that bunch of scribbles.
Since 2005 I've had a variety of interns from different colleges work with me for as long a a year, and as short as a week. In many of these projects, interns look at a blog article and graphic, then create their own interpretation.
Below is a video interpretation of my blog article, created in 2013 by Kyungryul Kim, an intern from IIT and from South Korea.
Here's another example. I've used this graphic many times to show the role of intermediaries who connect people who can help to places where help (tutoring, mentoring, learning programs, etc) is needed. This PDF describes "building a network of purpose".
View this blog article, and this Prezi, to see how another intern did an interpretation of the PDF during his June 2013 internship.
Browse this intern blog and see many more examples of interns Re(Media)ting with Tutor/Mentor Connection. Visit this page and see a library of these projects.
I think students in middle school, high school and colleges throughout the country, and the world, could be creating their own versions of these strategy presentations, adopting them to their own location and its needs. I think kids doing Bar and Bat Mitzvahs could be doing these as part of the service project included in this religious coming of age ceremony. In each case we create new leaders with broader understanding of ways to overcome poverty, and we create new messages sharing these ideas with the adults in their lives.
I created a new concept map, showing some of the data mapping platforms I point to in my web library and blog articles. Here's the link.
These are resources people from anyplace in the US can use to draw attention to a wide range of issues that concern members of different communities. This is one of many concept maps I've created, which you can see on this page.
If you'd like me to help you understand the information in each map, and their purposes, let's connect.
I know it's still June, but what are your plans to help mobilize volunteers to be part of organized tutoring, mentoring and learning programs for the 2015-16 school year? School starts in September. Tutor/Mentor Programs should be sending out email to ask veteran volunteers to sign up for another year, and new volunteers to join, as we enter August.
However, what are YOU (business, faith group, political leader, media, celebrity, etc) doing now to help programs in Chicago and other cities recruit volunteers so more youth are able to benefit from a mentor and being part of an organized program?
Here's a presentation with tips for mobilizing volunteers. If teams of volunteers in business, faith groups, media, etc. look at this, there are many ways your team can help mobilize volunteers for various tutor/mentor programs serving your city.
Don't wait until August. There is work that already should have been started. For instance:
Help programs build staff to support volunteers. If we were able to organize a massive volunteer recruitment campaign that doubled the number of volunteers we would fail in our mission if we had not also increased the staff available in different programs to support those volunteers. The worst campaign is one that inspires someone to volunteer, who then finds out there is no room for them, or get into a program where they are poorly supported. That volunteer turns around and tells others "Don't do this."
One way to help programs attract talent, is to help them get the operating dollars they need to hire and pay staff. Consider adding organized tutor/mentor programs to your company's workplace giving campaign choices, and to programs like "dollars for doers" and matching gifts. Encourage employees who already volunteer or serve on boards to tell other employees about the value of these programs and to encourage donations to support operations.
Help programs improve the way they tell their stories on their web sites. Volunteers and parents who are shopping to find a place to volunteer should be able to look at a web site and see if the program is close to where they live or work, has a history of success, is well organized, and meets at a time frame convenient for the volunteer and youth to participate regularly. View this shoppers guide for some ideas of what should be on a web site.
Teams of volunteers, or individual volunteers, can offer their talent to help programs improve their web sites, tell their stories, and even organize events that support learning and participation of youth and volunteers. This essay, shows roles of talent volunteers.
While its only June, now's the time to plan ways to include volunteer recruitment ads in fall media and business publications. Non profit tutor/mentor programs have few advertising dollars, yet it is reach and frequency of message delivery that finds potential volunteers (and donors) and encourages them to shop and become involved in tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods. Create ads that show your company logo, and point to web directories where people can learn about volunteer opportunities in their city.
One role volunteers can take is to help get tutor/mentor organizations listed on as many volunteer matching services as you can. This graphic is the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC's concept map showing a range of web sites where you can list your program. This includes the Illinois Mentoring Partnership, the One Good Deed Chicago and VolunteerMatch sites.
Do this work now and many kids will have the special opportunity of being part of an organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program this fall and for many years to come. You can help change the future through your actions.
If you'd like to meet or talk with me about actions you can take to support volunteer recruitment, just email tutormentor2 at earthlink.net or reach out to me on Twitter @tutormentorteam.
I've used this graphic in the past to illustrate the planning required to get from "here", or where we are today, to "there", or where we want to be in the future. With the horrible mass murder in Charleston, we have another reminder of a complex problem that will take a long time to solve.
This graphic is intended to show how groups of people with some common identity should be banding together to study available information about the problem they are concerned about, and about how people in different places are trying to solve the same problem. By borrowing ideas from people already working on a problem groups can innovate new ways to apply those solutions in different places. This is a constant cycle that could have thousands of groups meeting at faith groups, businesses, colleges, social and civic clubs, family gatherings, etc.
I've written over 1000 articles and in many I'm using graphics like this, and posting links to other articles. I tag each article, so if groups wanted to spend some time just reading article talking about planning, they could click on the planning tag, and scroll through those articles.
I've also created some illustrated essays to describe work that needs to be done. This presentation shows that if someone is collecting information about a problem, and highlighting promising practices, they can stimulate how others throughout the sector might include those ideas in their own work.
I've never had nearly enough funding to do this as well as it needs to be done, but the articles I write, and the conferences I've hosted, have been intended to point attention to work being done in this field. This is all part of an on-going 4-part strategy that I describe here.
If we want to get to a different place, we need to be doing the planning, and this needs to be taking place in thousands of big and small groups.
I presented a workshop at yesterday's Illinois Campus Compactconference, held at DePaul University. My goal was to inspire campus leaders to launch student/faculty/alumni teams that duplicate what I've been doing to support the growth of mentor-rich non-school programs in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago, but with a focus on the geography around each campus. Below are slides from my presentation:
Interns from various universities have spent time getting to know the T/MC since 2005. See a list of interns here. View some of their projects, here. This page points to a project done by DePaul students in 2009 and 2010.
Any university in the world could engage students in this type of project. Contact me if you'd like my help.
I created this graphic over 20 years ago to visualize the information I was trying to collect to support the growth, and effectiveness, of the volunteer-based tutor/mentor program I was leading in Chicago, and to help similar programs grow in other high poverty neighborhoods of the city.
Between 1994 and 2004 the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) published a printed directory of Chicago non-school tutor/mentor programs, sorting by age group served, type of program and location in Chicago. In 2004 we put the Directory on-line and launched the on-line program locator that enabled you to search by these criteria and get a map showing the program and any other programs in the same part of the city.
In 2005 I began using concept maps to share ideas and show information available in the Tutor/Mentor Connection library. The map below is a version of the knowledge map above. I've been trying for years to create an interactive graphic that would work like a blueprint, showing all of the talents and influences needed to build thriving adults, starting with their pre school years. You can see this here.
This graphic is another way to visualize each section of the map above. It's intended to show the range of influences and supports, a youth might need to grow from one age level to another. In more affluent areas, these resources are naturally available, or parents have the money to purchase them, and knowledge to know where to find help that is needed.
In high poverty neighborhoods that's not the case. The resources are less available and parents don't have the money to purchase all the help kids need. This is the problem Robert. D. Putnam wrote about in the book "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis". Thus, if we collect links related to each node, we could create a library of "models" showing supports available to kids in some places, that need to be available to kids in many other places.
Ideally a visitor could chose a section of the map, based on the age group of the youth he/she was interested in helping. Then he could click into any of the nodes to find ideas related to that topic. If these were also plotted on a map, you could see if they are available in the neighborhood you're interested in. Ideally there would be links to discussion forums and help centers where people could gather and learn about these resources, and talk about ways to improve them where they exist, or build new ones where they are needed. This map should also point to sources of talent and dollars to support the growth and operations of these programs, also with a geographic sort feature.
So far, most of this does not exist on my sites, and I'm not sure if it exists anywhere else.
I've never had much money, or talent, to help me build this, or share it, and I've much less since 2011. I created this presentation to show what I've been building since 1994.
As you look at presentation above, also look at this presentation on Slide Share, which was created in 1998. These are just two of many presentations and articles I've written that others could turn into a curriculum, or their own city-wide strategy for helping kids move through school and into jobs and careers.
While I'd be delighted to have one of the billionaires who bankroll political elections decide to bankroll my efforts, I'd be just as happy if a benefactor said "let's put this on a college campus, with you as the creative director."
Until that happens I'll continue sharing ideas via my blogs and speaking at conferences, such as the Illinois Campus Compact event on Monday, where I'll be talking about how the Tutor/Mentor Connection could be adopted on many college campuses.
If you agree that this type of a knowledge library could support the involvement of large number of people who may not know how to get involved now, or if you want to help me build part of this system, introduce yourself. Let's start a conversation.
An article in today's Chicago SunTimes announces Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's support for mentoring through the One Good Deed Chicago portal.
This represents just one of the four resources that the Mayor should be supporting, if he wants youth in all high poverty neighborhoods to connect with volunteer tutors, mentors, coaches and others who will help kids move through school and into jobs....over what could be a 10 to 15 year period of support. See this map here.
A resource that enables mentoring programs to post volunteer opportunities would fit into the green box on this chart.
If you click on the node at the bottom of the green box, you'll get a new map, shown here. You'll see there already are a number of ways programs can post volunteer opportunities and volunteers can search for places where they can be involved. Spending city money to build a Chicago specific site is money that could be spent better focusing on the other three sections of the map shown above.
Since 1994 I've been piloting the use of maps to show WHERE tutoring/mentoring programs are most needed, and where existing programs are located. I've shared this information with the Mayor's office, and many other leaders, over and over, with the goal that they form teams that work to help every existing program get the talent, ideas, technology, dollars, etc. to constantly improve how they connect youth and volunteers and how that leads more kids through school and into careers.
Here's a photo from 1997 where I was hosting the Mayor and General John Borland, who was then head of the Chicago United Way, at the May 1997 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. My message then, and now, was use your bulley pulpit to motivate the business and university community to support the growth of mentor-rich tutor/mentor programs in more places.
What's mentor-rich?
View this PDF to see what I mean by "mentor rich" or "Total Quality" mentoring.
What's "constantly improving" mean"
Organizations that are constantly innovating ways to improve, by learning from their own work, from what competitors are doing, and from what the market and internet offer them, are what I call "constantly improving" organizations. Nonprofits cannot do this if they don't have the dollars or work environment to hire and retain people who will spend time looking at what others do, and gathering information that helps them look at what they are doing, with an eye toward constant improvement. That's why One Good Deed Chicago and the Mayor's strategy is flawed.
While the site encourages people to volunteer, it should also be encouraging people to provide dollars and talent to support individual tutoring/mentoring organizations in every neighborhood. Don't just point to the well-organized, well-supported programs. Yes, they need support to stay great. However, all other organizations need constant support, and encouragement, to become great.
A site that depends on organizations to voluntarily post their volunteer opportunities will never be able to create a map showing most, if not all, of the existing volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring organizations in the city or region. Nor will it be able to break down existing programs into type of program, age group served, or location, like the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator has been trying to do since 2004.
The city needs neighborhoods full of great youth serving, tutoring, mentoring, and learning programs. So do the suburbs.
The links in the other three sections of the Tutor/Mentor Library include research showing where and why tutor/mentor programs are most needed, how to build and sustain a volunteer-based programs, challenges of philanthropic support, roles business can play, and ideas for collaboration, innovation, knowledge management, etc.
The Mayor does not need to recreate these resources. He needs to encourage people to use them daily to innovate more and better ways to make mentor-rich learning programs available to youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago, and in other neighborhoods where kids need help growing up. He could even encourage investors, business and others to provide support to me and others who collect and share this type of information.
I focus on volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs because of their potential go engage a wide range of talent from beyond poverty. This talent needs to be involved in research, innovation and planning, with the goal of helping the programs they are part of have a constantly improving impact on the lives of the kids and volunteers who become part of these programs. Such involvement is intended to help high quality non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs become available to youth in every high poverty neighborhood of big cities like Chicago.
I've created a variety of concept maps intended to encourage planning that covers "all we need to do" to achieve this goal. This map is a new one that I created this weekend. Take a look and share in your network.
If a growing number of leaders adopted the commitment shown in the map below, and created planning teams who used the map above, we'd have more and better programs in place helping kids move through school and into jobs within a few years.
See this and a series of related maps and articles here.
If you've followed the articles I write you'll see that I focus on poverty and inequality and that I think volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can be part of the solution.
The photo on the left is from the Cluster Tutoring Program's year end celebration. Thank you to Connie Henderson Damon for letting me share her photograph. This program is located in the Austin area on Chicago's West side. Note the diversity in the room. This is an organization that is bringing together people who don't live in poverty with children and youth who do. They've been doing it for a long time.
I've always thought of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs as a form of adult service-learning, a form of bridging social capital. The volunteers who get involved often say they think they learned more than the kids. What this means is some are learning about poverty and inequality, and many move beyond their personal involvement and try to get others involved.
This graphic illustrates this service-learning idea. In 2011 it was converted into this animated presentation by one of my interns from IIT and South Korea.
I found the photograph of Cluster Tutoring Program's year end event on Facebook. At this time of the year, many tutor/mentor programs are celebrating and some are sharing their photos on Facebook. Here are a few more:
These are just a few of the Chicago area tutoring/mentoring programs using Facebook to show the diversity of youth and volunteers who they connect every year. You can find nearly 130, organized by section of the city, on this list.
I created this graphic to illustrate the potential for a site-based tutor/mentor program to connect inner city youth with volunteers, ideas and opportunities in every industry in the Chicago region.
Such programs don't start with this diversity. It takes many years to build participation. It takes consistent support from volunteers, donors, media to help programs grow, build and sustain this diversity of participation.
I've been trying to maintain a Directory of non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago since I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. In addition, I've been trying to plot locations of site-based programs on maps, so leaders, planners, media and researchers can see where programs are most needed, and where existing programs are located. This information would show voids where too few programs exist.
I've used print newsletters, then email newsletters, for nearly 40 years to help volunteers and leaders find information that would help them be more effective tutors, mentors and leaders, but also to help them think of ways they could support the growth of long-term, mentor-rich programs in more places.
If you're reading about inequality, racism, violence, workforce readiness and education issues, think of the role tutor/mentor programs can be in expanding the network of people who are joining in this effort...who might never have become involved if not for the invitation of a tutor/mentor program to become a volunteer.
Then visit the web site of Cluster Tutoring Program or the others I point to and look for ways to get involved. Help them do this work next year, and in years to come.
For the past few days I've spent time viewing live stream, and archived, videos from the GlobalCities2015 Summit that took place in Chicago. I've posted one that focuses on the knowledge economy below. You can view it and others here. You can also connect with myself and others on Twitter using #globalcities2015.
Several of the panels talked about inequity, and poverty. I've not viewed them all yet, but of the ones I did view, I did not see anyone point to maps showing poverty zones in each of the big cities of the world. One conversation prompted me to look for a list showing the biggest population centers in the world, which you can find here. New York City is 8th on this list, with population of over 20 million. The Chicago region is 37th with population of 9.1 million.
This map shows big cities in the US. It's from the Brookings.edu site. I posted the map here, in a story showing that the riots in Baltimore could be happening in many US cities.
To see a map showing the largest urban areas in the world, view this interactive map on the Brookings.edu site, showing major urban areas throughout the world.
I've created graphics like this to illustrate the planning that needs to be done in Chicago, and every city in the world to reach youth and families in all high poverty areas with a wide range of age-appropriate programs, including jobs, that help kids born in high poverty today be in jobs raising families out of poverty 25 to 30 years from now. I've described a planning process that I think needs to be taking place in every one of these major cities, in this essay.
Here's another article I wrote, emphasizing that the huge size of big cities makes their problems more difficult to solve, while also making more resources available. I think this is true in cities all over the world, so I keep sharing my ideas with hopes of becoming part of big city idea sharing and planing networks.
The discussion of a knowledge economy means that the ideas from one city can be shared with every other city, stimulating constant improvement, rather than constant re-invention. Since there is so much information available from each city, I feel there's an important role for people who collect, organize and share information on specific topics of interest to many within a city, and to many in different cities. Below is a map of the library I've been building since the early 1990s.
One of the panels at GlobalCities2015 was titled "Inclusive Cities: Poverty, Youth, and Immigration". Since every major city in the world has areas of concentrated poverty, I think it would be valuable if there were people creating maps that not only show where poverty is concentrated, and other indicators of the negative impact of poverty, but also show locations of programs and services working to end poverty. I've been mapping locations of non-school, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago since 1994, see program locator, with the goal of helping existing programs attract the talent, dollars, ideas, etc. that each needs to constantly improve, and to help leaders see where new programs are needed.
Just to see how important maps are to leaders in the Global Cities movement I did a Google search for Chicago forum on global cities 2015 then looked at the images associated with that search. Lots of high profile people. Few maps. If you search "tutor mentor" then look at the images, you'll see how maps and visualizations are a priority of mine. Fine tune both searches, by adding the word "map" to the search. Now you see more maps on the Global Cities search, and on the Tutor/Mentor search.
In a knowledge economy, anyone in the world can find and look at the ideas and visualizations I've posted, and use them in their own planning. In a networked knowledge economy, the link to my site would be on a web site in ever major city of the world, and in my web library I'd have links to hubs, like the Global Cities council, Brookins.edu and others which enable people who visit my site to find others with far more information than I provide. In the future, a Google search for any global city map library should show a wide range of maps used for action planning and poverty/inequality reductions. This section of my library includes links to poverty and crime mapping sites. I consider my blogs part of my library, so posting links here is one way of sharing knowledge with others.
The timing of this year's Global Cities Summit coincides with the publication of Robert Putnam's book, titled Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. I wrote about the book in several blog articles this spring.
Others have been writing about inequity, too. Here's an article on the Brookings.edu blog, titled "Inequality and social mobility: Be afraid". Here's another article, written by John Gomperts, President of the America's Promise Alliance. In talking about graduation rates, he fears this is leading us to "two societies". In the article he writes "The most important thing we could do to help the poor is to convince the rich that this problem is their problem."
This should be something groups of high profile people are talking about in every global city.
In a networked knowledge economy, we'd be talking about topics like this in MOOCs, social media, and face based events, and we'd be talking about ways to make this important to the wealthy in America, so a few of them would begin to devote their huge wealth to strategic, long-term solutions with action centers in every global city.
I'll end with this last graphic. When Thomas Edison was trying to invent a working light bulb, it's said he failed over 1000 times before finding something that worked. If he did not have a source of funding to pay his own bills, and pay for talented scientists and engineers to work in his lab, or reach out and borrow ideas from others, would he have made this discovery?
We not only need to convince a few wealthy patrons to devote their wealth to solving the problems that are common to cities across the world; we need to innovate ways to keep them involved, or recruit others to take their places in the future, so the work we do can be continuous and the knowledge we share can ultimately lead to better solutions.
Below is a photo I took while stationed in South Korea with the US Army in 1969. It's from their National Cemetery, honoring their war dead.
I've written a number of articles on Memorial Day Weekend since I started this blog in 2005. Some are here. Others are here. My photo is a sad reminder that young people have been dying for their countries since the beginning of time.
I created this image in the mid-2000s to illustrate how much I was committed to helping find the money and talent to operate Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), with a goal that others would be willing to make equal commitments to my own.
I realize that people have many causes that they care about. Thus, my goal is that some of the people in Chicago and across the globe, budget part of their time, talent and dollars to help end poverty and close the opportunity gap for kids, by helping them connect with a wide range of adults who help them through school and into jobs and careers.
The challenge I pose is "How much are you willing to sacrifice?" to solve some of the complex problems that our generation is passing on to future generations. Charitable giving in the US averages less than 2.5% percent of total income (see info). Visit this page to view a pie chart showing giving to various sectors.
According to this article, "The average dollar amount given to charity by wealthy donors increased to $68,580 from $53,519 in 2011, But average giving as a percentage of household income decreased by one percentage point as increases in income levels outpaced increases in charitable giving among this high net worth demographic."
As you look at the pie chart above, look at what percent of giving is focused on health, environment, education and human services and what percent really goes to non profits that benefit the wealthy. This Chronicle of Philanthropyarticle illustrates how giving by the wealthy contributes to inequity in America.
During this weekend's celebration we are honoring those who gave 100% to defend our freedoms and values. What will it take to dramatically increase the number who sacrifice even 10 to 15% of income or wealth to reduce the problems we are passing on to future generations?
To me this is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM) that I learned when I was working at Montgomery Ward in the 1970s and 1980s If we can learn from what we do, what our customers tell us and what our competitors do we can apply what we learn in constant process improvement.
I created the graphic below to illustrate the type of tutor/mentor program that recruits volunteers from different work background and connects them with youth who live in high poverty neighborhoods, where too few people hold jobs and careers or college degrees. Thus, too few people are opening doors to opportunity. See TQM pdf.
Building and sustaining mentor-rich programs requires on-going support. Action research also requires an on-going flow of resources to do the research, facilitate the learning, and invest in the suggested process improvements.
Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel focused on disadvantage youth in his inauguration speech yesterday.
To keep that commitment I think he needs to apply many of the ideas I've been sharing for nearly 20 years.
I'd like to find someone who would do videos like the one above focusing on the challenges non profits face in attracting consistent, flexible operating revenue and a wide range of talent needed to build quality organizations that would be available to k-12 youth in all high poverty neighborhoods of the city. If we can get more people into this discussion perhaps we can do much more to help high quality programs reach young people in more of the poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.
I've been looking for volunteers, partners and/or sponsors/benefactors to help me apply this thinking in the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC for many years.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was sworn in for his second tour of duty today. On my Twitter feed I saw quotes from his speech:
One said: "The young people that we are losing cannot wait for an endless political debate to be resolved."
Another said: "It is time we stop talking past each other and join together for solutions."
Mr. Mayor, In March 2011, I posted this article, and invited you to adopt this strategy map, showing a commitment to helping youth born or living in poverty be in jobs and careers by age 25.
You've launched a number of initiatives since 2011, such as ThriveChicago, but these are starting from scratch. The ideas I've shared with you have been developed since 1993, and are just waiting for a leader (or more) to embrace them. Here's one presentation from 1998.
This strategy is based on collecting a wide range of information, and engaging a growing percent of Chicagoland residents in using the information to support the growth of a wide range of age-appropriate youth supports in all areas of the city with high poverty and other indicators of need, such as high violence, poorly performing schools, health disparities, etc.
It calls on you to be the number one cheerleader, recruiter and arm-twister, getting leaders from business, religion, higher education, philanthropy, sports, and other sectors consistently involved, providing time, talent and dollars to youth organizations in all high poverty neighborhoods, not just to favored programs like Afterschool Matters.
It also calls on you to support the development of accountability and positive recognition tools that show where people are engaging with youth and communities, and in what ways. Below is one of many illustrated pdfs that are available for you and other leaders to learn from. This one shows how giving positive recognition for good work can encourage others to duplicate it.
Collecting information, organizing and sharing it is step one of a four part strategy that I've encouraged you and others to support. I'd be happy to meet with you or any other leaders to guide them through this information. I hope I'm not making the same invitation four years from now.
On the home page you can click into subsections titled "Explore this Report". Look at some of the "drivers" causing gains, or lack of gains, in graduation rates, like poverty, big cities, and big states.
Download the report and use this as research and recommended reading in groups who are focused on closing the opportunity gaps in Chicago and other cities and states.
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.
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