Chicago Bulls Stars focus on anti violence

Below is a post I wrote a couple of years ago following a Derrik Rose interview. Last night Joakim Noah of the Bu lls was honored by the NBA for his own anti violence efforts. See SunTimes story.

While fans watch college and NBA sports this week, I hope you'll read the post below and pass it on to Noah, Rose, and other celebrities. Maybe one or more will add this into their own game plan.

In today's Chicago Tribune sports section David Haugh writes about Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose speaking about violence in Chicago. Rose is quote as saying "It all starts with poverty."

In the column Haugh writes "As powerful as Rose's words can be, his actions can change -- and perhaps save -- lives more profoundly."

I agree. For many years I've tried to recruit celebrities and high profile sports stars to take on-going roles that would draw more volunteers and donors to the information on the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site, and to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.

I created this animation last February, to demonstrate a simple role athletes and coaches can take on an on-going basis. This is a crude video because I don't have money to hire professionals to do this. Derrick Rose and his corporate sponsors have millions of dollars that could be used to produce videos like this, with Rose and other athletes as featured speakers.



This is not asking athletes to spend time at charity events, be mentors, serve on boards or give money. It is asking athletes to use their time in front of microphones and cameras to not only talk about violence, but to point to places where people can get more informed and get involved.

If athletes with access to high quality creative and video production talent could remake this video with themselves as the featured characters they could put it on their own web sites and point to it when a sports reporter asks a tough question that they may not want to answer. They can point to it everytime violence has a personal impact on them, their family and/or the neighborhood where they grew up.

As more athletes and celebrities point to the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and Chicago Program Links Library more people will be motivated to seek out one or more tutor/mentor programs where they can get involved.

Some athletes may choose to go further with this, and begin coaching others to understand how teams of volunteers, donors, leaders, parents and community members need to be working together on an on-going basis to help mentor-rich programs be available in a neighborhood and to keep them available and constantly improving for a generation or longer.

On this page you can see visualizations created by interns working with me for short periods of time. Imagine if rappers, pro athletes, advertising professionals and/or youth in high schools throughout the country were using their own talent, time and resources to create and share presentations like this.

It can happen. Basketball is a sport where just one special athlete, like Derrick Rose, can change a poor team into a winner. All it takes is for one or two high profile athletes to create their own versions of this animation, for others to see roles they could take and to be motivated to do so.

Making all kids "Our Kids" - New Book by Robert Putnam

Over the past 40 years of leading a tutor/mentor program in Chicago, I've come to think of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs as an ideal structure to help connect youth from high poverty areas with volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds beyond poverty. This image is one that illustrates this diversity.

In the past ten to 15 years I've come to understand this as a form of social capital, greatly influenced by Robert Putnam and others. Thus, I was pleased to learn of his new book, titled “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis”. I picked up a copy last week and have read about 30%. Yesterday I shared a link to this New York Times book review with a college fraternity brother who lives in Bend, Oregon, which was profiled in the book. Today he sent me this article from his local newspaper, which has an extensive analysis of the book, and the problems it points out to communities all over the country.

I created the graphic below by combining a map showing poverty in the Chicago region with a concept map showing supports kids need as they move from first grade through school and into a post college or vocational school job and career.

The map can be seen here. The concept map can be seen here.

In the 1990s when I was first launching the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program, I coined the term "Total Quality Mentoring (TQM) to communicate the idea of site based tutor/mentor programs supported by volunteers from many different backgrounds, who were constantly learning from a network of peers, and constantly innovating ways to expand the support they were offering to youth.

The hub of the wheel represents a single child, or a group of kids. The spokes lead to the different careers kids might aspire to. In the Birth to Work chart at the left, you can see that there are a variety of age-appropriate activities that could be introduced to a youth, through school, or non-school programs.

It only takes motivation, talent, resources and some stimulation to recognize ideas that you might not otherwise be aware of.

The concept map above is just a different version of these, and illustrates how I've continuously looked for better ways to communicate this idea. You can see a map of Chicago is embedded in the TQM chart, and in many of my blog articles, illustrating the need for well organized programs in every poverty neighborhood. Since the early 1990s I've been using maps to show the gap between rich and poor, and graphics to show how well organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs could offer the mentoring, tutoring, and other supports that rich kids take for granted.

The TQM idea never caught on, but I've continued to share the idea through printed newsletters, up till 2002, and email newsletters, blogs and web sites since 1998.

When I talk about "constantly improving" I mean that people in different programs, as well as resource providers, are digging into a library of information that shows what other people are doing in different places, that could be duplicated in many other places, if the motivation, talent and financial resources were available. Below is a graphic showing the four categories of information I've been aggregating.

One section of the library points to articles about social capital and ideas of how to map the networks youth and volunteers have when they join a program, and how that changes over time as a result of on going participation and consistent support by donors.

I hope the work Robert Putnam and others are doing to make this a focus of the 2016 national election will motivate more people to want to dig into the information and articles I've been writing for many years. Just wanting to make support systems available is not the same as building and sustaining age appropriate programs in cities and neighborhoods all across the country.

Just one last graphic. View this video to see how volunteer who become involved in TQM programs can grow to be leaders who get other people involved. If this idea is embraced in communities and neighborhoods throughout the country, we have a strategy for engaging a growing number of people from both sides of a community in efforts that close the gaps that Putnam and others fear is irrevocably dividing America.

I look forward to being part of the planning, brainstorming and innovations of others who are focused on this same issue.

After the March, do the Planning

National and international attention is focused this weekend on the 50th anniversary of the protest at Selma, Alabama. Photos show President Obama and hundreds of others on the bridge where the civil rights movement made one of its biggest statements.

In 2005 I wrote the article below, referring to the Million Man March held in 1995.

On Oct. 14, 2005, I read a column from the Chicago Tribune, written by Dawn Turner Trice, titled, "Only real plans make a march a movement." She was referring to this weekend's Million More March. She said, "I wonder what the legacy of this march will be?"

After the first Million Man March 10 years ago, we had a few new people to come in and volunteer at Cabrini Connections. However, most did not stay for long. Mentoring takes a lot of commitment over many years. In a small program like ours, that commitment needs to extend to fund raising, leadership and other organizational activities, if the organization is to do all it needs to do to help kids move through school and into jobs and careers.

I wrote after the last march that I wished there were one person on each bus coming back from DC with a Directory (like the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net ) listing tutor/mentor programs in the city where that bus was headed. During the ride back that person could be talking about the Theory of Change offered by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which focuses on getting more people consistently involved in helping kids in poverty neighborhoods grow up and enter jobs/careers.

He could have used maps, like the T/MC creates, see Map Gallery, to show where poverty and poor schools were located in each city, and where existing programs were located. He could have been teaching the marchers about the constant need each program has for operating dollars, tech support, training and business partners who provide vocational learning, and leadership. He also could have been talking of ways churches, businesses, universities and hospitals could be partnering in sections of a city to launch new programs to fill voids.

Then, as each person got off the bus he could have asked for a pledge that each marcher would reach out to become a supporter of one or more programs, in one or more ways. He could have asked for the Independent Sector's pledge of GIVE Five!, which is five hours a week and five percent of income...not to the church, or the Million Man March, or to the campaign of a political candidate, but directly to a charity helping kids go to school and move to careers.

Finally, he'd ask for a commitment that these people would go to an on-line documentation system like the OHATS at http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/ohats/home.aspx where they would document actions that each had taken to build or sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in their community.

The last piece of information would be a web site address, such as http://www.tutormentorexchange.net, where the volunteers could go for more information about poverty, about mentoring and tutoring, and where they could talk to each other in on-line forums. This would also have provided a date and location for a follow up meeting, such as at the Nov. 17 and 18 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference in Chicago.

This was not the plan in 1995. I don't see any evidence that it's the plan in 2005. However, if you read this, you can pass it on to people who were in Washington this weekend. Maybe some will adopt this as their follow up plan.


This message is relevant today as readers look at images of #Selma and listen to the President saying "Patriotism is active, not passive. Those who love America prove it by working to perfect America. They continue marching."

Since I posted this article I've written more than 1000 more articles focusing on leadership, planning, learning and other activities that need to take place. Below is a video done by a 2015 intern from IIT and South Korea, which guides visitors through information on my web site.



One SELMA follow up activity that could be done in schools, faith groups and businesses across the country would be for volunteers to create their own "learning paths" pointing adults to information they could use to build and sustain the needed programs and policies that would make the next anniversary of Selma an even greater celebration of greater equality of opportunity in America.

If you're in Chicago and interested in what I'm writing about, I encourage you to support my efforts, and share your own work by participating in the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I've hosted since May 1994. The next is May 8, 2015. I'm looking for workshop presenters and sponsors now.

Goals of Chicago Tutor/Mentor Conference.

I've hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months since May 1994 as part of an on-going campaign to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods. The next is Friday, May 8 and today I responded to an inquiry from a past conference participant, saying "How can I help? What workshops are needed?"

I wrote,

We need speakers/workshop presenters who can "attract" others to attend the conference, because of who they are, and what they talk about. Topics that are valuable:

a) fund raising, building strong board and leadership team
b) marketing/communications/social media
c) planning, evaluation, program improvement
d) engaging youth in learning activities'
e) recruiting, training and retaining volunteers to be effective, tutors, mentors, leaders
f) tutoring strategies that you can incorporate in your program


In addition, the conference seeks to involve others who will bring their own network. Under a general topic of "How can we support tutor/mentor programs?" workshops could be organized by and invite people from these sectors who are already involved in supporting tutor/mentor programs, or who want to become involved
a) business
b) hospitals
c) universities
d) faith groups
e) media

Here's a video created for a past conference. The goals are the same for the next conference.

Conference Capacity from Cabrini Connections on Vimeo.

If you're interested in supporting the growth of non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs in Chicago I encourage you to visit this page to read about conference goals, and this page to see ideas about workshop topics that could be offered.

This graphic illustrates the goal of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and the conferences. I want to help organized programs connect with young people at some point along this time line, the earlier the better. Once a program connects we want to help them stay connected so that the young person finishes high school, college and/or vocational school, or the military, and is starting a full time job and career by their late 20s. I want such programs to be available to youth in all high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago, as well as to other youth who need extra adult support that programs like this can supply.

For this to happen people from every sector need to be involved. That's what this graphic is trying to communicate.

If you share the same goals, I hope you'll take a role in the May 8, 2015 conference and others after that.

Racial Segregation Deeply Rooted. Class Separation Growing

This article from The Atlantic, written by Richard Florida, includes a map showing changes in segregation over many decades. He concludes with this quote:

Where cities and neighborhoods once mixed different kinds of people together, they are now becoming more homogeneous and segregated by income, education, and occupation. … It is not just that the economic divide in America has grown wider; it’s that the rich and poor effectively occupy different worlds, even when they live in the same cities and metros.

I support volunteer involvement in organized, site based non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs because of the way they connect people from different economic and education backgrounds, as well as from different racial backgrounds. Some of the well established programs have volunteers who have been involved 10 years and longer.

Here's my list of Chicago tutoring and/or mentoring programs. They vary greatly in how long they have been in business, how well organized they are, and where they are located. I encourage you to pick one and make a long-term commitment to help it become the best in the country at connecting youth, volunteers, ideas and opportunities.

Connecting those who can help, with those who need help - Donor Engagement

I found a great article on Forbes titled, Social Enterprise vs. Non-Profits: Is There Really A Difference? in which one fund raising professional says "labels of non-profit and for-profit are merely tax differentiators".

This is an interview with Atul Tandon, who "was named by the Association of Fundraising Professionals as one of the best fundraisers in the country". I hope you'll read the article. It's important to me since I'm no longer operating under a 501-c-3 tax status, but I'm still doing the same work I've been doing since 1993 under a 501-c-3 status. I still need financial support from others to help me do this work.

Mr. Tandon describes successful non profit leaders as "bridge builders" who are "building bridges between donors and the cause and the beneficiary." That's what I do.

No visualizations were included in the Forbes article, but I've included a few of my own visualizations, created over the past 20 years, to illustrate how much I see myself in this role, connecting people who can help, to organizations who engage volunteers in organizations intended to help transform the lives of youth living in high poverty inner city neighborhoods.

If you do a Google search for "tutor/mentor institute network building" then look at the images page, you'll see quite a few more visualizations illustrating how I seek to connect people from many different sectors, with information and ideas they can use to support youth serving organizations reaching youth in high poverty areas.

I've also posted a few of my graphics on Pinterest. Take a look. If this helps you understand what I'm doing, I hope you won't let my tax status keep you from taking a role and helping me do this.

Thanks to Linda Spencer, who shared this Forbes article via a Linkedin Group.

Tutor/Mentor Video Collection

Teens, volunteers and interns have been creating videos to tell the tutor/mentor story, and Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies, since the early 1990s. These can be found on YouTube and Vimeo, but not in a single location. Click here to see videos created in the past three years, then click on my subscriptions to find three other channels on YouTube with videos created in past years when I was leading Cabrini Connections. You'll even find a video created by Sara Caldwell in 1990, when we were with the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program.

Today I was looking for some past videos and found this one, where I talk of some of the reasons I've been involved with tutor/mentor programs since 1973. It's one of many you can find here on Vimeo.

To see even more videos, from past conferences and/or interviews I've done, click here.

The stories from the past tell the same message as the one I'm telling now. Volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, if they are well organized, involve a wide range of volunteers from different backgrounds, and are consistently funded, can have a long-term impact on youth and volunteers, as well as leaders such as myself.

Chicago Election. Long Term Results

This is the back page of an 8 page newsletter that I picked up while attending the 1997 Presidents' Summit for America's Future event in Philadelphia. I was a Chicago delegate, and my organization, the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), was one of 50 Teaching Examples with booths at the Summit.

I was hoping this event would launch a wave of reinforcements (talent, dollars, ideas, etc.) to support site based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities, as well as intermediaries like the T/MC who were collecting and sharing information, and organizing events, intended to draw these resources directly to tutor/mentor programs.

I tried to find this organization on the web site, but it no longer exists, at least under this web address. The organization supporting this effort is TeenInk.com, which you can find here.

As you can see from this graphic, which is the front cover of the 1995 Chicago Tutor/Mentor Programs Directory that the T/MC compiled, I've been collecting information about Chicago tutor/mentor programs since before 1995, and have been using maps to show where existing programs are located as well as where more are needed, for just as long.



Chicago is electing a new Mayor this week, and new aldermen in many Wards. I've shared my strategies for using maps with many, for many years, but have yet to see any consistent use of maps to draw attention and resources to places in Chicago, or its suburbs, where indicators show a need for extra support for youth and families.

Furthermore, since I started using maps in 1994, I've yet to see a President, Mayor, national leadership groups like America's Promise, etc. use maps consistently and for the purpose of drawing resources to places already operating, so each could constantly improve.

I've been sharing ideas showing a planning process that I'm sure leaders in business and the military use (to some extent), that focuses on "everything" that needs to be done to fight and win a war. This involves far more than putting combat troops in places of conflict. It involves building supply chains, recruiting and training programs, and educating the public so it has the will to support a long term effort. This PDF is one of many I share in my web library. It's free and has been available for many years.

Planning Cycle - War on Poverty by Daniel F. Bassill

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If you're a leader, or get elected this week to be a leader in Chicago, I encourage you to use maps in this way. If you lead a youth serving organization, or youth publication, encourage your teens and volunteers to create stories using maps, and calling on resource providers to fill high poverty areas with needed volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs, as well as the talent, dollars and technology each program needs to operate, and constantly improve.

Here's the front cover of the publication that I point to above.

Five Presidents were featured and pledged to help the most at risk kids in America get mentors and find safe places to learn, play and connect during non school hours. Too bad none of them, or Presidents elected since then, have done this consistently, nor used maps in their own efforts to mobilize resources to support youth serving organizations.

By the way, I'm looking for partners, sponsors, volunteers and a wide range of help to update my own mapping platform and to support the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I host every six months in Chicago. Click here to make a sponsor contribution that supports my efforts.

Case for Business Investment in Mentoring

David Shapiro, CEO of Mentor, has made a strong case for business investment in mentoring programs, in this Huffington Post article. I created the concept map below to point to recommended reading that would strengthen business commitment to investing in volunteer based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs. I point to many places of potential involvement in the Chicago Program Links section of my web library. This concept map, and several others, is part of a series of blog articles I wrote from late October through early February.

David encourages businesses to support involvement of their volunteers. I offer some suggestions for how to do that in this ROLE of Leaders PDF. This is one of a collection of illustrated PDFs that I've created to show ways to support the growth of volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring and learning programs in more places where they are needed. Below is one that focuses on engaging employee talent, not as direct tutors/mentors, but as people who build the organizational strength needed by every tutor/mentor programs to support volunteer and youth involvement.

Recruiting Talent Volunteers for Youth Tutoring, Mentoring, Learning Programs by Daniel F. Bassill

If you are doing business in Chicago our within 150 miles I encourage you to take a role in the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I've hosted every six months since May 1994. The next is Friday, May 8. Organize a workshop to show how you engage employee volunteers and support places where they volunteer. Invite other businesses to attend and share their own strategies. While you may compete in the workplace, and for employees, share what you learn to help more youth in America benefit from participation in well-organized tutoring, mentoring and learning programs. Use this form to present a workshop. Use this form to become a financial supporter.

Tutor/Mentor Learning Path now on YouTube

Last week Wona Chang, the 2015 Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC intern from IIT and South Korea, created a Prezi visualization that guides visitors through the various information on the T/MI web sites. Yesterday she created a video version, which you can see below. Good work, Wona!

Navigation of Tutor/Mentor Institute web site

Wona Chang, the T/MI's 2015 intern from IIT and South Korea, created a visualization using Prezi to guide visitors through the different sections of the www.tutormentorexchange.net web site. There's an English language version and a Korean language version.  Unfortunately the Prezi versions are no longer available.

After creating the presentation on Prezi, Wona created a YouTube video to show it. You can see that below:



This is one of two visualizations Wona did during the internship. As she was doing this she was learning new ways to communicate ideas. She told me, "I've never used Prezi before, or converted a Prezi to  YouTube".  That's one of the befits of working on these presentations the way interns have in the past.

One of the best ways to learn something is to spend time diagramming and writing about what you are learning. Creating leaders who are prepared to deal with the complexity of poverty, and of building and sustaining resources and programs to overcome poverty, requires leaders who have habits of deeper learning and are willing to make the sacrifices of time and effort to build their knowledge base.

This is a practice that students and adults could duplicate.

Veterans Summit - Ideas

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

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

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

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

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

This PDF describes this graphic.

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

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

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

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

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

Making Sense of Tutor/Mentor Connection Articles

I created this Learning Path concept map several years ago to help people navigate the information I've been collecting for more than 20 years. The goal was to help more people understand, embrace and adopt these ideas in their own efforts to help inner city kids move from birth to work with the help of volunteers and organized non school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs.

Over the past two weeks, Wona Chang, a South Korean student intern from IIT in Chicago, has spent about five hours a day looking at this concept map, and following the links to see where they lead. Yesterday she posted the presentation below as a new path that people could follow to learn what is available to them via the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection.

After creating the presentation using Prezi (no longer available) she created a YouTube video with the information.



This version was the English Language version. Wona also created a version in Korean, so that people from South Korea could view it and perhaps adopt some of the ideas to apply in South Korea and Asia, or to become sponsors supporting Tutor/Mentor Connection type intermediaries in US cities where South Korean companies are selling merchandise. (2017 update- the Prezi versions are no longer available).

Visit the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum to see how I've coached students to do this type of work over the past 9 years. I believe that students from different parts of Chicago, or other cities in the US, or the world, could be creating similar presentations, focused on applying these ideas in high poverty areas of their own countries. Or they could apply the four-part strategy to collecting information about any other economic, health, environmental or social issue that they want to help solve.

If you'd like to be involved in creating such presentations, or become a sponsor to help with this work, connect with me on one of these social media sites.

Birth to Work Requires New Thinking on Resource Flow

This is National Mentoring Month, and the final event will be the National Mentoring Summit being held in Washington, DC. I've attended in the past and there are great speakers and many valuable workshops.

I'm not able to attend this week, but hope to still influence some of the thinking that goes on, with articles like this and others I've posted for many years.

In the graphic above I show a photo of kids from Cabrini Green in Chicago who I met when they were in elementary school and just starting participation in the tutor/mentor program I was leading. I also show the photo of one of them many years later as a alumni who has finished college, is working, and has taken time to speak to current students. The photos are part of an image showing the work some people, like parents, teachers, mentors and tutors do to "push" kid through school. I can't tell how often I've said to my own kids, "If you'd just listen to what I'm saying your life would have many more opportunities."

The graphic also shows what I feel business leaders need to do to "pull" youth through school and into jobs and careers. All youth need this help. Some kids who live in more affluent areas have more people opening doors to them as they grow up. They also have fewer people modeling negative career aspirations.

While many businesses will receive recognition as outstanding leaders in support of youth mentoring during this week's National Summit, I'm not certain how many devote dollars to "research and development" efforts aimed to support the actions their companies do to help youth from multiple locations move through school and into jobs and careers, or to understand how their encouragement and support of volunteer involvement helps develop and retain the talent of their current employees. Thus, my hope is that this and other articles stimulate that thinking.

I posted an article on the Mapping for Justice blog, titled, R&D for Business Support of Tutor/Mentor Programs, and included this map, along with two others, to guide business leaders as they dig deeper into this information.

I hope you'll share this with people you work with, who are mentors, or who are decision makers within big and small companies. In the ROLE OF LEADERS pdf shown below, I encourage company leaders to appoint a "get it done" person to lead their R&D effort, since that is someone who looks for opportunities rather than someone who might be protecting a limited philanthropy budget.

Role of Leaders - How CEOs can help inner city youth from birth to work by Daniel F. Bassill

If you'd like to connect with me to discuss the ideas I share, just connect with me on one of these Social Media pages.

Follow the leader! He raised $350k to send inner city kids to Harvard

I received a link today to a story showing how the ‘Humans of New York’ blog raises over $350K to send New York inner-city kids to Harvard" This was sent by Timothy A. Cavell, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychological Science, University of Arkansas via the mentoring listserv hosted by David DuBois at UIC in Chicago.

I've used the graphic above for several years to illustrate how individuals and organizations could be raising money from people they know to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in different parts of Chicago (or other cities). This article illustrate's what's possible. I hope thousands of creative people read the article and seek to take a similar role. I've pointed to the Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program in Chicago since 1994 because they've been raising money from lawyers and friends to fund tutor/mentor programs. Perhaps by looking at this example some lawyers in the city might be inspired to higher levels of giving and/or fund raising.

By sharing this article on my blog, I'm creating an archive. I can come back to this story over and over to show what is possible if creative people simply decide they want to help youth, by helping tutor/mentor programs grow. Perhaps someone else will say, he can raise even more than $350k. Great.

In the article below I illustrate the potential result from aggregating examples of the good things people do to support inner city youth and organized tutor/mentor programs that serve these youth and connect them to volunteers from many different backgrounds. Some could even be people who raise money to send them to college. Others might raise money to pay the operating costs of the programs that connect kids and volunteers.

Using Ideas to Stimulate Competition and Process Improvement - Concept Paper by Daniel F. Bassill

I've been building a web library for nearly 20 years. This link goes to a page that shows the four sections of the library and this link goes to one of many articles that describes what's in the library.

In my own efforts, I'm not looking for examples of people who raise money for a program they are part of, sitting on a board or being a volunteer, although those examples should be celebrated. I'm looking for examples of people who are not directly connected to a single program, but recognize the need for funding, and innovate ways to raise money, or mobilize volunteers, to support multiple programs throughout a big city like Chicago. Just raising money for highly visible programs is not going to help smaller less visible programs in different neighborhoods get the operating funds each needs to grow to become great and well recognized programs.

I'm always been just a small organization, and since 2011 I've operated alone, so collecting and organizing all that needs to be collected and organized is far beyond my capacity. However I have a vision for what should be collected, and ideas of how youth from many places could be contributing to the library, and helping people find and use what the library contains. Contact me at tutormentorteam on Twitter or email me at tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net if you'd like to pick my brain or even take future ownership of my own library.

If you have stories to share showing the good things people are doing, please post links in the comment box below.

A New Media Strategy for Community Problem Solving

It's National Mentoring Month, so at the left is a photo of myself and Leo Hall, who I first connected with as his mentor, in 1973. He celebrated his 50th birthday last August, and invited me to the celebration. He wanted to thank me for my influence in his life. While I was there, I thanked him for letting me have a part of his life, and of thousands of other young people and adult since then.

If you've followed my blog, and the Mapping for Justice blog, you've seen that I've followed media stories of violence and poorly performing schools in Chicago with efforts to influence how leaders and volunteers support the on-going operations of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

I've pointed out, with articles like this, that the problems we face in 2015 are the same ones we've faced since 1990 and earlier.

Last week I read this article, Why Journalists Don’t Seem to Care About the Tragic Massacre in Nigeria, which compared the lack of attention being given to thousands of murders and kidnappings in Nigeria to the attention given to the killings of less than two dozen people in France.

I've pointed out the lack of long-term focus from media, philanthropy, business and media in many past articles. My friend Steve Sewall, has written a long article describing this problem, and a proposed solution. I hope you'll read it.

What's missing in Steve's recommendation is a "call to action" that works like retail advertising to draw readers directly to information directories and maps that they can use to find tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities to whom they can offer on-going talent, ideas, operating dollars, and other forms of support.

I've had interns working with me since 2006, who create visualizations and blog articles that help others understand the ideas I've been sharing. This morning I talked with my current intern about the role of "influence building" that leaders need to engage in daily if they want their agenda's to have the public support they need.

This graphic is one of many that shows the role of intermediaries, or third party actors who are committed to solving a particular problem. Every time you encourage someone you know to look at one of my articles, maps, graphics, etc. you are expanding the network of people who support youth in well organized, constantly improving, tutor/mentor and learning programs. You are part of the solution.

When I launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I recognized that long-term problem solving, such as helping youth from birth to work could never succeed as initiatives led by elected officials. No matter how well designed a project is, elected leaders keep changing. Thus, the consistent, long-term support I've always sought had to come from investors/partners who understand the strategy I was proposing and were willing to support it, as their own commitment, for one or two decades.

I've not found that support, yet I've found enough to still be sharing this idea more than 20 years after launching the Tutor/Mentor Connection with the help of six other volunteers who were also launching the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in Chicago at the same time.

Here are some additional articles to read:

Building Super Bowl of support. (Jan 2014)

Expanding the Network - Decade Long Effort

Network Building - Talent Needed

Visit this page and see how interns have communicated these ideas. Youth in schools, non-school programs, colleges and faith groups could take this role, pointing to tutor/mentor programs in their own city or neighborhood, with a shared goal of building the on-going flow of resources needed to reach youth with high quality programs that help them move from birth to work.

Who Shares the Passion for Building the Infrastructure needed to help social organizations have greater impact?

I attended the Chicago Hive five year celebration last night and heard CEO Sam Dyson say something like, "If you're serious about helping kids you need to be serious about mobilizing the resources needed."

Earlier in the day Dan Pallotta sent me an email asking me to look at a Boston Globe article showing his efforts to revolutionize how philanthropic organizations are funded. I've written about Dan's work before and adopted this to my own vision. See article.

The day before I attended a Generation ALL Chicago event, where leaders talked about mobilizing stakeholders from all parts of Chicago to focus on building great public high schools in every neighborhood of Chicago.

Then this morning I responded to a consultant who coaches businesses on volunteer engagement, with an email showing my own "dream". I finished by saying since this is the day everyone's honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it's appropriate that I share my own vision and dream: Here's what I wrote:

---------------------------------------- The recent outrage about unequal coverage of the tragedy in Nigeria vs the tragedy in Paris show how difficult it it to attract people (and donor) attention and keep it focused for any length of time on places where help must be consistently provided.

I've maintained a newspaper clip file going back into the 1970s with articles on education, poverty, race and violence in Chicago. I'm digitizing those articles over the coming year and as I do I'm finding article calling for action from the 1990s to solve problems we still have not solved 20 years later.

In my blog articles and on-line networking I'm looking for people who express a passion for solving this problem, and who are willing to work with me to find others, and to innovate actions, that can create a reach and daily frequency of messages that draw support to non profits and social entrepreneurs the same way business draws customers to their stories, on-line market place and products and services.

I reach out to you because you express some of the same ideas, and in the "food chain" you're closer to the business leaders who need to use their own communications tools to carry this message to the public.

I think I'm older than you, but I think we both have grey hair. I want to leave something in place when I die that I think builds a better future for my grand kids and other people's grand kids. It take money to do this, but even more it takes a shared effort of people who have talents and networks that I don't have.

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In another email conversation I shared my vision of having "Tutor/Mentor Connection student-led teams form on college and high school campuses throughout Chicago and in other cities. Here's what I wrote:

I encourage you to browse the articles by interns, at this page.

Each of these interns has spent time learning what the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy is, then communicating it via blog articles, visualizations and videos. If formal "tutor/mentor connection" teams formed on campuses and schools, their first role would be to learn what I'm trying to do, so they can see their role of duplicating everything I do, but focused on a smaller geographic region (around a college or high school) or focused on a specific network of people, such as students, faculty, alumni of a college.

In short, they learn to connect people they know to information those people can use to support places in their neighborhood which are trying to help kids move through school and into careers, via tutoring, mentoring, social/emotional support, jobs training, and a wide range of other activities.

As student teams form, and learn to do this work, they become organizers of networking events on their campus, and at citywide and national events, that connect groups from one campus with groups from other campuses. The Tutor/Mentor Conferences, are just two events out of a 365 day calendar when people could be gathering to share ideas and inspire actions.

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I also shared an idea with one of the other organizations building networks of people to focus on violence in Chicago. I wrote:

Your organization is already using its blog to share ideas and spotlight people it works with, and you're using your events to bring people together. I encourage you to read this article, and dozens like it that I've posted since 2005. 

These talk about what it takes to build and sustain great programs in all high poverty neighborhoods. They call on readers to be volunteers, donors, leaders, etc. and to reach out and get more people involved...in programs all over the city, which are represented in databases like the one I maintain at  https://www.tutormentorexchange.net/chicago-area-program-links

I think your organization and others, such as Chicago Hive, and Generation All, etc., could write similar stories, even better than I do, and with the ability to reach people who I don't reach.

This is not something you or I need to have an agreement to do, but it is something I'd be happy to talk with you and brainstorm ways others might take on the same role so more voices are out there every day calling on resource providers, volunteers and other needed talent to become strategically involved in supporting programs all over the region.

As I learn about intermediary organizations in Chicago I've been adding them to this concept map. Click here to see the live version, where you can click on nodes to find web sites for each group.

One role that Tutor/Mentor Teams on campuses would have is to create a map showing organizations and assets in their neighborhood who should know each other and be working together to support youth as they move SAFELY from birth to work. Such maps could be shared on web sites just the way I do, to help each group connect with each other, and to draw donor support to all of the intermediaries on an on-going basis. Generation ALL's leader talked of a 10+ year vision. For that to be achieved, consistent funding needs to be secured.

However, just funding the backbone is not enough. Each of the organizations these intermediaries support also require consistent flows of talent, dollars, ideas, etc. If someone hosts a map of participating organizations, I want to see consistent messages calling on visitors to their web site to go through the map, find an organization, and become a supporter. I point to this list of Chicago non-school tutoring/mentoring organizations all the time and from most of my web sites.

So much for today's soap box. I guess on ML King, Jr's anniversary it's fair for me to share my own "dream".

Poverty in cities. Not much changed over past 25 years. Why?

"America's Cities are poorer, sicker, less educated, and more violent than at any time in my lifetime. The physical problems are obvious. The jobs have disappeared. A genuine depression has hit cities."

While this quote could have come from a newspaper story in 2014, it's actually from a commentary posted in a 1992 Chicago Tribune, written by Senator Bill Bradley.

One of the activities I've taken over the past 20 years is to build a library of stories from Chicago media which focus on cities, poverty, education and potential solutions. I've been scanning my articles into my computer for the past month, with a goal of trashing my hard copies (or finding a buyer or researcher who wants to take them). I need to cut costs since I continue to have trouble funding the work I do.

I've found a large number of articles talking about problems facing cities, caused by poverty and changes in the types of jobs that are available, and many of them call for a greater commitment.

This article ends with "We will loose our future unless urgency informs our action, passing the buck stops, scapegoating fails and excuses disappear."

We're now 23 years into that future and not much seems to have changed. I attended a Great Cities event at UIC more than 10 years ago, which was focused on poverty and one student raised the question, "This has been going on for over 20 years. Why has nothing changed." The speaker responded, "Because too few people care."

Dozens of articles that I've scanned, dating from 1990 through last year, such as this 1992 front page from the Chicago SunTimes, include this "call to action" yet too little consistent action seems to be taking place. I recognize that people have many issues more important to them than helping a city raise its children, but if America hopes to avoid some day becoming a country where those who have lost hope resort to terrorism to gain attention, it will be too late to reverse this.

As we celebrate National Mentoring Month again, I urge you to support well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs. I believe they are one strategy that enlarges the number of people "who care" by how they recruit people from beyond poverty and then support them as they grow their understanding.

This animation shows what I call a "service learning loop" where volunteers who get involved, grow their understanding, then enlist others to be involved, as they repeat their weekly and monthly contact with youth.

For their to be programs that provide this type of support, in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago, it's suburbs, and other cities, volunteers, donors, business partners and policy makers need to find ways to offer consistent support, not just to one or two good programs, but to programs in every neighborhood so they all become good.

My list of Chicago area programs can be found at this link. The map based program locator that I created in 2004 and updated in 2008, is still available, but it's becoming more and more out of date since I've no funds to update the technology so it works smoothly, or to reach out to programs to assure that the directory is as comprehensive as possible.

If you, or your company value the information this offers to people in Chicago, and the model it provides to other cities, I urge you to become a partner, investor/sponsor so this resource stays freely available to Chicagoland.

Making Great Tutor/Mentor Programs Available to More Youth

It's a new year, and and it's National Mentoring Month. I've shared ideas for the past 20 years that I hope are used to help make constantly improving, mentor-rich programs available to youth in more high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities. Here's one.

Expanding Network Of Adults Involved in Helping Inner City Youth - Logic Model by Daniel F. Bassill

I have two requests.

First, if you're a leader, advocate, funder, or have a similar role, share your own logic model, tipping points, etc. in presentations like this, and on your own web site. Collectively these ideas have more power and potential to influence change than if just myself and a few others are doing this.

Second, if you are committed to helping young people from high poverty areas get the extra adult support and learning opportunities I write about, consider becoming a sponsor of my work. Put your name/logo on these presentations and help me hire the talent needed to upgrade them, make them move effective, and share them with more people.

There are several million young people across the US, and in cities around the world, who could benefit from this support.

Happy New Year!

My daughter created this graphic as a wall mural for the office where she works. I share it's feeling of best wishes to all for 2015.