Planning a conference? Building a network?

Last week I posted an article on Substack.com titled, "Start Planning for Fall 2026 Tutor/Mentor Programs". 

You can view the article here. In it I showed a few slides from a planning calendar that I developed in the late 70s, which helped me grow the tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011.  The annual January celebration of mentoring should boost the planning process so that existing programs improve from year-to-year and new programs form where more are needed.  I'd love to find visual essays from other programs that describe their planning cycle.

I started connecting with leaders of other Chicago youth programs in the mid 1970s and that led to the formation of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  One strategy led to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences which we held in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. These were part of the public awareness strategy we launched and an effort to draw leaders and supporters of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs together to share ideas and build relationships. 

A few years ago I created the concept map shown below, as a guide others could use in organizing their own conferences.

At the far right I've added a section focused on collecting data to help event organizers understand who attended, who they connected with, and "who's missing".  This points to the event mapping resource created in late 2025 by a team of IVMOOC students from Indiana University.  

In a previous article I showed the front page of an "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. click here to open

If you open the "learn" tab at the top of the home page  you'll find some really clear information about how to design forms that collect network data effectively and how to turn this into visualizations on Kumu, Gephi or Tableau.  I show a few of the pages below.  Click on an image to enlarge it. 

Getting Started: What This Tool Does

Scroll down on the Getting Started page and you'll see "The Complete Workflow"

Continue scrolling down to descriptions of "External Visualization Software" such as Kumu and Gephi.  

Continue to scroll down and you'll see brief descriptions of "Key Concepts" and "Why Use Network Graphs?"

Next, open the Form Creation Guide tab - click here

Scroll down and you'll see "Every Network Form Needs These 3 Sections"

Next is a section showing "Form Design by Experience Level --  Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced".

Continue to scroll down to "After You Create Your Form". 

Perhaps before you create your form you want to learn more about "Nodes and Edges".  click here and open the page shown below.

The next section shows how to export your data to Kumu or Gephi. click here

The next sections describes some "Real-World Use Cases". click here

Some examples of Kumu Network Visualizations are shown - click here

Another example is the visualization of Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference participants from 1994 to 2015.  I've shared a few examples of this in previous articles, such as this one.

I've also pointed to many other examples of using Kumu and/or NodeXL.  This concept map points to a few of them.  Follow Kumu on LinkedIn and you'll see examples that they post every week.

I hope you'll agree with me that the work done by the IVMOOC team is excellent, and valuable.

Share this article with anyone who is creating events intended to bring people together on an on-going basis, to stimulate learning, reinforce work already being done, and innovate new solutions where they are needed.  Every city in the world should have a group doing what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been doing since 1993.  This network mapping tool event planning process can become a valuable asset.

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and/or Mastodon (see links here) and share how you're using these ideas, and work you're already doing.  

If you'd like to connect on ZOOM or another platform to learn more about this resource or any of the ideas I share on this blog, just reach out to me.  

Finally, if you value what I'm sharing, please visit this page and make a contribution to help Fund the work. 

Will any ML King, Jr. events include maps?

This weekend marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The important messages I've taken from this are "Just don't forget." and "There's a lot of work still to do."

I've written on this topic often in the past. Here are some articles I encourage you to revisit. If you look at January articles since 2005, you'll find a few more.

January 20, 2025 article - Notebook LM review of Tutor/Mentor Connection  (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011 - present) 

January 15, 2024 article - What if Dr. King, Jr. Followers Had Applied Spatial Thinking?

January 13, 2023 article - "I Have a Dream, too" 

January 18, 2021 article - Service Learning in Support of Dr. M.L. King, Jr's Dream.

January 20, 2019 article - How I'll Honor ML King Jr. Holiday

January 19, 2013 article - following my participation in a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. event at the University of Chicago.

October 11, 2012 article - General Powell saying "This isn't Charity."

Nov 11, 2011 article - "War on Poverty Continues"

July 4, 2011 article "Freedom is not Free"

Jun2, 2, 2005 article "Jesus or Martin Luther King, Jr. As CEO: Think about it."

Imagine if Dr. King, Jr. had had a projection screen at his events, on which he produced a map showing the high poverty areas of the US, with overlays showing racial demographics. What if he said, "This map shows all the places where people live in poverty, have less access to education and jobs, and have less chance for their children and grandchildren to share in the American Dream."

Then, imagine that he said "I'm going to check this map every 10 years from now for the next 50 years so I see a growth in learning opportunities, social justices programs, increased jobs opportunities, growing personal engagement from people who don't live in these areas, lending a hand to those who do."

With that he could have said, "Sharing this stage in 50 years will be young men and women of all colors who started life in one of these high poverty areas, but who now not only are well placed in jobs and careers, but are examples of leadership that is still working to fill this entire map with resources, talent, programs and opportunities that help future generations speed along this path to the American Dream."

He did not have those tools and I don't know if he ever thought this way. However, in 50 years we could see evidence of work done by many to create such a future.

After the prayer meetings, service projects, and other things you'll do today, dedicate some time to reading my posts and sharing them with others.  If you know of people using GIS maps, or Concept Maps, in their blog posts and/or events today, please share the links.

Use Internet Archive while my website is not opening

My Tutor/Mentor website has not been opening for the past week. I'm working to get that fixed.

In the meantime, you can view the site on the Internet Archive.  This link points to the last update in December 2025.  All of the internal links seem to be working.

As you celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, learn to use websites like mine as an on-going resource.

Use this resource to map and analyze your networks

The information below is from a new page on my website that I launched to show work done by a team of students from the Information Visualization (IVMOOC) class at Indiana University. This is a project they had been working on for me since September 2025.  

I'm very impressed with the work they did. This visualization shows participation in one of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences held in Chicago between May 1994 and May 2015. You can see it in this article.  Open the Kumu map - click here

In the article and on my website I show several other views that I created from the interactive Kumu project. However, this was only a demonstration of what's possible.  On social media I've been encouraging youth and volunteers from Chicago tutor/mentor programs to dig into the map and find their own organization, then share a screenshot showing what conferences you were part of.

To understand the value of this project, I urge you to read the IVMOOC team final report (click here).

Then take time to study the "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. (click here).

Then look at the "How-To-Guide" that provides step by step information.

In the Project Overview the IVMOOC students wrote: "The Network Map is an event network visualization platform that helps event organizers collect participation and connection data, automatically convert it into network-ready nodes and edges, and explore insights through an analytics dashboard. Outputs can be exported to tools like Kumu.io and Gephi for deeper relationship mapping and network analysis." 

Then, look at the Git Hub page for the project. click here

On the home page you'll find this description. "Network Map - Event Network Visualization Platform. A full-stack web application for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing participant connections from events. Transform survey responses into interactive network graphs and analytics dashboards."

The Network Mapping project was the work of one IVMOOC team. Another looked at the data and created a dashboard showing participation by zip code. See it in this article.

This is the third time since 2008 that the IVMOOC project has looked at the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which has been led through Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011).  Click here to read the 2015 project report.  I'm hoping to be a client for the Spring 2026 IVMOOC, too. 

I've been reaching out to universities for help since the 1990s. It's part of an on-going invitation to engage students, faculty and alumni of universities in Chicago and throughout the world.

Read this post and find a PDF that shows 30 years of engagement, yet also shows no strategic, long-term effort where a stream of students work on the T/MC project while in college, then when they are alumni, with the goal of creating long-term impact on the lives of people living in high poverty areas. 

I invite students and faculty to help me do that, by learning about the tool, and why it's important by reading articles on my blog and in my library.  Then, by creating your own event mapping project, perhaps showing how people at your university are connected around specific issues.

Please connect and introduce yourself to me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (see links here). 

Learn to use concept maps

Over the past few years I've provided a growing number of examples of how concept maps can be used to share information and to help people connect with each other.  I keep finding these on my LinkedIn feed.

Below is one that shows information about "main disciplines, foundations, tools, influences, and products" of a single ecosystem." It's called The Concept Art Map. click here to open

On the "about" page they wrote

"The Concept Art Map started from the struggle of trying to understand the concept art industry just by scrolling walls of text, posts, and random portfolio links. I never felt like I could see the bigger picture or where my own niche actually sat inside it.

So I decided to build a visual version of that picture. As an artist, seeing the whole system visually is the best way to understand how everything connects and how different roles, skills, and tools relate to each other.

I also believe the way we learn is shifting toward more interconnected, systematic presentation of information rather than static, isolated pieces of data and this map is my attempt to reflect that."

This pretty well summarizes my own reasons for creating concept maps.  I point to blogs and websites hosted by other people because most of the time they communicate an idea better than I do. 

I use my concept maps to help people navigate my library. Below is one example, which is showing the four sections of the Tutor/Mentor library. click here

If you compare the two maps you'll see that both are sharing information from a vast library, but in different ways. 

The first was built using Kumu.io.  In other articles I've shown how most Kumu maps are interactive, meaning you can move the nodes around.  And, you can turn layers of information on and off.  In the Concept Map Art map you can zoom in to more easily read the information in each node cluster.  You can also click on different nodes and see more clearly how that node is connected to others.  You can click on a node and get a side bar with descriptive information, often including a website address or social media link.

My map was built using cMapTools.  These don't have the interactive features that Kumu.io has, but at the bottom of each node are small boxes.  One includes links to external websites and the other has links to additional, related, concept maps.  Thus, while a KUMU map might show a vast ecosystem on one screen, the cMapTools map shows layers of information, as you move from one map to another. This section of the Tutor/Mentor library points to other visualization tools that you might use to do this work. 

One feature that I liked about the Concept Art Map was the "how to" page which you can open by clicking on the top right menu bar.

I'm just showing the first view of the "how to" page. You can actually scroll down through several sections that describe how to use the information they have collected.

In the "about" page the creator wrote,

Right now this is v1 of The Concept Art Map. It already covers the main disciplines, foundations, tools, influences, and products, but there are more features I’d like to add if there’s enough interest, things like a "personal niche" views and deeper paths for career development and artist networking.

If you’ve got thoughts, questions, or ideas for where this could go, feel free to get in touch!  

A feedback form is included.

I hope you'll take a look.

Students at every age level (6 to 96) could be learning to create information maps like these.  Volunteers could be helping them learn, and be learning themselves! 

In my "mapping participation" articles I show more examples and reasons to build such maps. 

One application might be mapping ICE activity, aggregating videos and written testimony showing where the law has been broken, and mapping information showing how citizens can respond to the growing Fascism in the USA.

Every day my social media is filled with more and more stories of attacks on democracy and harm to vulnerable people.  It makes it difficult to continue trying to draw attention to work needed to reach kids in high poverty areas with long-term programs that help them through school and into adult lives free of poverty  (and filled with opportunity).

This graphic shows the need for extra youth support in areas where poverty and structural racism mean kids have fewer supports and opportunities than do kids in more affluent areas.  One reason this problem persists over so many years is the random nature of interventions and funding.  I continue to post ideas like this, even in the middle of a full-blown crisis, because of the need for continuous support of programs that connect K-12 kids with extra adult and extra learning.

At the left is a photo of me providing a motivational speech at the annual year-end dinner for the tutor/mentor program that I led from 1975 to 1992.  I'm asking people to return for another year, and do more to help the kids and the program.

I'm still asking for this extra involvement.

Thanks for reading. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter (see links here).

If you value what I'm sharing please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills. 

Making Philanthropy Work Better

I've posted more than 100 articles since 2005 that focus on improving the distribution of philanthropic dollars to volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with multi-year support. 

I've used this graphic often to show the need for long-term funding.  You can find it in this article.

I've also written about the role of information-based intermediaries who collect and share information that volunteers and donors and policy-makers could use to help youth and families in areas of concentrated poverty.  Here's one example.

Furthermore I've shown my efforts over the past 30 years to create a map-based program locator that could help people better understand where youth and families needed more help, and what tutor/mentor programs existed in these areas, that also needed more help.

Thus, I was excited over the past two weeks to learn of an organization called Project 990, which is based out of Indiana University.   Visit their website and see how they are "Building a comprehensive data analytics platform that integrates information from millions of tax filings, grants, and other sources related to philanthropic giving."

This is far more extensive and sophisticated than anything I was able to do in the past.  View this Tableau site to see maps they have created from the data they are collecting. 

Then visit this Smart Charity page on LinkedIn and read the stories they are creating using this data.

I started connecting with Indiana University in the early 2000s when people from IUPUI began attending the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  Then in 2008 I began connecting with an Information Visualization program on the Bloomington campus of IU.  This 2012 article shows work done in 2008.  This article shows work done in 2015 and again in 2025. 

This Tableau map shows that part of their focus is on Bloomington, where the IU campus is located.  

I've introduced myself and hope that one or more of their students will dig into my blog, website and archives and begin sharing what they are learning via the Smart Charity stories.  My goal is that some of the strategies I've piloted, that focus on active, on-going communications intended to draw donors to existing non profits, and to places where more are needed, will become part of their own efforts.  The 2006-2015 articles on the Tutor/Mentor Intern blog show what's possible.

Furthermore, I hope their model is duplicated by universities in every urban area and in every state and that over time, this fixes the funding and staff retention problems that I focus on in my articles.

1-13-2026 update - Here's another example of mapping philanthropic data. Take a look at the Nonprofit Ecosystem Mapping Project on the GivingTuesday Data Commons. click here

When I was working with the IVMOOC team last fall I suggested that they create a map showing all of the programs at Indiana University that focused on helping people.   Here's one article where I show what's possible.   Here's another.  If such a map of the IU ecosystem existed I suspect it would connect the IVMOOC program and the Project 990 group, and maybe others who are doing related work.  

I am constantly reminded of how much great work is happening that I'm not aware of.  I add links to the Tutor/Mentor Library to share much of what I find.  So, if you're aware of programs similar to Project 990 at other universities, please share the links.

Thanks for reading.  Find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon. Find links here.

If you'd like to help fund my work, visit this page. 

Movement building - who's involved?

As we head into 2026 millions of people will be focusing on the fall elections and efforts to take back control of Congress from the GOP majorities, as part of a much greater effort to remove our current President and give him a new office in a Federal Prison. 

I'll be one of those millions of people. But I'll also spend time every day trying to help well-organized, volunteer-based, tutor, mentor and learning programs reach k-12 kids living in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other places, understanding that kids in these areas won't get extra support without intentional efforts of individuals and teams working throughout the country.

If you've read many of my past articles you'll see my use of visualizations and concept maps, with a focus on systems thinking and building blueprints that show "who needs to be involved" and "in what role" and "in what place" and "for how long". 

With that introduction please view this short video.

 

How do we get from "here to there?"

If you're an event organizer or youth program leader do you have a visualization showing the range of talent needed for you to succeed? Do you have a visualizations showing what networks need to be connected to you and each other?

Are you familiar with social network analysis? Do you already create visualizations that show who you're connecting with, or who your students are connecting with because of your intentional efforts?  Review articles in this section of the Tutor/Mentor website. 

I've written about this since the mid 2000s when I started this blog.  Look at articles like this, this and this to deepen your understanding of what I'm writing about.

Are you already doing this work?  Do you want to learn more?  Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, Twitter and other platforms (see links here). 

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to this blog and follow my newsletter. I'll be writing more articles on this topic and introducing a new open source mapping resource that I hope you'll use in your own efforts.

Mapping Learning Resources - 2026 and beyond

Over the past few years I've devoted several articles to showing uses of concept maps and other visualization tools to help organize information and ideas and create platforms that engage more people in learning and innovating solutions to complex problems.

Here's another example.  Explore this interactive map (created using Kumu.io) on the Landscape of Consciousness website. You'll find four maps like the one shown below that visualize theories of consciousness.

Scroll down on the home page and you'll find this chart, which details the information found on the concept map. 

This page is really important.  The "Implications" section "explores the real-world consequences of theories of consciousness on five profiled and challenging questions".

The Landscape of Consciousness map was shared on LinkedIn by Deniz Cem Önduygu.   This is where I get my first look at most of the Kumu visualizations that I've been sharing.

Now look at my maps.  This one shows the full range of information in the library on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  click here to open

This shows one of the four subsections of the concept map shown above.  This one shares links to information anyone can use to build coalitions and innovate solutions to complex problems.  click here to open

At the bottom of each node are one, or two boxes.  These include links to external website pages, or to additional concept maps.  click here to view this page

I've built the Tutor/Mentor library over the past 50 years, starting in the 1970s when I was looking for ideas for my weekly sessions with my mentee, then when I began to lead a program.  We accelerated this process in 1993 when we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, then again in 1998 when we moved the library to the Internet, where it has grown for over 25 years.

I've used cMapTools since 2005 to visualize ideas, strategies and the resources in the Tutor/Mentor Library. And, I use blog articles to "make sense" of the information.  

I don't have the energy or motivation to rebuild all of my maps using Kumu or Gephi, but I keep sharing examples of these tools, with the goal that one, or more, people will use my library as a resource and will use Kumu to map what's available.

Last week I posted this article, showing the visualization below, created by students at Indiana University.  It shows participation in the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago. They created this using Excel spreadsheets from my library.

Last April, I used this article to show my 30 years of outreach to local, national and international universities.

On page 39 I showed the 2008 IVMOOC project done by students at Indiana University. 

This shows that I've had success in connecting with universities on short term projects. But I've not been able to build any long-term partnerships.  Thus, while each project was valuable, the potential was lost because they were not part of any university-led on-going effort, or relay-race, where future students took the place of current and past students and constantly updated, expanded, and improved on the work done by previous students.

That will only happen if a major donor provides the money.

So as we enter 2026 I call on readers to share this with their networks, reaching out to people who could make major gifts, to a university, to build on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connections, that build on the work I've piloted for so long.

This invitation aims to reach faculty and/or administrators who might develop programs, and grant requests, that find this money.  If you're interested, take a look at this page, where I outline steps you might take.

I'd be happy to explore this idea with you.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook and/or Instagram (see links here).  

Thanks to everyone who sent contributions in 2025 to help me do this work. Visit my "Fund T/MI" page to offer your help. 

Happy Holidays

Regardless of how you celebrate, if you do, I wish you all good health, hope and happiness as we finish this year and move to 2026.

My gift to you is the library that I freely share along with the ideas and lessons I've learned from leading two different volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs over a 35 year period (1975-2011) and leading an intermediary designed to use information in the library to learn where kids and families need more help, why extra help is needed, and how volunteers in organized, on-going youth programs can make a difference.

My thanks go to those who read and share this information and the few who send me contributions to help pay the bills.  

Take another look at Tutor/Mentor Conferences that I hosted

I've been fortunate to be part of an Information Visualization (IVMOOC) class at Indiana University, several times since the late 2000s.  This week I received the final report from a team that worked on a "mapping participation" idea that I proposed. You can see what I asked them to do on this page. 

I'll be posting more about this in January, but want to give you something to nibble on over the holidays.

The team used my registration spreadsheets from the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking conferences held every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 as a demonstration of ways event organizers can map participation.   They showed the data using KUMU, which I've written about several times in the past.

Open this link and this is the first view that you'll see.

The orange nodes represent conferences and the green nodes are participating organizations. The larger nodes show more conferences attended.

This visualization has a lot of information, so you need to look more closely. At the right side is a drop-down menu listing conference years. When I clicked on 2010 I get this view.

Below is a view of the two 1999 conferences.

Below is a view of the two 1999 conferences plus the two held in 2009.

You can look at each green node to see what conferences that organization participated in.  Below I show BigBrothersBigSisters of Metro Chicago.  

Below is a map for the Circuit Court of Cook County.

And below is a map for Children's Home and Aid.

You can open the KUMU presentation and explore it yourself.  Create your own blog article with screenshots showing what conferences your organization attended.

The data for this came from the registration information we collected for each conference. We converted it to Excel spreadsheets and shared those with the IVMOOC team.  They then created the KUMU visualization.

We did not collect data showing how these organizations connected to each other.  And, since most of these were held before social media became popular, we did not collect data showing LinkedIn or Facebook profiles.

This KUMU visualization is a demonstration of what's possible. In January I'll create a post showing a new open source tool any event organizer can use to create registration sheets that collect data that can later be turned into visualizations, using KUMU, Gephi or GIS mapping tools like Tableau.

At the left is a photo of two volunteers who created our first computer lab in the mid 1980 at the tutor/mentor program I led at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago.  The two students are now in their 50s and raising their own kids. We're connected on Facebook.

Computer technology is much different today, and the Internet is a powerful resource.  

Any youth program in Chicago could have a volunteer-led activity, where students are learning to create visualizations using KUMU or Gephi, that show that organization's participation in past Tutor/Mentor Conferences.  They could be writing blog articles and/or creating videos to show the visualizations they create.  They could be learning how to use the new open source tool to map participation in events hosted by their program, or in their city.  They could be creating a valuable analytics tool.

They could be learning marketable skills.

Colleges could be doing this work too. This article shows a vision I've shared for many years. If you create an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection maybe you can find someone like MacKenzie Scott to fund it!

Thanks for reading. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Facebook, Mastodon or Instagram and I can give you more information about the open source tool. (find links here).

Hopefully you'll share some participation maps created by your students, volunteers and/or staff, that show conferences you participated in, using the KUMU presentation I've shared.

Thank you to those who have already sent contributions for my December 19th birthday, or for the year-end FundT/MI campaign.  These enable me to do the work that I'm showing you.

Same message. 20 years later.

Below is a collection of photos showing myself along with students and volunteers of the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program that I formed in late 1992 and led through mid 2011.

We did not have any dedicated funding in late 1992 when seven of us got together and decided to start Cabrini Connections, and a second program that was named the Tutor/Mentor Connection in mid 1993.  We'd all been part of a program that was started in 1965 by a few employees from the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago, which connected 2nd through 6th grade youth from the Cabrini-Green neighborhood with workplace volunteers.  I joined as a volunteer tutor in the fall of 1973 and became it's volunteer leader in the summer of 1975.  I led it for the next 17 years while holding full-time retail advertising jobs.

That program is now Tutoring Chicago and they've bee sharing videos on their website celebrating their 60th year anniversary.  Many include photos from the yearbooks I created and several have interviews with youth and volunteers from those years.  They do a great job of showing what a well-organized, long-term program could look like.

From 1965 to 1970 volunteers and youth met in a building on Chicago Avenue, near the corporate complex.  It moved to the basement cafeteria of the Wards Merchandise building in 1970 and to the first floor of the former Catalog building in 1980. From 1970 to 1990 Montgomery Ward provided space, security, utilities, janitorial services, printing, postage, insurance, etc. These were items that we began to pay for once we became a non-profit in 1990.  All of the program leaders, starting with myself, were volunteers. Most had full time jobs at Wards.  Thus, the expenses were low and there was no need for fund raising.

That changed in 1990 when we became a nonprofit and we started to pay a few people, including myself, to lead and operate the program.  Part of that work involved raising the money needed.  I had no experience in fund raising, but spent 17 years at Wards in retail advertising.  I applied those lessons to my fund raising efforts. We raised $114,000 the first year and $214,000 the second year. 

Then I left the program due to differences in philosophy between myself and the Board of Directors who I had recruited in 1990.  With six other volunteers we formed Cabrini Connections.  As part of the responsibility of leading that program over the next 18 years, I was the chief fund raiser and grant writer.

I wrote this article in December 2005, expressing some of my ideas and frustrations. I think those thoughts are still valid today, as we head into 2026.

--- start 2005 ---- 

I've been reading blogs on charity and philanthropy listed in the Non Profit Blog Exchange and in one the message is: Do your donors a big favor: ask them to give.

I cannot tell you how often over the past 13 years I've struggled to ask for money and how difficult others also seem to find this. Yet, here's a blogger saying that we're doing donors a favor because it feels good to give!!

I know this is true about giving of your time, but it seems harder when you're asking people to give their money. Yet, what's the difference? Time is money!! Therefore, as you head to the Christmas or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah feast, why not make everyone feel better by asking them to give to a charity that needs more dollars to do its work.

You can read more about "making donors feel good" on the Donor Power Blog, found at http://www.donorpowerblog.com/donor_power_blog/. This is one of several non-profit blogs linked together in the December 2005 Non Profit Blog Exchange.

Let me talk about this from the other perspective. I lead a small non profit. I've had former students and volunteers tell me how much being part of Cabrini Connections has changed their lives. I've had people from around the country tell me how they have started new mentoring initiatives based on the information they found on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site or how much they valued the information. Yet, I've also had to reach into my own pocket to pay the bills each year because I could not find enough donors to share this vision with me. (2025 note - that has never changed)

For charities like Cabrini Connections, the last six weeks of the year are critically important. We raise almost 40% of our annual revenue in these weeks. I'm please to say that we've received significant grants from HSBC, Hewitt, Kraft Employee Fund, Polk Bros Foundation, the Wm Wrigley Jr. Co. Foundation and many donations ranging from $5 to $1,000 from dozens of individuals these past few weeks, so my Christmas stocking is filling up.

But it's not overflowing, which means unless we find more donations this week and in the coming months, we'll be borrowing money in June and July to pay the rent!!

Not all charities are as good as others in raising money. There are many who do excellent work but work in relative isolation and struggle to find funds to do their work. We set up the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 (and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011) to try to change the way funds were raised and distributed to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. We've piloted GIS maps to show where these programs are needed, based on where poverty and poorly performing schools are most concentrated. We've created a searchable database to help people learn what programs are in what zip codes, or if there are zip codes where more programs are needed. You can find this in the Program Locator, now an archive, at https://tinyurl.com/ProgramLocatorSearch 

I spend time writing blogs like this to try to help all of these programs get the resources they need, not just the programs I lead. I try to teach others to follow this example because I think it can increase the donor pool that supports all of us.

Note. When I wrote this in 2005, I was still leading the Cabrini Connections program.  Thus, if you want to feel good, but don't want to send a contribution to Cabrini Connections, we offer you dozens of other programs in Chicago where you can help kids and mentors connect. Furthermore, if you search the LINKS library, we offer you almost 900 links to organizations who do great work in all parts of the US, and who seek charitable contributions to sustain what they do.  That library is now here.

I have been doing this work for more than 30 years. I've been blessed in more ways that I can count, starting with the kids and volunteers who have let me be part of their lives, and going on to my own children who are the result of me meeting and marrying a women who I met in 1980 when she became a volunteer in the program I was leading.

I hope that many of you have found the same type of joy from giving of your time, talent and treasure. And I hope you'll keep giving until it feels good!!

As you celebrate this holiday please look for ways to share some of your own blessings with people who are helping kids and who are trying to end poverty through mentoring and career education. ...or who are doing other forms of charity and service that also need to be funded with your contributions.

To all who have helped Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, with their donations, with their volunteer contributions, and with their encouragement, I say "Thank You!"

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

--- end 2005 article ----

Reach out and give till it feels good!  Boy is that needed now in 2025, in the USA, and all over the world.

I hope you'll read more of my blog articles and share them in  your networks and that we connect on one, or many, social media platforms in 2026.

I'll be 79 on December 19th, and would greatly appreciate if you'd make a contribution to light a candle on my cake. Click here. 

Help me help others

 On December 19th I'll be 79 years old.  Each year since 2011 I've invited people to support the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC by sending a gift to support my birthday.  Visit this page to do that. 

My passion for helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in more places comes from having led the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini Green Tutoring Program from 1975 to 1992, then the Cabrini Connections program from 1993 to 2011.

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help similar programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago. Sometimes people ask me, “What have I accomplished?” and I respond, “Just keeping my archives available, along with a vast resource library, is a huge accomplishment.” Below is an example:

Visit the Tutoring Chicago website at tutoringchicago.org then view the videos they have created to celebrate their 60th Anniversary. I was interviewed for one, since that was the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program until 1990. In others you’ll see photos from yearbooks I created along with interviews of former students and volunteers. They would not have been able to create many of these videos if I had not kept an archive of these materials and made them available on my Google Drive.

I use these same archives to help similar programs grow in more places. That’s part of the information base I point to daily. They have done such a great job with this campaign that I included it in my November newsletter, with the goal that it inspires volunteers and donors to help models like this grow in more places. I share posts from College Bound Opportunities and other programs, too.

From the beginning I’ve hoped that programs would show their strategies on their websites and actively learn from each other. I've also hoped that volunteers in various programs would look at this information, then go back to where they volunteer and say "What if we did this?"  "And, I'll volunteer to help!"

Newspaper stories and new research, such as this "State of Our Youth 2025" report from "A Better Chicago" show that in high poverty areas there still is a shortage of learning, tutoring and mentoring opportunities in many Chicago neighborhoods.

The 60th Anniversary videos from Tutoring Chicago show what's possible. If you visit the Chicago Programs page on my website and browse the lists, you'll find many other excellent programs with long histories, and some newer ones with great potential.  

They all require on-going support.

I hope you'll help me continue to distribute this information by sending in a 79th birthday gift, or making a contribution through my HelpT/MI page.  

At the same time I urge you to share my blog articles and monthly newsletter with your networks so more people find and use this information to become strategically committed to helping youth in every  high poverty neighborhood have a greater range of support to help them through school and into adult lives.

Thank you for reading.  Visit this page to find links to where you can connect with me on social  media.