Transforming Adults Involved In Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs

Now that Chicago won't host the Olympics, can we create "gold medal" thinking about ways to help kids from poverty win their race to futures? Read on?

When I first became a volunteer tutor at the Montgomery Ward program almost 35 years ago, I had no idea that I'd someday be writing articles like this to encourage others to become involved. What transformed me over these years? What if hundreds of places where volunteers connect with inner city youth were trying to transform their own volunteers for the same benefit?

I attend many meetings where the problems and tragedies of poverty are discussed. Almost all bring together many people with personal experience and good ideas. However, a time in the meeting comes when we talk about funding, and then we all recognize that this is a problem, then we go on and talk more about the problems, and what we could do IF we had the money.

I focus most of the articles in this blog on what steps we might take to increase the flow of resources to all tutor/mentor programs in a geographic area, on a long-term basis, which includes money, but also includes talent and technology, and ideas.

Yesterday as I sat in another meeting, I scribbled out some concepts, which I later polished up on a concept map. If you've skills in animation, you could do even more with this idea.



This chart shows a cycle that takes place almost every day, in hundreds of locations throughout the country. However, it may be happening with less purpose and impact in most places, than is needed to change the flow of resources to tutor/mentor programs.

Let me try to break this down for you.

The first step in volunteer involvement is creating advertising, or network building, that motivates a volunteer to seek out a place where he/she can get involved. This could be our Cabrini Connections program. It could be one of the programs on our list of Chicago programs. It could be one in any other city, found by searching through any of these volunteer-matching systems.



The next stage of volunteer involvement is on-going. This involves the coaching, training, and peer mentoring that a volunteer receives in the program where she became involved. This also involves the learning which a volunteer does on his own to build his skills as a tutor/mentor. This type of support varies dramatically from place to place, depending on the level and experience of staffing, and the structure of the program. If a volunteer is well supported, and if the student attends regularly and is not what we call a "volunteer killer" (meaning they don't want to work, are disrespectful, or don't attend regularly and the volunteer gets frustrated and quits), then the volunteer will stay longer with the program.



Now comes the important, trans formative stage. As volunteers who don't live in poverty become personally involved with kids who do live in poverty, they begin to learn more about issues and challenges the kids deal with on a daily basis. They begin to become more interested in learning more about these issues. Some will do this on their own. However, some programs make an effort to broaden the volunteer's understanding of the issue by organizing conferences, training sessions, or by providing reading materials, or on-line libraries of information that the volunteer can learn from.



Each week, as the volunteer grows his/her relationship with the youth, they also grow their understanding of the issues. If the program nurtures this, the volunteer takes the next step, to becoming an advocate for the student, the program, and the tutor/mentor industry.

Initially this might be the volunteer making contact with the student's parent, or teacher. It might grow to making a greater effort to find study ideas, and college and career resources. It might lead to creating a part time job at the volunteer's company for the student, or other students in the program, or to recommending speakers and other resources.

As the volunteer shares his weekly experiences through informal story telling, a few friends and co-workers may offer to join her as a volunteer.

If the volunteer is coached, or self-motivated, he might begin to raise money to support the organization. Some volunteers might join fund raising committees, or even become part of a board of directors.

If this is happening in many programs, in the same city, or in multiple cities, and the number of volunteers increases, the impact of their informal networking can result in more volunteers becoming involved, and more people donating money to support their programs.

However, if there are face-to-face events, or on-line platforms, where volunteers from the same program, for from different programs, can connect with each other, then the sharing of information can include more people, and the hosts of these events can become more strategic.

Imagine if we were able to attract two or three thousand volunteers from tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, New Y ork, Detroit, Miami, LA and other cities to the same on-line forum. What if a volunteer said, "I'm from Microsoft. Are there any other volunteers from there?"

This could lead to volunteers who work in the same company, same industry, or attended the same college, forming groups where they share tips and ideas that enable each member to be more effective in how he supports his/her own student.

It could also lead to these volunteers beginning a process of "What could we as a group, or as a company, to to support our programs more consistently? Or, What could we do to improve the quality and experience, and retention, of key staff members who are essential to coaching volunteers and students into long-term involvement? What could we do to lower the costs and frustrations of fund raising?"

Such discussions, happening in many groups, could lead to a more strategic understanding of a tutor/mentor program and how we transform the lives of kids, by transforming the lives of the volunteers who we recruit from areas beyond poverty, and from the many industries who benefit from a well-trained and diverse workforce.

Ultimately, such strategies would increase the number of well-organized, volunteer-based programs, where leaders incorporate this thinking into their own core strategies, which would just lead to a greater on-going growth in the number of volunteers who are involved and transformed.

I call this a Service Learning Loop. You can see an animated version of this here.
Instead of thinking of a shrinking economy and support system, we should be thinking of this as a growth strategy.

I encourage you to borrow the charts I post on this blog for your own articles, brain storming and visioning. Just point a link to us as the source. You can find essays with some of these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute. I also encourage you to join me and others at the conference we host in Chicago every November and May, or in on-line forums where we can meet without the costs of travel.

If you're a writer, graphic designer, film maker, or student looking for an internship, or for a masters, or PhD project, we offer the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Cabrini Connections as a place where you can learn, and where you can apply your talent to enhance and improve what we're doing.

What Are You Doing to Support Volunteer Recruitment for Back to School?

I know it's still June, but what are your plans to help mobilize volunteers to be part of organized tutoring, mentoring and learning programs for the 2015-16 school year? School starts in September. Tutor/Mentor Programs should be sending out email to ask veteran volunteers to sign up for another year, and new volunteers to join, as we enter August.

However, what are YOU (business, faith group, political leader, media, celebrity, etc) doing now to help programs in Chicago and other cities recruit volunteers so more youth are able to benefit from a mentor and being part of an organized program?

Here's a presentation with tips for mobilizing volunteers. If teams of volunteers in business, faith groups, media, etc. look at this, there are many ways your team can help mobilize volunteers for various tutor/mentor programs serving your city.

Strategies for recruiting volunteers for tutor/mentor programs by Daniel F. Bassill

Don't wait until August. There is work that already should have been started. For instance:

Help programs build staff to support volunteers. If we were able to organize a massive volunteer recruitment campaign that doubled the number of volunteers we would fail in our mission if we had not also increased the staff available in different programs to support those volunteers. The worst campaign is one that inspires someone to volunteer, who then finds out there is no room for them, or get into a program where they are poorly supported. That volunteer turns around and tells others "Don't do this."

One way to help programs attract talent, is to help them get the operating dollars they need to hire and pay staff. Consider adding organized tutor/mentor programs to your company's workplace giving campaign choices, and to programs like "dollars for doers" and matching gifts. Encourage employees who already volunteer or serve on boards to tell other employees about the value of these programs and to encourage donations to support operations.

Help programs improve the way they tell their stories on their web sites. Volunteers and parents who are shopping to find a place to volunteer should be able to look at a web site and see if the program is close to where they live or work, has a history of success, is well organized, and meets at a time frame convenient for the volunteer and youth to participate regularly. View this shoppers guide for some ideas of what should be on a web site.

Teams of volunteers, or individual volunteers, can offer their talent to help programs improve their web sites, tell their stories, and even organize events that support learning and participation of youth and volunteers. This essay, shows roles of talent volunteers.

While its only June, now's the time to plan ways to include volunteer recruitment ads in fall media and business publications. Non profit tutor/mentor programs have few advertising dollars, yet it is reach and frequency of message delivery that finds potential volunteers (and donors) and encourages them to shop and become involved in tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods. Create ads that show your company logo, and point to web directories where people can learn about volunteer opportunities in their city.

One role volunteers can take is to help get tutor/mentor organizations listed on as many volunteer matching services as you can. This graphic is the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC's concept map showing a range of web sites where you can list your program. This includes the Illinois Mentoring Partnership, the One Good Deed Chicago and VolunteerMatch sites.

Do this work now and many kids will have the special opportunity of being part of an organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program this fall and for many years to come. You can help change the future through your actions.

If you'd like to meet or talk with me about actions you can take to support volunteer recruitment, just email tutormentor2 at earthlink.net or reach out to me on Twitter @tutormentorteam.

Supporting Youth Tutor/Mentor Orgs Throughout a City

I've been posting articles to this blog since 2005 and to a web site since 1998. All focus on actions that people in business, media, faith groups, etc. could take to help mentor-rich non-school programs be available to k-12 youth in more places, and for more years.  I've embedded maps and graphics into many articles, and I'm going to pull a few into this article.

You're welcome to put this into Hypothes.is for deeper reading and annotation.

See TQM Strategy

This graphic shows a youth, or a tutor/mentor program, as the hub of a wheel. The timeline in the middle shows different age groups from pre school through work and is intended to show that once a mentor, or tutor/mentor program connects with a youth, the goal should be to stay connected till that youth is an adult and in a job...or to connect that youth to others who help provide such long-term support.

The spokes point to different type of industries and careers kids might aspire to if they had adults to model these opportunities and help open doors as young people grow up.

The map shows that such programs are needed in all high poverty neighborhoods, not just a few good programs, in a few locations, reaching a small percent of kids who need such support.

It Takes A Village -article

At the right is another version of this graphic, with the heading "It takes a village to raise a child."  While both of these maps could be used to show youth program design, they could also be used to show how business, hospitals, faith groups, colleges and civic groups, etc. are helping well-organized youth programs grow in all poverty areas.

Here's another concept map, which I use to show the talent needed for any organization, big or small, to be successful.  Look at the yellow nodes, showing finance, legal, communications, etc. In small non profits a few people wear many hats, and few have all the talent and skills needed to be really good at what they do. Some are effective in raising money and hiring people, or can find volunteers, while others are not as good at this.

This is another graphic communicating the same idea. In every high poverty neighborhood, every tutor/mentor program needs the same mix of talent and support.

Below is a presentation that includes a theoretical organization chart, showing the different talents needed to build and sustain a strong enterprise.  It includes some of these graphics.

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

Now here's what I want people reading this to think about.  Instead of several hundred non profits competing with each other to find the talent they need to do good work, why can't every business, faith group, alumni group, philanthropy and civic organization look for ways to spread their members, talent and expertise to organizations throughout the city?

Service-Learning LOOP - video

Look at the horizontal figure-8 in this graphic and think of it as a volunteer engagement strategy. As you do, think of the hub/spoke graphic above.  On the right would be the different sources of volunteers and talent that is available in different industries. On the left are the existing tutor/mentor programs where someone might become involved.

Every time a volunteer connects with a youth in a tutor/mentor program he/she is learning about the poverty that causes the program to be needed, about the strength and weakness of the organization, and about the strengths and needs of the youth they meet.  As the volunteer returns to family, friends and workplace, she informally shares what was learned.  If that volunteer is well supported, by the program, or by his industry, he will stay involved longer, and ultimately, some will take greater roles and responsibilities. Here's a video that shows this idea.

The map at the right is a screen shot of the asset map section of the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, showing some of the banks in the Chicago region.

What if a version of this were created for each industry, with flags on each icon, indicating a volunteer support strategy that a) encouraged volunteers to be tutors or mentors; b) encourage volunteers to offer talent to support specific needs of programs, such as planning, marketing, technology, finance, legal, etc; c) encouraged volunteers to sit on Boards of youth programs in the area around individual locations; and/or d) encouraged volunteers to make annual financial contributions to support programs where other employees or church members were involved?

Another version of the map could be created or sponsored by each industry, showing known tutor/mentor programs in the region, with flags on the map indicating that volunteers from the industry were involved in one, or all, of the ways suggested above.  The screen shot at the left is also from the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator. The green stars on the map are programs identified through surveys done until money ran out in 2010.

Tech volunteers could be helping create and update maps like this!

Now, as you think of the hub/spoke wheel, and the service learning loop, imagine the impact if volunteers from an industry, or faith group, or college alumni network, who were becoming involved with youth programs in every part of the city, now began to meet and share ideas with each other on a regular basis.

What works? What did not work? What are the needs of the youth, or the organization, that our industry could fill? What can  we do to help these organizations do more to keep the youth and their volunteers involved for multiple years? What other questions should we be asking and trying to answer?

What can we be doing to "pull" kids through school and into adult lives with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids without the challenges of poverty?

What can we do to help volunteers from other industries get involved and take a similar leadership role, so that every youth program begins to have a mix of volunteers, leaders and resources representing every sector of the village, with everyone taking a role to help kids move through school and into careers.

What can our industry, faith group, family group, etc. do to share responsibility with non profit leaders for making well-organized, long-term, tutor/mentor programs available to k-12 youth in more places?

A small group of volunteers within each industry could be facilitating such conversations, just as small groups organize United Way campaigns every year.

Many leaders needed.
What I'm suggesting is that leaders from any sector, or each spoke on the wheel shown above, could put themselves in the blue box at the top of this concept map and apply this Role of Leaders strategy to help more kids born or living in poverty move through school and into adult jobs and responsibilities. If they can make this work for the poorest kids in the city, it will support every other youth at the same time.

This strategy applies in any city, and can apply to any service that needs to be located close to clients, meaning multiple distribution points are needed throughout a geographic region.

If you'd like me to meet with you or someone from your organization to talk through these ideas, just let me know. I'm on Twitter @tutormentorteam and on Facebook and Linkedin.

If you'd like to make a financial contribution to help me continue to share these ideas, click here, and use the PayPal button to send your support. 

Transforming Adults Involved In Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs

I wrote this article in 2009 and said, "Now that Chicago won't host the Olympics, can we create "gold medal" thinking about ways to help kids from poverty win their race to futures?

Me & Leo - 1973

I've updated this for 2017.  We still don't have much "gold medal"thinking.  Please read on.

When I first became a volunteer tutor at the Montgomery Ward program almost 35 years ago, I had no idea that I'd someday be writing articles like this to encourage others to become involved. What transformed me over these years? What if hundreds of places where volunteers connect with inner city youth were trying to transform their own volunteers for the same benefit?

I attend many meetings where the problems and tragedies of poverty are discussed. Almost all bring together many people with personal experience and good ideas. However, a time in the meeting comes when we talk about funding, and then we all recognize that this is a problem, then we go on and talk more about the problems, and what we could do IF we had the money.

I focus most of the articles in this blog on what steps we might take to increase the flow of resources to all tutor/mentor programs in a geographic area, on a long-term basis, which includes money, but also includes talent and technology, and ideas.

Yesterday as I sat in another meeting, I scribbled out some concepts, which I later polished up on a concept map. If you've skills in animation, you could do even more with this idea.

http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Vol-Growth-Cycle

This chart shows a cycle that takes place almost every day, in hundreds of locations throughout the country. However, it may be happening with less purpose and impact in most places, than is needed to change the flow of resources to tutor/mentor programs.

Let me try to break this down for you.

The first step in volunteer involvement is creating advertising, or network building, that motivates a volunteer to seek out a place where he/she can get involved. This could be the Cabrini Connections (now Chicago Tutoring Connection) program which I led from 1993 to 2011. It could be one of the programs on the list of Chicago programs maintained by the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993. It could be one in any other city, found by searching through any of these volunteer-matching systems.



The next stage of volunteer involvement is on-going. This involves the coaching, training, and peer mentoring that a volunteer receives in the program where she became involved. This also involves the learning which a volunteer does on his own to build his skills as a tutor/mentor. This type of support varies dramatically from place to place, depending on the level and experience of staffing, and the structure of the program. If a volunteer is well supported, and if the student attends regularly and is not what we call a "volunteer killer" (meaning they don't want to work, are disrespectful, or don't attend regularly and the volunteer gets frustrated and quits), then the volunteer will stay longer with the program.



Now comes the important, trans formative stage. As volunteers who don't live in poverty become personally involved with kids who do live in poverty, they begin to learn more about issues and challenges the kids deal with on a daily basis. They begin to become more interested in learning more about these issues. Some will do this on their own. However, some programs make an effort to broaden the volunteer's understanding of the issue by organizing conferences, training sessions, or by providing reading materials, or on-line libraries of information that the volunteer can learn from.

Each week, as the volunteer grows his/her relationship with the youth, they also grow their understanding of the issues. If the program nurtures this, the volunteer takes the next step, to becoming an advocate for the student, the program, and the tutor/mentor industry.

Initially this might be the volunteer making contact with the student's parent, or teacher. It might grow to making a greater effort to find study ideas, and college and career resources. It might lead to creating a part time job at the volunteer's company for the student, or other students in the program, or to recommending speakers and other resources.

As the volunteer shares his weekly experiences through informal story telling, a few friends and co-workers may offer to join her as a volunteer.

If the volunteer is coached, or self-motivated, he might begin to raise money to support the organization. Some volunteers might join fund raising committees, or even become part of a board of directors.

If this is happening in many programs, in the same city, or in multiple cities, and the number of volunteers increases, the impact of their informal networking can result in more volunteers becoming involved, and more people donating money to support their programs.

However, if there are face-to-face events, or on-line platforms, where volunteers from the same program, for from different programs, can connect with each other, then the sharing of information can include more people, and the hosts of these events can become more strategic.

Imagine if we were able to attract two or three thousand volunteers from tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Miami, LA and other cities to the same on-line forum. What if a volunteer said, "I'm from Microsoft. Are there any other volunteers from there?"

This could lead to volunteers who work in the same company, same industry, or attended the same college, forming groups where they share tips and ideas that enable each member to be more effective in how he supports his/her own student.


It could also lead to these volunteers beginning a process of "What could we as a group, or as a company, do to support our programs more consistently? Or, What could we do to improve the quality and experience, and retention, of key staff members who are essential to coaching volunteers and students into long-term involvement? What could we do to lower the costs and frustrations of fund raising?"

Such discussions, happening in many groups, could lead to a more strategic understanding of a tutor/mentor program and how we transform the lives of kids, by transforming the lives of the volunteers who we recruit from areas beyond poverty, and from the many industries who benefit from a well-trained and diverse workforce.

Ultimately, such strategies would increase the number of well-organized, volunteer-based programs, where leaders incorporate this thinking into their own core strategies, which would just lead to a greater on-going growth in the number of volunteers who are involved and transformed.

Created by Intern from Hong Kong in 2007

I call this a Service Learning Loop. You can see an animated version of this here.

Instead of thinking of a shrinking economy and support system, we should be thinking of this as a growth strategy.

I encourage you to borrow the charts I post on this blog for your own articles, brain storming and visioning. Just point a link to us as the source. You can find essays with some of these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library. I also encourage you to join me on social media where we can meet without the costs of travel to attend face to face conferences.

Since I first created this article in 2009 an intern from the University of Michigan, working with a public interest program fellow from Northwestern, created an animation to share this information. That can be seen in this video.

In addition, the Service Learning Loop animation was updated by an intern from South Korea who was part of a program with IIT in Chicago.

You can see the animation in this video.

If you're a writer, graphic designer, film maker, or student looking for an internship, or for a masters, or PhD project, we offer the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a project that you can study, and where you can apply your talent to enhance and improve what we're doing.  As these videos demonstrate, any of the ideas I share on this blog could be re-done many times, by students and volunteers from many places.

I encourage that to happen.

Recruiting Talent Volunteers

I've written several articles in the past about the role of "talent volunteers" in a non profit organization.

I was please today that my friends at WomenOnCall.org pointed me to an article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review, titled "The New Volunteer Workforce".

As we head toward the start of a new school year, and deal with a crippling economy, this article has a lot of value.

I encourage you to also read the comments. One was written by Bonnie Hilory, Executive Director, Haas Foundation. She talks about "the care and feeding of the volunteers." She says, "As our volunteer program grows we need to educate our board, donors and volunteers that more funding will be needed. The more volunteers we have the more financial support/help from the agency we will need."

How about educating the businesses who encourage employees and customers to volunteer? If a company encourages volunteerism, can it also encourage workplace giving that supports places where employees volunteer, or develop some other innovative strategies that provide the dollars and manpower needed to support volunteer involvement in all of the ways the Stanford article suggests?

Furthermore, how about giving employees more choice at where they volunteer. I met with one company official last year after the announcement of a $50 million corporate commitment to encourage talent volunteering. They had already made up their corporate mind as to where such volunteering would take place, thus limiting the number of volunteers who could get involved, or who might want to get involved with that cause.

If companies would point to maps of cities like Chicago, showing where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and providing contact information and web links for existing programs, their employees could choose where to volunteer time and talent, and where they also might provide dollars.

The Tutor/Mentor Program Locator can be used for companies in Chicago who want to provide this range of opportunities.

There are close to 200,000 kids living in high poverty neighborhoods in Chicago. Connecting them to tutors/mentors in constantly improving tutor/mentor programs is a way to help them succeed in school and in life. Providing talent and dollars from local corporations, hospitals, universities and professional groups is a way to help make such programs more available throughout the city and suburbs.

Think globally. Act locally.

One of the blogs I've followed since the late 2000s is written by Dave Pollard and is titled "How to save the world".   That's a pretty big idea.

I include Dave's blog on my Inoreader page and looked at a recent article last week.  Below is a screenshot of the top of the article which you can read at this link.

There's good advice in this list and in Dave's article.  He quotes from another blog, titled "So where do we go from here?" which you can find in this link. 

 

Below is one of the paragraphs from that blog that Dave included in his article.

He recommends acting locally, building a community focused on local problems, since the big  problems are not likely to be solved by our current orchestra of political leaders.  

So what does this have to do with volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs? Everything.

The graphic below shows that while we launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago, we were also launching a new program in the Cabrini-Green area to help 7th and 8th grade teens move through high school and into adult lives.  

Our actions to help ALL programs were intended to help our SINGLE program, too.  

When I became the volunteer leader in 1975 of a tutor/mentor program that already had 100 pairs of kids/volunteers, I held a full time retail advertising job with the Montgomery Ward corporation. As the tutor/mentor program grew to 300 pairs of kids and volunteers from 1975 to 1990, so did my job responsibilities. I had to find a way to enlist volunteers as leaders who would help other volunteers succeed in the program.

I enlisted other volunteers to help me organize and lead the program. This shows the tutoring program committee in 1976-77.  By 1990 it had grown to include 3 or 4 times as many volunteers, coming from companies throughout the Chicago region. 

And, I started building a library, sharing resources I was using to build my own weekly tutoring activities, and what I was learning from other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, with the volunteers enrolled in my own program. I shared this information and pointed to 'recommended reading' via my weekly newsletters and encouraged networking events to help volunteers connect with each other.

I expanded this strategy to reach programs throughout Chicago when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.

The strategy of the Tutor/Mentor Connection aimed to build visibility for all tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, including our own, to help each program attract and keep volunteers and donors.

This strategy was to PUSH resources directly to individual tutor/mentor programs, and to make them available to individual volunteers. They are the smallest unit of community change, via their one-on-one connection to kids.

We organized networking conferences and a public relations campaign to draw programs together and draw attention to the resources in our library. 

I created this graphic a few years ago to visualize what I'm saying. Each volunteer- based tutor/mentor program is a small ecosystem, built around the connection of a single volunteer, or group of volunteers, with a single youth, or group of youths. 

The volunteers who serve on Boards of Directors, and the volunteers who work directly with kids, have a range of talent that can help programs do more to help kids, if that talent is mobilized.

As I shared information via print newsletters in the 1970s and 1980s, then email in the 1990s and websites, blogs and social media since then, I used the weekly tutor/mentor sessions to connect in one-on-one conversations with our volunteers.

We organized after tutoring social activities for volunteers and field trips that connected youth and volunteers with each other, all to help build bonds and relationships and encourage people to dig deeper into information they could use to be a more effective volunteer, or to help the tutor/mentor program grow.

Over the past decade I've expanded the library of articles that show some of the "global" issues that need to be solved, which Dave's article offers pessimism that they "can be solved". 

While these are global issues, they are also issues many of the kids in our tutor/mentor programs are facing.  Educating volunteers and mobilizing their talent can lead to local actions that help kids, and linking programs can lead to a growing army of volunteers working to solve these problems at a larger level.

Thus, everyone who reads Dave Pollard's "How to save the world" article could be using their personal time, talent and treasure to help a single youth, or a group of kids who are part of an organized program. This is "acting locally" and can fill the map with many icons representing constantly improving tutor/mentor programs led by teams of talented, motivated volunteers and staff.

This begins with making sure well-organized tutor/mentor programs are reaching K-12 youth in more places.  I encourage you to visit this section on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. 

It includes PDF essays that share my own experiences and strategies that others can use to start and sustain on-going, constantly improving volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs.

It's just a small part of the resource library that I've been building over the past 30 years.

Thanks for reading.  Please share this article and these resources with your network.

And, connect with me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. Find links on this page. 

Finally, if you're able to make a contribution to support my work, visit this page. 

 

Jon Bon Jovi and Polo Ralph Lauren want to make volunteerism "hip". New Operating System Needed.

From August 3-6 I attended the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service, held in Washington, DC. I attended wearing my hat of Commissioner for the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service. In that role, I focus on building volunteer recruitment and support strategies that help solve problems in all parts of Illinois. However, I draw from my 30 years of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program when I advocate for a new operating system to support volunteer-based charities.

A new operating system focuses on the infrastructure needed for successful charities. It spreads the responsibility for the success of the non profit organization to all people who benefit. In the current structure the burden for keeping a charity afloat is generally limited to the efforts of the charity and its board of directors. While this works for some programs, it is a poor system to assure an even distribution of critically needed services in all places where they are needed.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), I'm trying to create this new operating system, drawing from the help of volunteers of Cabrini Connections, and a network of other program leaders and stakeholders from throughout Chicago and the rest of the world. I'm trying to create a visual blueprint that identifies all of the things a tutor/mentor program needs to be successful. Since our goal is that our teens are starting jobs/careers by age 25, this infrastructure needs to enable us to provide continuous support to some youth for 10-15 years!

Here are some of the key elements that a new operating system would need to address:

a) development of key staff who treat their work as an avocation, not a job, and who have been trained via college or years of experience in the concepts of Total Quality Mentoring. It took me more than 30 years of leading a tutor/mentor program, plus 17 years of being a national advertising manager in a large retail corporation, to learn what I know. When new people join us they need to have learned this via formal training. It takes too long to learn from on-the-job experiences

b) more consistent public awareness (advertising) - When I was an advertising manager at Montgomery Ward (between 1973 and 1990) I was responsible for drafting an annual ad schedule that provided 3 waves of ads going out each week to nearly 20 million people in 40 states where Montgomery Ward had stores. Each ad had the same goal of drawing customers to stores near them.

Wards spent more than $200 million each year on its national advertising during the 1980s. Charities don't have these type of ad dollars and never will. Thus we need strategies in business, churches, colleges and professional groups, and among media and celebrities, that use their resources to build on-going visibility for volunteer-based charities. Jon Bon Jovi was a speaker at last week's conference on volunteerism. Just recently he helped organize the Live8 Concert. We need more people to do what he's doing. Someone needs to be doing a Live8 type event every day! However, we also need to teach leaders and celebrities to put links on their web sites that point potential volunteers and donors to volunteer centers so that they can find the programs that are looking for help.

c) flexible funding - if we cannot find the funds to create decent working conditions and to recruit and retain highly motivate and skilled people, we'll end with high turn over, which works against the first objective of retaining key staff. Instead of every tutor/mentor program in the city constantly searching for funds, we need to develop business type advertising strategies that motivate donors to seek out programs on a more consistent basis. One strategy is to find a way to put tutor/mentor programs in workplace fund raising campaigns. Another is find ways to increase planned giving bequests to tutor/mentor programs, or to organizations like the Chicago Bar Association's Lend A Hand Program, which distributes grants to tutor/mentor programs.

d) talent volunteers - one of the workshops at the National Conference focused on the concept of Talent Volunteers. The presenters showed how most volunteer recruitment advertising focuses on the soft side of volunteerism. This conveys a message that you either become a tutor/mentor or do some other form of hands-on project, or you don't volunteer. While we need dedicated people to volunteer time as tutors/mentors, we also need people to volunteer time as accountants, planners, communicators, tech support, fund raisers, etc. If we can recruit more people to help build the infrastructure of tutor/mentor programs we can expand the support for staff, students and volunteers and come closer to achieving our goals. Imagine the National Mentoring Month campaign being "Who built your web site? instead of "Who mentored you?"

e) elearning/collaboration mentality - there is so little time to network and learn from others, yet is it this process of constantly learning from others that leads to on-going quality improvement. Very few organizations are building this into their strategy. While there were over 2,000 people in Washington last week, most of us only met a few of these people, or attended a few of the workshops being offered. I was in a forum hosted by David Eisner, President of the Corporation for National Service, and Bob Goodwin, President of the Points of Light Foundation. While a few people got to ask questions, most did not. If the discussion had also had an internet component, such as at http://www.techsoup.org or http://www.digitaldivide.net, many of us could have continued to ask questions and network with each other in the weeks and months after the conference. Until we learn to link the Internet with our face-to-face strategies, we will not maximize the potential we have to mobilize the army of volunteers, and donors, who are needed to solve problems and strengthen America.

f) spatial thinking - we need to teach people to use maps to show all of the places in big cities like Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located. Without the map most cities focus on just a few programs, or a few neighborhoods. This means most kids do not have access to services and most programs are constantly struggling to stay in business. We also need charts and blueprints that show all of the different ways volunteers can be involved in a charity, and the continuous support kids need, from many people, to be starting jobs and careers by age 25.

While I share this information with tutor/mentor leaders around the country, I also share it with the volunteers in the tutor/mentor program I lead in Chicago (http://www.cabriniconnections.net). Many of the volunteers we recruited for Cabrini Connections between 1993 and today have offered time and talent and treasure to help us build the services we offer through the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If volunteers from one small program can have this much of an impact, my belief is that hundreds of volunteers from dozens of connected programs can have an even greater impact. My goal is that other volunteer-based organizations adopt this "we" instead of me strategy. It's the only way we will ever get enough people together to build the better operating system that I dream of.

While one of the featured speakers at the National Conference was Jon Bon Jovi, another was David Lauren of http://www.polojeans.com. Both men talked about making volunteerism "hip". Bon Jovi said it was his goal to make volunteerism "the new Black". Polo Jeans has launched a product and ad campaign that converts this vision to action. I went back to Chicago and told my daughter that she could buy her Back to School Jeans at Polo, even though they might cost more, because I want to support this campaign. That's the only way we can motivate hundreds of other companies to duplicate the thinking behind this campaign.

These are all just my opinions. We're trying to make this vision a reality through the work we do in the Tutor/Mentor Connection and at Cabrini Connections. If you agree with these opinions, join us. If you disagree, post your ideas on a web site and let us take a look at your strategy. We can improve what we do if we can learn from you. You can improve what you do if you can learn from us and from other organizations that operate the same way. If you know of other companies who are even more effective than Polo Jeans in making volunteerism "hip" and in drawing attention to volunteer-based organizations, please add the web site link to the new Tutor/Mentor Connection portal.

Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection

Want to Change World? Who's Helping?

I'm taking part in an interesting conversation in one of my Facebook groups which is focusing on network theory and how members of a large Facebook community can support each other in achieving common goals. I've offered some ideas from my own work, which you can see if you browse the conversation thread.

I used this graphic in this article, to illustrate my own efforts to support what others do to help high quality tutor/mentor programs reach youth in all high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities. If you look at the graphics on the Facebook page, they are similar in showing process, however, few focus their process on solving specific problems, like filling a city with great programs which help kids through school and into adult roles...over a period of many years of consistent effort.

Mapping of networks, and the work of leading thinkers like Valdis Krebs, has been introduced into the Facebook discussion thread (Really, you need to take a look). Krebs spoke at a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in 2009 and donated his software for my use. In this page I point to articles by Krebs and others about the value of social network analysis. In this page you can see efforts I've been making to map participation in past Tutor/Mentor Conferences.

What I've seen so far from network analysis, is the ability to map what's happened in the past. What I'm trying to do is create a mapping tool that would help groups change what happens in the future.

In groups on Facebook, Linked in and in face-to-face events hosted by leaders in Chicago, many people are gathering. However, I've not yet seen an effort to map "who is in the room" or "who is helping". Below is a "talent map" that I created several years ago to show the range of talents needed to help the Tutor/Mentor Connection succeed in helping tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago. This map is also the talent needed to help me lead the volunteer based tutor/mentor programs that I started leading in the 1970s.

In a small organization, or a start up, the leader or founder often needs to have many of these skills, or has the ability to attract volunteers and partners who add their strengths in areas where the founder/leader has weaknesses. Over time, if all of these talents are not consistently available, it's not likely an organization will be successful. My own growth over the past 25 years has been limited because I've been missing some of these talents, or they have not been consistently available.

A similar network map, shows that organizational talent needs to represent different networks, or constituencies. If I have a writer from a PR or Advertising company, I'm more likely to gain business support from that sector, than if I have a writer from the local college. Having a highly-motivated volunteer who is an accountant at a small company serve on your board can be valuable. But if you have an accountant from a major accounting firm, who is part of one of the wealthy families in Chicago, you probably have a greater access to the consistent funding you need to hire talent as your organization grows.

Talent matters. So does network.

I talk about talent needed and building a team in this Steps to Start a Program PDF, which you can purchase for a small fee.

I've suggested to others that these concept maps could serve as team building worksheets by any organization, or community network. If someone with a design/technology background could turn this into a form, that people can use to enter data and see a growing network of talent, it would be an even more useful tool. I'm looking for developers who are interested in working on this, perhaps as open source.

I've been part of some Facebook networks since 2011, with participants from all over the world. I've suggested over and over that efforts need to be made to bring donors and investors and other needed talent into the conversation. Mapping who is participating would be a start. Using a worksheet like above, would help focus on future recruitment efforts.

On a side note, I've been disappointed that so few people from the Chicago area are participating in these same groups. These are full of ideas that can fuel the efforts of local activists. I'm not seeing this participation, at least not in the groups I'm part of.

Talent Volunteers Make a Difference in Non Profits

Last week we added a new video to YouTube, which does a great job of showing the benefit of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. You can view the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vv_khWZSf4

In April the nation will be celebrating National Volunteer Week in a variety of publicity efforts. I'd like to encourage people to give recognition to those who volunteer their talent to help a non-profit organization expand its capacity.

So many of the images of volunteerism are direct service, such as mentoring a kid, building a house, cleaning up trash, or feeding the hungry. Millions of people are needed in these roles, but many others may be left out of volunteerism because these roles don't appeal to them, or they can't work them into their schedule.

Yet, these people have a huge reserve of TALENT that could be helping create videos for non profits, or doing fund raising, or building web sites or maintaining web server networks, or doing accounting.

Most non profits are constantly challenged to find the money needed to pay for these talent roles, and many donors only want to fund direct service. Thus, if our volunteer recognition can begin to also recognize the talent volunteers offer, we can open up a new channel of service opportunities.

Do any of you know of public service campaigns that seek to recruit talent volunteers? If so, please share that information.

If these ideas appeal to you, why not try to attend the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 17 and 18 in Chicago.

What is Your Network Doing to Help?

Almost all of the articles I've written have been intended to expand the number of people in business, religion, politics, etc. who are becoming strategically involved, meaning on a daily and weekly basis, in helping volunteer-based, non-school, tutoring, mentoring and learning programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other urban areas.

In many articles I point to newspaper stories or new research which shows where and why these programs are needed. In other articles I point to maps and an Interactive Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that anyone can use to connect with over 170 existing organizations offering various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring in the Chicago region. The same maps can also be used to understand what neighborhoods are under served. They can also be used to identify businesses, hospitals, colleges and faith groups who share the same geography and could be working collectively to support the growth and constant improvement of programs.

In the past couple of years I've been focusing on Social Network Analysis concepts. How do we know who is in our network? How do we assure that we're reaching people who have time, talent and resources needed to assure success?  Last spring one of my interns created a map showing the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection network. This graphic is from this report which shows how the forum has grown from 3 people in 2007 to over 400 in 2012.

Recently I was able to use the same Gephi.com software used in this analysis to look at my network on Facebook.  This image is from that analysis.

Using the Gephi.com software I was able to zoom into each of the major groupings on this map to take a closer look at who was part of each cluster and how they are connected to each other.  One thing I was looking for was evidence that people in my college, family or tutor/mentor program networks were connecting with people in my other networks who share ideas on social innovation and problem solving through regular on-line interaction.  I created a PDF with some of the maps from this analysis. You can see it here. 

Over the past weekend I was introduced to another SNA tool that enabled me to map my Facebook network.  This graphic shows the major groupings of my friends. It's similar to what my Gephi.com analysis shows.  As with Gephi.com this Network Graph allows me to zoom into each cluster and learn more about who is connecting to others and who is connecting from one major grouping to another.   What's exciting is that anyone using Facebook can create their own map just by going to https://apps.facebook.com/challenger_meurs.

In both sets of maps one feature I've been looking for is evidence that youth, volunteers and staff who were connected to each other in past years because of the efforts of an organized tutor/mentor program are still connected to each other.  By clicking on a node in the network I can highlight an individual and see their connections.  This shows a student who was part of Cabrini Connections from 2001-2007 and has now graduated from college is connected to former volunteers and staff.

If tutor/mentor programs were doing network mapping like this and can demonstrate that many youth and volunteers are still connected, long after the donor money was spent to build the initial connection, can we demonstrate a longer-term impact of that donation, and can we provide different ways for donors to value the impact of long-term tutor/mentor programs?

All of these maps and the articles I write have little value if too few people are looking at them.  I've created other maps showing the talent needed in my own efforts, as well as in the operations of most volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  See this graphic at http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Talent-needed

This shows that many talents are needed.  My Facebook network has more than 860 friends. My Linked in network has over 1000 friends. This network includes people with all of these skills.  Furthermore, the people who my friends are connected to may be people who have influence, power, wealth and additional talents that can influence the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

This graphic illustrates how I'm constantly communicating ideas and information to people I know, with the goal that they are passing the information on to people they know.  If this happens continually we eventually reach people who have the talent, wealth, civic reach and commitment needed to build and sustain a long-term system of extra supports for kids living in high poverty areas.

How do we know if this is happening? How do we know what members of our networks are doing to help?

In 2000 Steve Roussos, a volunteer and friend of the Tutor/Mentor Connection,  created an on-line documentation system that would enable people to document actions they took to support the mission and strategy I've outlined in these blog articles and in this 4-part strategy pdf.

In 2007 this was rebuilt in its current format by a volunteer from Baltimore working with a team in India.  Over 1600 actions have been documented, mostly by myself.

Imagine how much more could be accomplished if just 10% of the people I connect with in social media, or through the Tutor/Mentor Conferences I hold in Chicago every six months,  were documenting what they were doing each week to support the growth and quality of non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

We represent an army of untapped potential. 

I've created a page on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site which points to research and other information about Social Network Analysis. I hope some of you will help recruit talent and dollars to help us expand on this work.