Memorial Day: Just Don't Forget

They had the courage to
fight and die for their country.

This is Memorial Day 2020. In the paragraphs below I'm reposting an article I wrote in May 2005, the year I started this blog. I've used italics to annotate this with updated comments.

----begin 2005 article ----

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are.

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like (These were stories from 2005 and earlier. Don't they sound like stories from 2020?):

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids. Here are the titles of just a few recent publications that I have links to on T/MC web sites:

Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Work. by Lauren J. Kotloff

One Child Many Needs
A growing number of people understand that, if we want to improve children's education, we must reform the inadequacy and unfairness of our state's school-funding system. But that's only half the work necessary to do the job right, according to a new report by Voices for Illinois Children.

A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, on the Pathways to College Network web site.

These are just a few articles and research reports that can be found in the LINKS and Resources sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.
(I've added many more in the 15 years since 2005)

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?. Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers. You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

Raising kids is like building
a tall building. 

The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time. In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child.

Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years. For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project. Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades (sadly,  no parades during 2020 Covid19 pandemic), or to the media covering them? It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement.

October 15, 1992

In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections (which I led until 2011) and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which I still lead via Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC) a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green.

This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers. On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action"

In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities are not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world.

Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

What do you think?

----- end 2005 article -----

Planning needed to win war on poverty. 

In the 15 years, and 15 Memorial Days, since I wrote this article I've posted more than 1000 additional articles with similar goals.  In 2005 I was not yet embedding graphics into my articles. I had not yet started using concept maps.

We had not yet built the interactive, map-base Chicago tutor/mentor programs locator.

Interns had not yet begun to study the ideas I was sharing and then create their own interpretations, using flash animation, blogs, videos and Prezi to communicate their ideas.

We've had three Presidential elections since then and have had three Mayors in Chicago. Yet, inequality and poverty are as entrenched in America as they ever were in the past.

One of the challenges that prevents more people from embracing these ideas is that there's too much information.  1000 blog articles over 15 years is too much to digest. 2000 links in a web library is too much. I wrote this "information overload" article in 2012 and updated it in 2019. 

And I wrote this "Engaging youth in time of Covid19" article just a few weeks ago.  The solution to information overload is life-long learning, starting when adults are kids entering first grade.

How do we reach more places?

I included the graphic at the right in an article I titled "Tipping Point - Growing and Supporting Future Leaders"   It uses a map to visualize the need to embed the learning strategies I'm describing in thousands of locations, with many groups thinking about these ideas and writing articles like mine.

The best way to honor the memory of the lives sacrificed in past wars is to do the work that ends poverty and prevents future wars.

I'm on social media at these sites. I look forward to connecting with you and your networks.

If you want to contribute to help me pay the bills, visit this page.

Memorial Day: Just Don't Forget

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are.

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like:

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids. Here are the titles of just a few recent publications that I have links to on T/MC web sites:

Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Workby Lauren J. Kotloff

One Child Many Needs
A growing number of people understand that, if we want to improve children's education, we must reform the inadequacy and unfairness of our state's school-funding system. But that's only half the work necessary to do the job right, according to a new report by Voices for Illinois Children.


A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, on the Pathways to College Network web site.

These are just a few articles and research reports that can be found in the LINKS and Resources sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?. Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers. You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time. In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child.

Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years. For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project. Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades, or to the media covering them? It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement.

In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green.

This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers. On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action" In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world.

Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

What do you think?

Just Don't Forget

Almost every day I'm on social media or working on a letter to supporters and include the message "Read my blog!".  I say "Visit http://tutormentor.blogspot.com and dig through the archives to see what I've been writing for the past 18 years (since I started the blog in 2005)".

Today I took my own advice. I looked at a couple of articles I wrote in 2005 and saw messages that I wish leaders had been seeing and responding to in the years since then.

In October 2005 I wrote an article with this headline: "As charities vie for donations, how can we help donors navigate the choices?" 

---- text from Oct 2005 article ---- Last Wednesday the Chicago Tribune had a front page/back page story devoted to Breast Cancer Month. The goal of the article was to help donors choose which charity to support. It was a great article, and great exposure for Breast Cancer charities.

Among the suggestions to donors was one that said this: Pick a goal. It might be research toward a cure, or advocacy, or patient support services. Then pick a charity that serves that goal and stick with it.

The article quoted Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator who said "We tell donors, if they want to change something in the world, they need to develop a relationship with the charity. Continue to support them over time, so they can keep their costs down and track whether they do what they claim to be doing."

That applies to funding youth tutor/mentor programs, too.

In May, I posted an article showing how difficult it is for non profits to sustain their work because of the inconsistent flow of dollars caused by a system that does not support flexible, long-term problem solving very well.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection focuses on connecting workplace volunteers with inner city kids in long term programs that result in the kids starting jobs/careers by age 25, with the volunteers still connected and helping to set up job interviews.

If a youth joins a program at age 10 it takes 15 years to achieve this goal. Unless donors chose charities that offer this service and stick with them for most of these 15 years, it's not likely that the program will survive long enough to still be a meeting place for a youth and adult at a time when the youth might be looking for help finding a job.

---- end October 2005 article ----

Then I looked at this article posted just before Memorial Day, May 2005. It's very relevant, as the nation is ramping up for the 2024 general election.  

--- text from May 2005 article---

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are. 

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like:

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids.

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?.

Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers.

You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago. The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time.

In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child. Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years.

For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project.

Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades, or to the media covering them? (or those campaigning for 2024 elections?)

It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement. 

 In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green. This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers.

On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action" In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities are not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world. Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

--- end May 2005 article ---

This is a timeless message. I've embedded that SunTimes image in many article on this blog.  Yet, too few are listening.

That's why I've posted this article today.  I started out saying "read my blog" and I'm finishing by saying "read my blog". 

Then, share it with others using the many communications tools that are available to you.  Do this at least once a month. More often, if you can.

Thanks for reading.

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky and many other places. Please connect. Share these ideas. Carry them forward for the next 20 years.

War on Poverty Enters New Stage - War on Freedom

A few years ago I wrote an article titled "War on Poverty" and created the graphic shown below to show the steps needed to fight this battle. I  put it in a PDF posted on Scribd.com  An intern from IIT and South Korea, later created this video, showing these steps.

I used the graphic in this in a "Veteran's Day" article last November, calling on veterans to help me develop this strategy and to lead it in Chicago and other cities.

Now that the shock of the Trump election victory is beginning to receed, the need to strategically mobilize to protect American freedoms and identify and address the needs of people who are suffering in zip codes throughout the United States, and the world, is more acute than ever.

I attended an Afterschool Conference a couple of weeks ago, and met a few people and exchanged business cards, as I do almost every week. This morning I sent this follow up email.

We met at lunch during the Afterschool Conference. While I hope you've found time to browse my web sites, I'm writing to follow up.

I have been building an on-line library of information since 1998, which I started collecting in the 1970s and 80s while leading a non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from the Montgomery Ward corporate headquarters in Chicago.

The goal is to gather people from all parts of the Chicago region in on-going learning that results in more consistent efforts to help mentor-rich, total quality, non-school learning programs be available to k-12 youth in every poverty zip code of the Chicago region, so those programs have the talent, volunteers, ideas and dollars needed to build and sustain long-term connections that help kids through school and into adult lives.

Many focus on the same goals, but most do so with too few resources, and in limited networks and silos. Thus, as I build and share my library, I'm also pointing to strategies used in some places to connect groups of people with each other in on-line learning, which can be duplicated in Chicago.

I use concept maps to show my library. I hope you'll take some time to view this map, and each of the four sections. http://tinyurl.com/TMI-library

I use a monthly newsletter to draw attention to this information and to draw volunteers and donors directly to tutor/mentor programs in my database. Here's the latest. http://tutormentorconference.org/newsletters/TMI_Oct-Nov2016.htm

I'd be happy to meet with any of you, or any others, to provide a tour of the resources that are freely available to you. Just email to suggest a time and place. I also encourage you to sign up for the newsletter.

As of Tuesday we enter a very dark journey in our city and country's history. We need to find ideas and supporters who will help us, and the kids we work with, through this journey.

I look forward to connecting with you and your networks.

I share this introduction and invitation with anyone who is concerned with the direction this country is headed, and who already has been working to correct some of the inequalities and injustices that were poorly addressed in this campaign season....by both parties.

Below is one of many presentations that I've created to introduce the work I've been doing, with scarce and limited resources, for the past 20 years.

Intro to Tutor/Mentor Institute - Version 1 by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

I look forward to connecting with you in a one-on-one, or on-line group or future conference.

Daniel F. Bassill, D.H.L.
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com
https://tutormentorexchange.wordpress.com/
Connect with me in any of these social media spaces. click here.

Need More Leaders Using Maps

Last week I watched seven hours of panel discussions, where experts talked about the Future of Chicago. It was an event hosted by Crain's Chicago Business. I wrote this follow up article on the Tutor/Mentor blog right after the event. Then I wrote this article on LinkedIn the next day.

I was an active Tweeter during the #futurechicago event, sharing posts like this:

Let me know if anyone uses a #map at #futurechicago event. See mine at https://t.co/32OgUaNULa & https://t.co/BA3aEUgLgB

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 15, 2016

My goal was to motivate more people to use maps in their planning, and marketing, so more neighborhoods would have the resources needed to overcome challenges of poverty.

I'm a subscriber to Crain's Chicago Business, but don't get my printed copy until a week after the circulation date, since it goes to my PO Box.  I picked up my June 13 issue yesterday and on page two, (see below) saw this article written by Greg Hinz.

The article focuses on education as a leading indicator of how well people are doing and includes maps showing changes in medium home value, college degrees, and medium household income.  I encourage you to visit the link and look at the full article. The maps are animated, showing changes over 34 years.  

The analysis is professionally written and hopefully motivates readers to dig deeper into strategies that I and others have posted which drive solutions to areas with high poverty so that the maps in 10 or 20 years show a different trend.

Unfortunately, I did not see any use of maps by any of the panel discussion experts during the #futurechicago event.  To me that's a missed opportunity. 

I was one of 10 people to represent Chicago at the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, held in Philadelphia. The Tutor/Mentor Connection was one of 50 organizations from around the country invited to have a "teaching example" display at the Summit.

The lead organizer for the event, and the founding leader of America's Promise, created to follow up on the goals set at the event, was General Colin Powel, who gained fame in the First Gulf War, for his nightly briefings on TV, where he used maps to show  enemy placement and allied troop movements.

In the nearly 20 years since then, I've not seen any consistent example of General Powell or any other leader using maps to mobilize troops and supplies to fight the war on poverty in every neighborhood where poverty is deeply entrenched in America.

In the year following the 1997 Summit I created this presentation, showing actions leaders might take to reach America's most at-risk youth....those living in areas of isolated, concentrated, poverty.

Master plan for saving Chicago youth - 1997 version from Daniel Bassill

This was created before I started using the Internet, or had a web site (I made some edits when I updated and published this last year). The ideas and strategies still apply...in Chicago, or in any other major city in the US.  Many can  now take on leadership roles, or support roles to implement this strategy. More writers like Greg Hinz can include maps in their stories and more media outlines, like Crain's Chicago Business, can feature such stories on a regular basis.

I've been posting map stories on this blog, and in the Mappingforjustice blog for nearly a decade.  I created this "No General Goes to War Without a Map" pdf in the early 2000s.

Someone would need to be "actively not looking" to not have found one of my articles over the past 10 years.  Yet I don't see many using maps to show where help is needed. More importantly, I don't see them using maps to mobilize resources, or build a supply chain, of talent, ideas, technology, etc. that is needed to support solutions in EVERY poverty neighborhood.

More to the point, I've had very few contact me asking for lessons I've learned, challenges I've faced, or opportunities I see. And, due to the financial meltdowns of the early 2000s and late 2000s, have had terrible luck in finding and keeping volunteers and donors involved to support my own efforts. 

Maybe the next time the Mayor speaks at an event focused on the future of Chicago, he will use his time on stage to start out with a map saying "this is my city". Perhaps he'll quote Greg Hinz and say "It is a divided city." Then, perhaps, he'll go on to show how his leadership will provide ideas that people can use to support the growth of needed programs, services and opportunities in all of the high poverty neighborhoods.

It's only by our example that we can expect these ideas to be adopted.

Battle Plan for War on Poverty

I attended a STEM Education Summit in the Chicago area on Friday, hosted at Oak Park/River Forest High School. While the speakers at this Summit were not talking about the high school drop out crisis, which I've written about in past articles, they were talking about a workforce crisis that will result from baby-boomers retiring and not enough young people preparing to go into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) related careers.

Over the past 18 years I've created a variety of graphics to illustrate this problem. The one below shows that the "pipeline to careers" is not working well enough to reach kids at an early age and provide a wide range of mentoring and learning supports that would result in a larger number finishing high school and post high school education and entering careers in STEM or any other avocation they choose.



In the conferences I go to and web sites I browse I don't see many who are using maps and charts and thinking about this problem the way generals and CEOs think about the distribution channels and logistics needed to win military wars, or business wars.

A few years ago I created a graphic that illustrates the planning that would need to take place to enable more and better mentor-rich programs to be in neighborhoods where kids don't have an effective entry point into the "pipeline to careers" nor to that have enough effective supports along the way. As a result, we're losing kids to street violence, bad health, poor nutrition, and lack of preparation for adult jobs and responsibilities.

I've been trying to think of a way to communicate this idea in an article that I could post on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site or in the collection I've been building on Scribd.com.

If you look at this chart you'll see how I compare the planning process needed to support military forces in many places to that needed to make tutor/mentor programs available in many places. While many might want to create "pilots" or "demonstration projects" we can't really afford not to have some sort of learning support reaching K-12 kids in all of the high poverty areas of Chicago with intense forms of learning support and mentoring, while also providing needed supports to kids in all other neighborhoods who may need more inspiration and support to succeed in school and/or choose STEM careers.

Maps can help us focus our attention on specific parts of a problem. Out of all the people talking about education reform, perhaps some can focus just on high poverty neighborhoods, while others can focus on non-poverty areas. If we can segment our focus then we're talking about the same problems and able to converge on better solutions than if we have a mixed bag of discussion where the words are the same but the meanings are different, depending on what the economic and community support is for the kids you're talking about.

So, if we have a team focused on helping kids born in poverty be starting STEM careers in 20-25 years, the first step is to be building a library of information and ideas that the group can use to innovate new solutions that might generate more consistent support, and a better distribution of resources in more places.

To reach youth at every age level in more places with age-appropriate mentoring and learning a huge range of programs will be needed, meaning the planners need to be thinking of ways to recruit, train and equip thousands of program organizers, leaders, tutors, mentors, coaches, etc.

Imagine the logistics needed to put military forces all over the world and keep them supplied with food, weapons, ammunition, medicine, etc. The army of teachers, tutors, mentors and leaders needed to reach kids in every poverty neighborhood of the Chicago region requires the same type of on-going support.

The War in Iraq lasted over 8 years. World War II lasted 4 years. WalMart has been growing for more than 40 years! Imagine the thinking that is being done some place in the headquarters of the military and at companies like Wal Mart that enables them to constantly recruit and train new talent to take the place of those who retire, resign or are lost in combat. We need this same type of thinking preparing young people for STEM careers, and for careers leading programs that prepare young people for these careers!

We've spent billions of dollars fighting wars. Big business spends billions of dollars on their human resource development so they have well-trained people in the jobs that need to be filled in order for the companies to be successful. We need people who are innovating ways to generate revenue to support this massive infrastructure of youth development, mentoring and tutoring programs in just the same way.

It all comes down to how well you can build and sustain public attention, interest and support for the war effort. Companies spend millions of dollars on advertising and public relations to maintain support for their business strategies and to attract customers to their products and services. While there are events like National Mentoring Month, National Volunteer Week, Make A Difference Day, Black History Month, etc. where is the coordination and planning needed to turn these into an orchestra of events needed to build long-term public support for this battle plan to end poverty by help more kids through school and into 21st century jobs and careers?

I have been trying to map these ideas using the types of graphics I've used in this article, and using on-line platforms like this Debategraph tool.

I'm not sure how clearly I've communicated this idea. I invite others to do their own version of this story. However, while I may not be communicating as clearly as I'd like, I've spent more years thinking about this from a systems perspective than many others in this country. I've written more than 1000 articles on this blog alone, and created numerous illustrated essays posted on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site and in many other places.

If you're trying to develop a strategy to mentor kids to jobs and careers, I'd like to encourage you to read some of the articles I've written. I also encourage you to hire me to help you understand these ideas. I can come to you and talk about any of the articles on this blog, or that I've posted in the Tutor/Mentor Institute library or the Scribd.com library.

If you've been fortunate to amass great wealth and you want to leave a legacy, why not put your name on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC or bring the Institute to alma mater where it can be integrated into the work a university does to prepare young people for adult roles.

If you'd like to connect, just post a comment or meet me on Twitter or Facebook.

Remembering the sacrifices of June 6, 1944 - D-Day

As America and friends around the world celebrate D-Day, the landing of Allied Armies on the beaches of Normandy, on June 6, 1944, I've been looking back at articles I wrote in past years to recognize this event.

In 2009 I posted an article with a link to the Serve.gov web site which announced President Obama's "United We Serve" campaign, intended to mobilize citizens to get involved in community problem solving. The site still promotes volunteerism, but that campaign is no longer on the site.

The introduction said, "people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools."

 "President Obama was asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth. This initiative aims to both expand the impact of existing organizations by engaging new volunteers in their work and encourage volunteers to develop their own "do-it-yourself" projects."

 

I found this photo showing troops that were landing on the Normandy Beach during D-Day. Think about what this photo illustrates, and compare that to the current mobilization of volunteers to do service. 

 These troops had been training for months. This invasion was planned for years. The landing craft were being built years be for the invasion because it was anticipated that they would be needed. The solders were well armed, well fed, and led by well trained leaders. 

That costs money. Lots of money. 

There are lots of ways volunteers can do service. Some projects, like cleaning up a park, or building a house, might take a day, or several weeks. However, these are short term. 

Other projects, like tutoring/mentoring require more consistent, long-term involvement, if the benefit is that the youth being tutored/mentored has overcome his own learning difficulties, and the negative influences of his family or community which might be modeling examples and behaviors that don't lead to high school graduation, college or productive jobs and careers. 

In both cases, volunteers time is well spent when there are leaders who have the experience to organize their efforts, and support their involvement. Sending volunteers into organizations which don't have this leadership is like sending troops onto a beach without rifles or bullets. 

I was a member of the Chicago delegation to the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, which pledged support for the 15 million kids in America who were being left behind because they lived in high poverty. Lots of great rhetoric and patriotic speeches were given by General Powell, President Clinton and others that shows the vision behind the Summit. 

The problem was, not one was thinking of the infrastructure needed across America, and in the neighborhoods where these 15 millions kids were living, which would support this flood of new volunteers, and keep them engaged for the many years it takes to help a first grader living in a high poverty neighborhood become a 12th grader graduating from high school and headed for college or a job. 

I remember sitting in a meeting following the Summit, with a business leader sitting next to me. When I asked about the money needed to support added volunteers, I was told "we're focusing on volunteers, not philanthropy." 

You cannot have good volunteerism without good philanthropy! 

And in today's economy, when many of the small non profits who are working with inner city kids are struggling to find operating dollars to keep existing staff employed, how can you expect them to ramp up programs to support more volunteers in significant efforts that can lead to a victory over poverty? (That was my question in 2009, amidst the financial crisis. The same concern is in 2021, amidst the Covid19 crisis.)

I've focused on the planning process since starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993. And, I've created numerous visuals to focus on the steps needed to fill all high poverty areas with a wide range of needed, long-term solutions. That process always includes one focused on building and sustaining public will.  That was required to win World War 2, and it has been needed (but missing) in the War on Poverty since the 1960s.  

I pointed to this planning process in this 2014 D-Day article.  View the concept map below at this link.

No elected, or business or philanthropic leader that I'm aware of has used visual essays like these, and maps, to mobilize the army of talent needed to do all the work that's needed.  Thus, we still have embedded poverty in Chicago and other cities, and in many rural areas. 

In this Tweet I point to a map showing massacres of Black Americans extending back to the 1860s.

I've not found a link with any of these maps, however the Zinn Education Project has a library articles about massacres in U.S. History. https://t.co/1NyuHJyrJJ

Sites like this make the information available. Now we need to motivate learners to visit, read, reflect & respond. https://t.co/OCT2NiHhab

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 3, 2021

The killing of George Floyd and following attention to racial justice and systemic efforts to keep Black and Brown Americans as second class citizens, invites new investigation into this history.  I have been building a section of links to articles about Black History and Racial Justice in my web library and this concept map points to several sub sections.

Good planning requires in-depth reading.  Without a broader understanding of history, we don't fully understand why we've failed for so many years to win the War on Poverty. 

States and local governments can pass laws that prevent teaching this history in schools. But as long as the Internet remains available they cannot prevent people from finding and learning from this information. 

I call again for the current President to use his bully pulpit to call on faith leaders, business leaders, civic and social groups, to reach out to volunteer based organizations like those I show on this list of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor and/or mentor programs,  with flexible operating dollars that they need to pay the rent, insurance and staff expenses. 

There's still time to point to web libraries and forums where people can gather and learn.  

 Remember:  "people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools."

We can make sure that when these volunteers hit the beach they succeed, and they stay involved until we win this war.

Calling all Veterans. Be part of War on Poverty

I spent three years in the Army in the late 1960s, serving in Military Intelligence. I'd studied history in college prior to joining the Army, so I understood the role of collecting best available information for leaders to use in making decisions. Over the past 40 years I've amassed a large web library, that anyone can use to build and sustain volunteer-based programs reaching k-12 youth living in high-poverty areas of big cities.

It's Veteran's Day, so I'm calling on Veterans and active duty service men and women to use the skills they have learned to support an "intelligence-based" effort that fills high poverty areas with needed programs, and helps each program get the on-going flow of resources each needs to constantly improve their ability to help youth overcome the challenges of poverty as they move through school and into adult lives.

This map visualizes this process. You can find an explanation of the graphic here, and here.

On the right hand side of this graphic I emphasize the use of maps. Unless leaders use maps to show all of the places within an urban area where poverty is concentrated, and where other indicators show a need for extra support, it's likely that strategies will only reach a few places, not every place where help is needed.

Step 7, on the far left, is equally important. Unless we focus on ways to build and sustain public support for this strategy, the flow of resources to all of the programs that need to be involved will be too small and or discontinued too soon. I wrote an article about building public will recently. I hope you'll look at it.

Steps 2 through 6 are on-going, but they involved building a deeper understanding of the complex challenges of reaching youth in all parts of a geographic region with a wide range of supports that help them move through school and into adult lives. This deeper learning extends far beyond understanding how to be a tutor or mentor, or how to organize and lead a youth serving organization.

I encourage you to look at this graphic which shows that affluent people face many of the same challenges as people living in high poverty.

In this book titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis", Robert Putnam, see my article, shows that kids living in affluent communities have many more resources available to help them and their families overcome their challenges. Youth living in high poverty communities not only have extra challenges, but have far fewer resources to help them and their families overcome those challenges.

When I describe a Total Quality Mentoring program, I'm thinking of programs where some volunteers take on many roles beyond acting as a tutor or mentor. This PDF focuses on the extra roles volunteers might take to help youth and families overcome more of the challenges shown on the graphic above. There is no limit to what things a team of planners might look at.

TQM programs are learning organizations where youth, volunteers, staff and leaders are constantly reading research and looking at work being done in other programs, with a goal of constantly innovating ways to help youth stay in school and move toward jobs, which means they also are looking for ways to engage a wider range of volunteers who can model different types of careers, and who can open doors to part time jobs, internships, vocational training and college as youth grow up. A TQM program offers a network of support, via the Internet, that can last a lifetime. A TQM program also shares its own ideas, strategies and challenges on its own web site so others can learn from them while they are learning from others.

I don't know how many programs in Chicago, or around the country, actually fit this TQM Program description, and have never had the manpower to do the on-going searching to find out which programs already operating in Chicago have the vision and strategy that heads them in this direction. It's the type of program I led between 1993 and 2011.

Understanding where services are needed, and what types of services need to be available within a geographic area is one challenge that planners and "intelligence gatherers" need to focus on. However, another challenge is to understand the infrastructure that is needed to support effective on-going learning and mentoring within every organized tutor/mentor program. Understanding the different functional roles that need to be filled enables intermediaries, donors and third party supporters help provide this talent, and keep it in place for many years.

Since this is Veteran's Day I want to end with a though that addresses the talent and manpower needs within the youth serving world. I encourage you to view this presentation and think of how veterans could fill many slots, in many different tutor/mentor programs, and how other veterans working in various industries and professions could support them on an on-going basis.

Citywide Youth Supports Infrastructure - a Jobs Creation Strategy? by Daniel F. Bassill

As planners look for ideas the articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 and the ideas I share in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site and library offer an extensive source for deeper learning and inspiration. Building a network of mentor-rich, Total Quality, youth serving organizations that reach youth in all poverty areas of big urban areas like the Chicago region, offers job and career opportunities for thousands of veterans, while also providing a support system that helps more youth move from poverty neighborhoods into a wide range of jobs and careers, including careers in the military.

As you celebrate Veteran's Day I hope you'll spend time looking at this and other ideas for ways veterans can continue to serve and make a difference in the world.

A New Chicago Plan - Some Suggestions

In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, readers and organizations were invited to finish the work that civic architect Daniel Burnham started over 100 years ago — "to address the imperiled livability, uneven prosperity and desperate public finances that have driven residents to leave by the hundreds of thousands." Read the article and offer your ideas.

As this 1995 article demonstrates, I've been offering my ideas for close to 20 years. In the graphics below I'll highlight a few key points.

Raising kids is like building a building. You start at the beginning, birth or conception, whichever you prefer, and work toward adulthood, and self reliance. A team of people is involved in any building project, and blueprints define work that needs to be done at each stage of the project, along with who needs to be involved.

This takes 20 to 30 years of consistent support. Building and sustaining support from millions of Chicago area residents, now and in future years, is the primary challenge that must be overcome.

The graphic below is one I've been working on for nearly 20 years. It shows a range of supports that youth need from the time they are born to when they enter jobs and careers. To me, volunteer tutors/mentors in organized non-school tutor/mentor programs are "extra adults" helping youth and families get needed resources. They are needed in areas of high poverty where families and communities struggle to make such resources available.

If you click on this link you can view the graphic. You can also click on a few of the nodes, which take you to a web library where I've aggregated links specific to that topic.

Building a solution to the problems facing Chicago, and other cities, should be considered a form of "open source" development. A web portal that enables anyone to post an idea and link it visually to a map, or a blueprint, is something I've been looking for help with for many years.

This image is a map of Chicago. The "oil well" intends to illustrate that the "birth to work" support system needs to be available in different parts of every community area of Chicago. Since poverty is now growing the suburbs, and what happens in the city affects the suburbs, this new vision for Chicago really needs to be a vision for the Chicago region.

While I've been sharing these ideas for nearly 20 years, most of the leaders in Chicago have been busy ignoring them and doing their own "problem solving". In addition to the Tribune's call for ideas, the Donors Forum has launched a platform for "Building a Better Illinois" and the Mayor's office is supporting a Thrive Chicago initiative, which does not yet have a web site.

There are dozens of different organizations focused on helping youth overcome poverty and succeed in school. Thus, one of the first challenges is connecting the different networks with each other and integrating the ideas into one collective vision, with a set of blueprints that anyone can use to support their own actions, in one or more neighborhoods of the region. This concept map points to many networks focusing on youth that I'm aware of. I'm sure there are more.

Anyone who has put an addition on their house, or built a towering skyscraper knows that you need financing so that everyone gets paid to do the work they are supposed to do. Anyone involved in non-profit work knows that finding financing to do all of the work you need to be doing is almost impossible. I was at a Philanthropy Club meeting last week where a Compass Point report titled "Underdeveloped: Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fund Raising" was discussed. I've created an entire section of articles that focus on challenges facing the non profit sector, and have recently pointed to solutions offered by creative thinkers like Dan Pallotta.

Thus, not only do we need to create a blueprint capturing the ideas of many different organizations already involved in efforts to improve the well-being of the Chicago region, we need to innovate new ways of funding this work over a period of many decades, while the city and state faces all sorts of financial challenges.

I created this slideshare essay to illustrate some of the work that needs to be done.

Networking for purpose - Bringing People Together to Help Inner City Youth from Daniel Bassill

Here are a few additional essays on Scrib.come that I would recommend

* 4-part strategy on Scribd - http://tinyurl.com/TMI-4-part-strategy

* Planning Cycle - War on Poverty - http://www.scribd.com/doc/93233051/Planning-Cycle-War-on-Poverty

* Collaboration goals - http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Collaboration-Scribd-com

* Year Round strategy - http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Year-round

The success of the new Chicago Plan, or any other, will depend on how many leaders in business, philanthropy, religion, politics, etc. adopt the commitment shown in this strategy map and this Role of Leaders essay.

When the Mayor asks "Where on your web site do you show your commitment to this strategy? before providing a contract or favor, or when the media begin to build web lists pointing to web sites of leaders who include a version of this strategy map on their web sites, we'll begin to have the motivation and accountability needed to not only build a strategy, but to build and distribute the resources to make it work.

I've hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months since May 1994, with the goal of bringing leaders together to innovate ways to make more and better tutor/mentor programs available throughout the city and suburbs. I've never had consistent financial support, nor have I had consistent participation from media, business leaders, political or faith leaders. Yet, I'm still sending the invitation to connect.

The next conference is Monday, November 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building. If the ideas I've shared resonate with you, take part in the conference, or reach out to add your support to my own efforts, or include me in your efforts.

Visit Pinterest to find more graphics like those in this article. Click into the various sub categories of past articles (shown on left) to find more illustrated articles and ideas.