Drop Out Crisis a Public Health Issue

Last September I posted an article titled "Reframing School Drop Out as a Public Health Issue.

While the SunTimes has called for action by CPS, I hope you'll all read this and encourage hospitals, universities and business groups to take strategic roles in keeping kids in school, and preparing them for jobs and careers.

I encourage you to read some of the blog articles on the Smart Communities blog, which illustrate reasons for business and hospitals to become strategically involved.

My goal for the May and November Tutor/Mentor Conference is to have leaders from these industries host 70 minute discussions, sharing what they do, and building visibility for pro-active strategies that mentor kids to careers. If you can organize such a workshop, or host a panel, submit a workshop presenter form as soon as you can so we can begin promoting your involvement.

Dropout Crisis at CPS demands quick action

The feature editorial in today's Chicago SunTimes shows that Chicago Public Schools had a staggering 44% drop out rate and that the rate for Black males was even higher, at 57%. Apparently CPS held a "drop out summit" this week to develop solutions to this problem.

I have two comments. 1) about time; 2) why weren't we invited.

I've written about the Drop Out crisis in previous articles such as here and here so I don't know why this is suddenly a "news" for the SunTimes. It's been a crisis for a long time.

Read some of the drop out crisis articles on the T/MC site and you can learn a lot about this crisis.

And volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring has been a solution for a long time. It's just that the leaders at CPS, and in the Mayor's office, or the media, don't promote this as a solution with the same daily consistency as telephone and finance companies bombard us with ads for their products.

What we have here is a marketing problem. We need leaders who will consistently advocate for volunteer involvement in non profits helping kids connect with tutors/mentors, sports, technology and a variety of other learning and mentoring solutions. And these don't need to be managed or operated by Chicago Public Schools.

We have a window of opportunity. In early February a CEO Summit on Volunteerism was held in New York City, with a goal of unleashing $1 billion in pro bono business talent to support non profit organizations. Jim Morsch of the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program attended the Summit. His observations are posted here.

Wouldn't it be great if a share of this were devoted to building and sustaining a full range of non-school, and school-based tutor/mentor programs who all were focused on helping kids move through school, advanced learning or vocational education, and into jobs and careers!!

In May I'll be hosting the 29th Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference since May 1994. I'm looking for speakers who can talk about the drop out crisis, and who can talk about ways that mentoring can be one part of the solution. I'm also looking for speakers who can show businesses how to be strategically involved in tutoring/mentoring, either in building capacity, or in building business programs that engage volunteers and support the growth of programs that serve their workforce development goals.

Visit the conference web site to find details and submit a workshop proposal, or email tutormentor2@earthlink.net with your ideas.

What Keeps You Up at Night?

I've been participating in a discussion on the Social Edge site, which asks what keeps social entrepreneurs awake at night.

We all have personal challenges that cause sleepless nights. However, people who run businesses, or non profits like Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Connection, have additional challenges.

Such as how do we pay the rent, the payroll, or "how do we make a difference in the world". In a tutor/mentor program these challenges are how do we attract and keep key staff and talented volunteers, and how do we inspire kids as young as 4th and 5th grade to take more responsibility for their lives and their futures.

Social Edge is one of many on-line forums where I network, learn, share ideas, and find volunteers to help in the work I do.

In the Links Library on the T/MC site, I've more than 1400 links, pointing to forums like Social Edge, or other web sites where someone is working to help connect kids and adult volunteers, or where someone has information that might help others understand why and where tutor/mentor programs are needed, or why business, hospitals and universities should be strategically involved.

By hosting this library I enable the people I connect with to meet and network with each other and I enable others working with youth and poverty to find information they could use to support their own innovation and decision making.

I stay awake some night just thinking of new ways to try to attract people to this information.

Every six months I host a conference in Chicago, intended to draw some of the people in my network, and links library, together on a face-to-face basis. Some people do workshops to share their expertise. Some people just participate to expand their network.

The next conference is May 29 and 30, 2008 and will be held at the Northwestern University School of Law. The web site is http://www.tutormentorconference.org. I am now recruiting workshop presenters and I hope you'll either consider doing a workshop, or you'll make an effort this week to tell people in your own network about this event, so they can participate.

The conference is just part of a sequence of events intended to help more and better tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago. It's intended to draw volunteers and donors directly to more than 200 different organizations in Chicago alone. You can find links to these in the T/MC Find A Program section.

I'll sleep better once we have the roster of speakers in place. We'll all sleep better when we can surround kids with a greater range of adult supports and learning opportunities that create the type of hope, and opportunity, that is being promised in the current election cycle.

I hope you'll help.

Donating Used Computers

Are you looking for a computer for your non profit? Are you looking to recycle used computers. Read this article and watch the videos on NorthShoreInsider. Andy Vass is someone I've known for many years and he is doing some great work.

CEO Summit focuses on recruiting business talent

Today, February 13, 2008, in New York City, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, and other government, and corporate leaders will convene the Summit on Corporate Volunteering: Towards a New Definition of Pro Bono.

The goal of the Summit is to move toward 'pro bono' service becoming as common in the business world as it is in the legal field. The audience at the Summit will be corporate executives and we hope that the corporate community will leave the summit convinced of the benefits of pro bono service and skilled professional volunteering.

All materials from the Summit will be posted on the CNS Web site.

Jim Morsch, of the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program in Chicago, was a participant in the Summit. His observations can be found here.

If this topic interests you, I encourage you to read some of the articles posted on this blog about leadership, maps, and No Child Left Behind. As you or your company develop a strategy, I encourage you to use maps to focus your help in all of the places where you do business, operate a facility, or where your employees live. I encourage you to use your marketing and visibility to give attention to volunteer service on an on-going basis, just as you use these tools to expand the visibility and market share of your company and its products and services.

Finally, I encourage you to use the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site as a resource for your decision making and a partner in your efforts to create a pipeline of kids from poverty to your workforce.

Lawyers support Chicago mentoring with $240,000 in grants!

On January 31, 2008, the SunTimes Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend a Hand to Youth Program awarded $240,000 in grants to 31 different Chicago area tutor/mentor programs. The map shows the location of recipients in different parts of Chicago. Below is the list of recipients. Web links are included for programs with web sites.

Start Ups (new, and emerging programs - less than five years old):
BUILD
Fathers For the Future Foundation
Inspired Youth
Hermosa Community Organization; also winner of the Much Shelist Founders Award, a $7,000 additional grant
Latino Education Alliance
North Kenwood/Oakland Charter Elementary School
Chicago Development Commission, Inc. (SCDCom)
Alliance for Community Peace


Operating Grants for Established Programs

Christ Evangelical Church, Brain Boosters; also winner of 1st Annual SunTimes Literacy Award, a $10,000 additional grant.
Cabrini Connections
Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program, Inc
Christopher House
Circle Urban Ministries
Cluster Tutoring Program
East Village Youth Program
Erie Neighborhood House Mentoring Program
Family Matters
Horizons for Youth
Jewish Child Family Services
Centro Communitario Juan Diego; also winner of the 2007 Thomas A. Demetrio Award, a $10,000 additional grant.
Life Directions
Maywood Youth Mentoring Program
McGaw YMCA Project SOAR
Midtown Educational Foundation
Partnership to Educate and Advance Kids (PEAK)
Scholarship Chicago
Sunlight African Community Center
The Bridge Youth and Family Services
UMOJA Student Development Corporation
YMCA North Lawndale Mentoring Program

Innovative Grants for long-term projects

Tutor/Mentor Connection(TMC) - $30,000 per year for two years.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago, mentoring program with
Better Boys Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant.


14 years ago when the Lend A Hand Program was just starting, only one award, of $2,000 was given. By 2006 the total amount of grants that had been awarded was nearly $500,000. The huge growth in 2007 is due to the receipt of a special award from the Chicago SunTimes, which will enable the Lend A Hand to give grants of this level for at least the next 10 years.

However, while this money is important, the average grant was around $5,000. This is a small fraction of the operating cost of most tutor/mentor programs. Thus, we urge leaders in other industries, in faith communities, and in civic and social networks, to duplicate this generosity, so that volunteers, and dollars, can come to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago from many different directions.

This is truly what is meant when we say "it takes a village to raise a child."

Mapping for Justice Blog - Take a look

I encourage you to visit the Mapping for Justice blog each Monday to follow the progress of the T/MC in updating its capacity to use maps for social justice, collaboration and to help make more and better tutor/mentor programs available in high poverty neighborhoods.

Cabrini Connections Arts & Video Festival

On Friday, February 8th, the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program held an Arts and Video Festival in Chicago. Click here to read more about this event.

Lawyers in Chicago Lend A Hand - with $240,000 in grants!!

On January 31, 2008 33 different Chicago area volunteer-based tutoring and mentoring were given grants totaling $240,000 by the SunTimes Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lending a Hand to Youth Program. Next week I'll post a complete list of winners. Let me just say that one program receiving a grant of $5,000 was Cabrini Connections, the tutor/mentor program that I've led since 1993.

We started Cabrini Connections with just 7 volunteers, 5 teens, and no money in 1993. Since then more than 500 youth and 600 volunteers have been involved. Look here to see some of the metrics that we use to evaluate this program.

When we started Cabrini Connections, we recognized that no one in Chicago had a master database of tutor/mentor programs, and no one was leading a year-round marketing effort aimed at helping tutor/mentor programs grow in all parts of the Chicago region. We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to fill this void.

As we built our database of programs we began to share information and learn what issues all programs had in common. Our first survey in 1994 indicated that many programs were isolated from each other, so in May 1994 we launched the first Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference. Many programs are constantly searching for volunteers, so we published our database as a printed directory, and sent it to businesses and foundations and media, and to each program. In 1995 we launched a citywide Back to School Volunteer Recruitment Campaign, intended to help all programs get volunteers as school starts each year.

Most tutor/mentor programs are non-profits, and most programs are constantly looking for operating dollars, so in June 1994 when the Lend a Hand Program was just starting, and was a part of the Chicago Bar Foundation, we suggested "why don't you become the first foundation to fund general operations of constanly improving tutor/mentor programs in all parts of Chicago." We agreed to work together to achieve that goal, and while the first award in 1994 was $2,000 to a single program, the grant total at the January 31 distribution of 2007 awards, was $240,000. Part of that was a $30,000 grant to the Tutor/Mentor Connection to help us keep doing what we do to maintain this information on tutor/mentor programs, and to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs.



One of the people most responsible for this growth is Jim Morsch, Managing Partner of the Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd LLP Law Firm. Jim was one of the first volunteers to join the Lend A Hand Advisory Board and to see the great potential of lawyers helping kids in all parts of Chicago, not just in one or two highly visible programs. I encourage you to visit the Lend A Hand web site to meet Jim and others who are part of this great program.

One of the ways Jim and the Lend A Hand Raise visibility for tutoring and mentoring, and raise money for the annual grants to tutor/mentor programs, is through events like the Annual Barristers Big Band Benefit Ball, which is set for March 8, 2008 at the Standard Club in Chicago. Contact Karina Ayala-Bermejo, Executive Director of the Lend A Hand Program, at 312-554-2041, if you'd like to be a sponsor, or order tickets.

While you can make a bequest or a donation to support the Lend A Hand, you can also search the Program Locator and Chicago Program Links on the T/MC Web site, and find programs that you can support directly, with your time, talent and dollars. As more people give this support, more of our youth will get more consistent adult support and enriched learning, that is essential for success in school, and in life.

Thank you Lend A Hand for helping us do this work.

Non Profit Congress - For the Common Good of Non Profit Sector

I've joined the Non Profit Blog Exchange once again and have been partnered with a blog on the web site of the Non Profit Congress. I had visited this web site in the past, and even posted a few comments, but the blog exchange encouraged me to take a new, and deeper look.

I found a lot of things to like. For instance the overall purpose is to a) Increase Capacity at all levels of nonprofit organizations; b) help networks of non profit leaders grow at the local, state, and national level; and, c) Inspire Engagement at the state and local level to increase involvement in non profit capacity building in all states, across all sectors.

I see many efforts on this site to give a voice to anyone who wants to offer an idea, or wants to get involved. This is good.

Because I'm such a fan of maps, I was pleased to see a map of the United States, that you can click to find contact information for local leaders in different states. Looks like Illinois could use some local leadership.

However, I see room for improvement, too. I'll write about these suggestions here, and post them on the Non Profit Congress web site also.

I think that there are more than a few organizations and networks trying to mobilize others for the common good. However, I don't see that reflected on this web site, with links pointing to others doing similar work. For instance,

a) on Feb. 12 and 13, 2008 the President's Council for Service and Civic Participation is hosting a CEO Summit in New York City, with a goal of unleashing $1 billion in corporate volunteer talent to support the non profit sector.

b) the Non Profit Congress will hold its 2008 National Meeting in Washington, DC on June 1-4. Unfortunately, the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service will be held in Atlanta, on June 1-3. My own Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is May 29 and 30, in Chicago.

While the Non Profit Congress does a good job of enabling people to participate on the site, they, and Points of Light, and others need to enable people attending conferences in one place to connect with others who are attending similar conferences, in other places. In the Tutor/Mentor Conference format we've created a List of Attendees that participants can subscribe to. This encourages people to contact folks who will be attending our conference, before, during, or after the event. It's what happens between conferences that proves the value of a conference, or a network.

I'd like to see more people who convene groups -- for conferences, press releases, research briefings, etc. -- do this, so the people inspired by an event can connect with each other, in a variety of formats, to do the work the conference or event was trying to inspire.

c) while it's great to build a national movement, and generate more public awareness, unless this distributes public attention, volunteers, and operating dollars, to every part of the country, and to small organizations, as well as national brand names, it's not going to help improve the capacity of thousands of non profits who struggle every day to do good work.

I would like to see the Non Profit Congress borrow a concept from the Boston Innovation Hub, and add an issues map, so that people interested in a similar issue could group together more easily, and work within their sub group, not just their state, to achieve the overall goals of the Non Profit Congress.

I would also like to see them point to Internet-based databases that enable volunteers and donors and clients to search for specific programs in specific zip codes.

What's great about the Non Profit Congress is that I can not only write these ideas in my blog, but I'm encouraged to provide them as suggestions on the NPC's web site. I encourage you to take a look, read their blogs, visit the sections on Public Awareness, Capacity Building and Leadership, and become part of this effort.

After the Elections - Still Want to Make a Difference

The Editorial in today's Chicago SunTimes provides 5 ways people can vote with their time and their actions, to make a difference in Chicago. It's a good reminder that while we spend millions to elect a President and other public officials, it is the work of individuals, and groups, that will determine the quality of live in this country.

In past articles I've talked about failing education, and how to respond to acts of violence. In the SunTimes article the writer wrote "Nobody can clean up the big problems on the day in an instant -- the faltering economy, the war in Iraq, global warming."

I agree. And I thank the SunTimes for pointing to the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site as a resource for finding places in Chicago where you can be a tutor, or a donor, or where you can use your talent to help build a web site, or do the accounting, or help with fund raising.

But this is just the starting point. The Tutor/Mentor Connection web site is a resource library, where you can find articles about where tutor/mentor programs are most needed, why they are needed, and how you can help make them more effective. If we want to end poverty, or solve any other major issue, we need to build personal involvement, and build a learning process, so that as we continue our involvement, we understand the issues more, and we can be smarter about how we use our time, talent and dollars.

I outlined these steps here.

If you get involved in tutoring/mentoring, and use the T/MC site as a resource, and a place to share your ideas and experiences with others who are involved in different programs, even in different states, the collective experience of each of us will add up to an army of knowledge, and commitment, that will help any leader we elect to make a bigger difference in the future of our society.

Connecting those you know to tutor/mentor programs

We're nearing the end of National Mentoring Month. Now, what do we do for the next 11 months to assure that more kids who need mentors and would benefit from being part of comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, are given that opportunity?

I don't know what the budget was for the National Mentoring Month advertising, but to get high profile celebrities, and to have PSAs in media all over the country, represents an expense beyond what any single tutor/mentor program, or any citywide network has.

Furthermore, I don't know what impact the Mentoring Month campaign has because I'm not sure how often the person speaking about his/her mentoring experience is pointing to the place where he/she volunteers, with a goal of drawing new volunteers and new donors to that place.

I do know that in tutor/mentor programs around Chicago and in every city there are great stories taking place every day. Here's a blog on the Cabrini Connections site that introduces you to teens in our art club and shows work they and volunteers have been doing.

In January I pointed to a blog discussion where people were discussing the relative merits of story telling vs metrics as a fund raising strategy.

I believe in story telling and believe that if the thousands of men and women around the country who have been mentors, or have been helped by mentors, would tell their story consistently, they would attract more attention to tutoring/mentoring in general. If they go a step further and provide contact information for the place or places where they have been involved, the story telling can serve as advertising, to draw volunteers and donors to those places.

If they go a step further and say "where I was involved is not the only place in my city where kids need help, or the only program where people are offering tutoring/mentoring" then they can point to resources like the Tutor/Mentor Connection's Chicago Program Locator (archive since 2020) , which enable volunteers and donors and parents to search by zip code to locate programs, and to differentiate those programs between the age group served, as well as the type of tutoring and/or mentoring they offer.

I've created a Make the Connection PDF to illustrate this role of our volunteers and alumni. If more of the people who have been enriched by the tutor/mentor experience, talk about the program where they were involved, and the need that program has for volunteers and donors, the weight of these stories can become 12-months a year advertising that increases support for existing programs and helps new programs grow.

If you can incorporate the ideas of this PDF into a YouTube video, or other forms of training, please do, then send me a copy that I can post on our web site.

Mentoring and Volunteerism as a Drop Out Prevention Strategy

The State of Illinois' Illinois WorkNet! web site added a new message, encouraging business leaders to think of ways their workplace volunteer and civic engagement strategies can incorporate tutoring/mentoring as part of the company or industry workforce development strategy. View the page here.

Many companies support volunteerism. Some even encourage paid time off. Many are involved in tutoring/mentoring. Some provide millions of dollars to fund charter schools. Is this strategic?

In internet forums, and in sessions of the May and November leadership conferences, we encourage business leaders to host discussions around this topic. Share what you're already doing to prepare kids for careers, and to include your volunteerism and philanthropy in support of this strategy. Other companies can learn from you and you can learn from them.

Locating the Drop Out Crisis

More than half the African American students in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania attend high schools in which the majority of students do not graduate on time, if at all.

This is a crisis, and we need to find ways to get people who don't live in high poverty neighborhoods more personally involved. Read this report and find additional information on the Drop Out Crisis and potential solutions at http://www.learningtofinish.org/doku.php?id=locations

Thanks for a generous donor, the Tutor/Mentor Connection is building 2008 capacity to map this type of information, as THE REST OF THE STORY. We've hired a GIS Intern, who introduces himself on the Mapping for Justice blog.

Complex problems require complex solutions

A featured story in today's Chicago Tribunec was about the planned firing of teachers and principals at 8 under performing schools in Chicago. Read it here.

I think that as long as big city school systems only focus on education and school-centered solutions they will never get the outcomes we all want.

I use computer mapping systems to develop poverty maps that show the relationship between poverty and poorly performing schools. I overlay this with information about churches, business, hospitals and universities in or near the high poverty areas, or to show expressways, like the Eisenhower, which link people who live in affluent suburbs with their jobs in the Loop. These people go past poverty neighborhoods every day as the come and go to work. Here's an example.

I also use the tutormentorconnection web site to host research articles written by experts in many parts of the country, so that anyone who reads an article in the Tribune or SunTimes, can dig deeper to understand the problem, and to understand how others are trying to find solutions.

My purpose in all of this is to increase the understanding and personal involvement of people who don't live in poverty, and don't live near low performing schools, but who are seriously impacted by the success or failure of our city to prepare young people for 21st century jobs and adult responsibilities.

This is intended to support the growth of a non-school learning, mentoring and tutoring network, that businesses use as part of their own workforce diversity and development strategies. At the links below you can read more about this strategy:

Collaboration Strategies

Role of Leaders

Find A Tutor/Mentor Program where you can volunteer time, talent and/or dollars

Communicating Impact. Numbers or Stories?

I'm looking at more and more grant guidelines asking for 2 or 3 bullet points describing impact expected from their grant. I just read and article on the PhilaTopic blog that discuses the struggle foundations have to describe impact. Numbers or stories. Or both.

What do you think?

I come from an advertising background. Tell the story in a compelling way, with reach (more people) and frequency (more often). That's what I try to do.

Shop for charity involvement based on where the NEED is, before who the organization is.

The strategy of the Tutor/Mentor Connection aims to focus volunteers, donors, leaders, etc. on where tutor/mentor programs are most needed in a city like Chicago, before we focus on who the programs are that offer tutoring/mentoring.

That's because good tutor/mentor programs are needed in every neighborhood. It's not enough to support a good program in one neighborhood, if a different neighborhood also has high poverty, violence and poorly performing schools.

Once a volunteer and donor are shopping based on location, then the Program Locator helps you determine what organizations in the neighborhood offer various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring, and what age group they serve.

This is no guarantee that these are great programs. They are programs that are already in the area and can become great if they are consistently supported by volunteers and donors and if their leadership strives to grow from good to great.

It's a strategy that anyone can own, and anyone can lead. Everyone who reads a newspaper story about violence, poverty or poor schools, or is concerned about global competitiveness, or workforce development, is a potential leader and owner and advocate for this strategy.

Form a group, learn about the issues, learn to differentiate one program from another, just as you compare one grocery store to another, and one telephone to another. Then use that information to help tutor/mentor programs in the neighborhood you adopt, to grow from good to great so they do more to help kids escape poverty through education and workforce mentoring.

If business, professional, hospital and university leaders adopt this strategy, we can create a Chicagoland system of excellent tutor/mentor programs, making more learning, enrichment and mentoring available in the non-school hours, in neighborhoods where kids need more help. Through this, we can help Arne Duncan and Chicago Public Schools do more to reach his vision of a system of excellent high schools throughout the city of Chicago.

What's our promise to our kids? What will our elected leaders do to keep this promise?

The Presidential campaign is coming to Illinois, which means we'll be bombarded with stories of hope, and change. It would give me more hope for the future, if I could see change in the way elected leaders (and candidates) act as leaders.

I have led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program since 1974. I formed Cabrini Connections in 1993 to help teens from the original 2nd to 6th grade program at the Montgomery Ward HQ in Chicago get the extra support they need from 7th grade through high school, in order to be prepared for college, vocational education, and the next steps to a job and a career.

When kids and volunteers join us we're making one promise: We will do everything we can to assure that each student who joins us will be starting a job/career by age 25. We are only limited by how much our students, volunteers, alumni and supporters are willing to share this responsibility.

Below is a message I shared with our volunteers to start 2008. This message can be just as relevant to volunteers in any tutor/mentor program, or to people looking to be elected to city, state and national office. 

 --------------------------- 

I hope that all of our volunteers have had great holidays and that you are looking forward to continuing your role as a tutor/mentor volunteer at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

As you prepare for the second half of the school year, I encourage you to read some of the articles posted at Cabrini Connections - Tutor/Mentor Program in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago (archive.org)

I've been a leader of a tutor/mentor program since 1974, and I've learned that every volunteer and student are different, and constantly changing. Thus, while I can provide a structure for your participation, I can't teach you everything you need to know, or everything I've learned. I can try to help you, and your student, form a learning strategy, where you know where to find information, and find help, so that as you meet weekly, you know where to go for ideas to stimulate and support your involvement. 

Last Christmas, Rebecca Parrish (a Cabrini Connections volunteer) gave me the book "The Starfish and the Spider" as a present. As I read it, I realized that this book was describing Cabrini Connections and the role of every volunteer, staff member, and leader. It also describes the role of alumni, and veteran volunteers. 

We are a decentralized organization in which each volunteer is the CEO of his/her own tutoring/mentoring business. We succeed in life by our own efforts and by what we can learn from others. Our networks are important. They expand opportunities, open doors and provide resources. 

As you go through the tutoring year, each volunteer is learning to individualize his/her weekly activities based on the needs of your student, your own abilities and time, and the level of experience you have gained. Veteran volunteers, alumni, staff and coordinators are able to support you with ideas, information, and structure, but it is your own learning and networking with other volunteers that gives you ideas for what you do. 

Each week I'm trying to coach you with this email, with my blogs, and with the information and networks available to you on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org 

You all already know how difficult it is to motivate many kids to do home work, do extra learning, and take charge of their lives. Imagine how difficult it is for me and the leaders of Cabrini Connections to recruit busy people like our volunteers, and convince them to spend time beyond their weekly tutoring/mentoring, learning how they can become more effective tutors/mentors, or giving help to others who are seeking help. 

Yet, this is the only way we can succeed in keeping the promise we make to our kids. Read more at http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/good-to-great-in-decentralized.html

I thank you all for your involvement in Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. On behalf of our volunteer board of directors, I welcome you back for our 16th year of tutoring/mentoring since January 1993.

Dan Bassill
President/CEO

Cabrini Connections 

Tutor/Mentor Connection 

 --------------------------------- 

In what ways will our elected leaders support the involvement of volunteers, donors, businesses and universities in programs like Cabrini Connections? Will they use maps to build a distribution of resources into every neighborhood where tutor/mentor programs are needed? Will they use their blogs, web sites, public speaking to connect volunteers with non profits in their district, using links to a Program Locator, so volunteers and donors can search for where to get involved? 

Or will the volunteer and donate button on their web site only point to themselves, in an effort to get elected, or stay elected? 

True leadership lifts up everyone. Real Generals understand the need to distribute troops in all places where the enemy is concentrated, and they understand the need to have an infrastructure that supports those troops with food, clothing, pay, training, weapons, etc. so they are better equipped than the enemy.

Which of our leaders are going to be demonstrating this type of leadership when they come to Illinois and ask for our vote?

Is National Mentoring Month Helping You Recruit Volunteers, or Donors?

We're in the middle of the annual National Mentoring Month, and I'd like to know what impact this is having on volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, or other cities.

Are you getting calls from potential volunteers? Are donors calling or sending checks? What's the impact?

Do you even need volunteers at this time of year? The Cabrini Connections program starts in September and runs through May each year. Our goal is that we keep 85% of the volunteers who are with us in October for the entire year. Thus, in January, we're only looking for a few replacements, and for volunteers who give their talent to help us support these volunteers, and our students.

We're also looking for operating dollars so we can fund everything we need to do each year, including pay the rent, insurance, staffing, etc.

What about you? Is this an important time for you to recruit volunteers? Is the campaign helping you?

NEXT WEEK: Is the Presidential Campaign helping you?

“Welcome to Chicago, Mr. President. Here are three kids “Left Behind”

Today the front page of the Chicago SunTimes had a full page picture of President Bush, with the message, “Welcome to Chicago, Mr. President. Here are three kids “Left Behind”. The sub head was President Bush comes to town today, primed to spread the gospel on No Child Left Behind. But so far he hasn’t delivered for too many Chicago Students.”

You can read this story here. http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/728730,CST-EDT-edit07.article

While I agree with the message, I’m disappointed that the paper did not point to web sites with more information on this subject, so that readers can learn more. They could have pointed to NCLB links on the T/MC web site

Or they could have pointed to articles on the tutor/mentor blog, with links to NCLB stories.

The role of a leader, and a newspaper, should be to bring people together, to build a greater understanding of a problem, and to mobilize resources to solve the problem. That's what we're trying to do through the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the resources on our web site.

We think tutoring/mentoring not only transforms the life of a child, but it transforms the life of the volunteer. Longterm involvement in a well organized program creates a bridge of understanding that is crossed by a child as he learns from an adult, and is crossed by the adult as he/she learns about poverty.

Until more adults cross this bridge, this nation will never have the will power or the leadership to make sure No Child is Left Behind. We'll never have enough resources of dollars, volunteers, leaders, technology to reach more of these kids in high poverty neighborhoods with the types of learning and support that overcomes the negative influence of concentrated, big city poverty.

Visit these sites and browse through the sections of this blog to see how you can be a leader in this mobilization.