Tutor/Mentor Video Collection

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

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

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

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

Chicago Election. Long Term Results

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Planning Cycle - War on Poverty by Daniel F. Bassill

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

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

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

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

Case for Business Investment in Mentoring

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

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

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

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

Tutor/Mentor Learning Path now on YouTube

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

Navigation of Tutor/Mentor Institute web site

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

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



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

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

This is a practice that students and adults could duplicate.

Veterans Summit - Ideas

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

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

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

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

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

This PDF describes this graphic.

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

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

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

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

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

Making Sense of Tutor/Mentor Connection Articles

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

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

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



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

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

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

Birth to Work Requires New Thinking on Resource Flow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A New Media Strategy for Community Problem Solving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some additional articles to read:

Building Super Bowl of support. (Jan 2014)

Expanding the Network - Decade Long Effort

Network Building - Talent Needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making Great Tutor/Mentor Programs Available to More Youth

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

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

I have two requests.

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

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

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

Happy New Year!

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

New Year's Wish. Awards for Strategic Business Investment

If you've visited this blog I hope you've also visited the Mapping for Justice blog. This one provides a broader range of information and ideas intended to engage more people in support of organized, non-school programs that connect youth and volunteers in muti-year efforts. The Mapping for Justice blog focuses narrowly on the use of Geographic maps and visualizations.

During the last two months of 2014 I've posted a series of concept maps, like the one at the left, that illustrate strategies I hope are adopted in many places, that support the on-going growth and distribution of tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.

During the January National Mentoring Summit, several businesses will be recognized for their "outstanding contributions to advancing quality mentoring opportunities for young people". At the annual National Conference on Volunteering and Service , to be held in October 2015, the Corporation for National and Community Service provides this Award of Excellence to businesses with outstanding corporate volunteer engagement strategies.

In many articles on this blog I've used graphics to show the 12 years it takes for a youth to go from first grade to 12th grade, and the need for on-going operating support to organizations in every poverty neighborhood who have strategies to help youth succeed in this journey. I've pointed to challenges facing non profits, resulting from an inconsistent flow of operating dollars and an almost non-existing advertising budget, which makes it extremely difficult for high quality tutor/mentor programs to realistically be operating in every poverty neighborhood of any city.

Thus, my wish for 2015 and beyond is that awards be given to companies who form teams of volunteers who research ways their company can engage employee talent and company resources to provide on-going flows of talent and dollars to support youth serving organizations who show strategies aimed to help youth move through school and into careers. Such teams would use the maps I've pointed to here, and on the Mapping for Justice Blog, as part of their own research. Maps like the one below can be used as study guide, or to stimulate thinking on the benefits to adopting such strategies.

In this Shoppers Guide I show some indicators that I feel should show up on the web sites of non school, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs. As I talk to my peers I encourage them to create their own strategy graphics and blog articles, showing the challenges they face and encouraging business to support them, and all other, youth serving organizations in the city where they operate.

Companies might use this Role of Leaders PDF as a guide for launching internal teams.

I'd like to see a similar guide showing indicators that would appear on business web sites, showing a CEO commitment to engaging company resources in strategic, on-going efforts to help more kids move through school and showing strategies the company is applying to mobilize more and more resources and distribute their influence to all locations where they do business or where employees live.

If companies from every industry and profession were encouraging volunteer involvement in neighborhoods throughout the city, programs from throughout the city might be able to show a greater diversity of volunteers and funding. Using Social Network Analysis tactics every program might begin to publish graphics similar to this, showing the different jobs/careers modeled by volunteers within their organization, or showing sources of operating resources, technology, talent and ideas.

Finally, my 2015 wish includes a hope that one or two investors/benefactors will step forward and put their name on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, with a major contribution and long term commitment. This strategy map shows what I've been building and all the different places where investment is needed to do this better than I've been able to so far.

I recognize the vast amount of information I've provided in 2014 and in past years and that while my visualizations make sense to me, they may not make sense to others who've not spent as many years thinking about this as I have. Thus, I encourage you to invite me to your company or organization (for a small fee) where I can spend time talking with you about any of these articles or graphics.

Happy New Year to all who read these articles. Best wishes to you, your families and the people who serve in your own efforts.

Commitment to Chicago area youth. Need more leaders.

This was the editorial from the April 14, 2014 Chicago Tribune, following another weekend of violence. I've been collecting news articles like this for more than 20 years, with a goal that I'd some day have the ability to put these into book form in ways that the aggregated total would show that the way we've tried to solve this problem in the past has not worked, and that new ways need to be innovated.

This was the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes. I've used this often in this blog to remind myself, and others, of the daily commitment many of us need to make to help youth in areas with high concentrations of poverty, poor schools and youth violence, have a non-school support system, anchored by well-organized, consistently funded volunteer based tutor/mentor programs.

Every December since I started writing this blog in 2005 I've posted articles focusing forward into the next year. I hope you'll read some and share them with others.\

Dec. 9, 2014 - Building Influence. Building Networks

Dec. 26, 2013 - Connecting a Million Minds around Complex Problems

Dec. 21, 2012 - New Year's Resolution for Helping At-Risk Youth

Dec. 26, 2011 - Creating a Service and Learning Organization that Mentors Kids to Careers: 2012 Resolution

Dec. 22, 2010 - Networking, sharing information, collaboration

Dec. 17, 2009 - Network Building for Inner City Youth

Dec. 29, 2008 - SunTimes 'Stop the Killing’ Special Report misses opportunity

Dec. 16, 2007 - Building Networks of Purpose

Dec. 26, 2006 - National Mentoring Month - Who Mentored You?

Dec. 23, 2005 - Spread Holiday Hope and Holiday Cheer

If you look at articles I've written in other months of the year, you'll see a consistency of messages. I firmly believe that until more people are writing similar stories, using common information libraries, and for the same purpose, we won't build the momentum needed to make great tutor/mentor programs available in all poverty areas, or keep them their and constantly improving as they help kids move from first grade to first job.

If you're writing stories like this, and have been doing it for as many years, let's connect.

I've been trying to find a way to fund the work I've been doing since forming Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. I've not had much success so I'm spending less than $20,000 a year when I really should be spending more than $1 million a year to implement the 4-part strategy shown in this concept map.

If you want to help me do this work, on an incremental basis, become a sponsor for the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, or make a "HOPE and Opportunity" contribution that is an investment in the work I'm doing.

However, if you'd like to make this your legacy, and put your name on the door, please reach out to me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

Building Influence. Building Networks.

I frequently see this quote from Margaret Mead quote in my Twitter feed: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

However, have you done much thinking about what the membership of this small group looks like? Of how they might help you?

To answer the second question first, a leader is constantly seeking to influence the actions of others. If you have an idea for solving a problem and realize you can't do it all by yourself, the first thing you need to do is begin reaching out to invite others to become involved in the work. I posted this article about "intentional influence" a few weeks ago. I hope you'll read it.

Once you realize you need help from others, a map showing the type of help you need could be helpful.

The map below is one I created many years to to serve as a worksheet in my own efforts to build this "small group of people". I've shared it often because I think others could also use it to show the wide range of talent and skills needed to launch a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program and keep it constantly improving (good to great) for many years.

If you were to do a survey of people helping you now, and categorize them by talent, or by areas of influence, would your map show you have all the skills you need, along with the civic reach needed to get your message to resource providers, media, policy makers, etc? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, read this article titled "Building Philanthropy Capital to Fuel Good to Great". Toward the end of the article is a link to a Stanford Social Innovation Review article titled Increasing Civic Reach.

Most small non profits don't have all the talent they need, not at the beginning, and not as they mature. It's why so many, including the ones I led, struggle so much.

I started Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1992 with six other volunteers. I had been leading a volunteer based tutor/mentor program for the previous 17 years, but was only able to draw a few of the people from that group into support for my new effort, so my initial mail list was about 400 people.

By 1998 that was up to 12,000 people. This was before I began to build an internet community. The graphic below is a worksheet I developed in the mid 1990s. Here's an article I posted on the Cabrini Blog in 2011 with this graphic. Here's the same graphic in an article on the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum.

This worksheet is useful because if you ask someone to give you 5 names to add to a mailing list for an event or a newsletter, they struggle to come up with five names. One reason may be that there are so many people to choose from. If you use this worksheet, you can look at each sub category, such as family, neighbor, college, etc. and look for one person who might be interested in knowing more about your ideas. One person from each category represents 8 to 10 people. As I did this in the 1990s I began to add groups of people, like my college fraternity brothers from the years I was at Illinois Wesleyan.

If you use email, or a printed newsletter to tell stories of your work, why it's important, what you accomplish, how people might help you, some from your network may offer their own time, talent and resources. However, if a few pass on this message to their network, you may reach friends of friends who have an even greater potential to help.

Even with the worksheet motivating others to map their network and constantly reach out asking for support is difficult. People don't like asking friends or family for money. That leads to the next steps in this strategy.

Because of my background with the Montgomery Ward corporation in the 1970s and 1980s I often draw analogies from those experiences. For instance, I think of a mentor-rich youth organization as a "retail store for hope and opportunity" which needs to have a variety of age-appropriate learning and mentoring experiences that motivate youth and volunteers to participate weekly, and for multiple years. Here's one article where I explore this idea.

If you think of a single program like a Walgreens, then my web sites serve as a "shopping mall" or a "department store". When you first visit a new store, or mall, you just take a walking tour, visiting the different shops so you know what's there. Later you go back and take more time browsing the stores that were most interesting to you. Thus, if you set up a web site with information related to your mission, or the problem you're trying to solve, your blogs, social media, Twitter and other forms of daily communication serve as "advertising" intended to draw people to your ideas.

The Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection.org web sites serve this purpose. This PDF essay shows information a youth tutor/mentor program might want to have on their web site to show shoppers what they do and why they should be supported.

This last graphic is one that illustrates your role in facilitating the involvement of a growing number of other people. Over time, this can result in many people, with many different talents and a significant level of civic reach, working to help you make a difference in the world.

If you'd like to have me visit and talk to you about these ideas, or others shared on my blog and web site, let's find a way for me to do that.

What's on your book shelf? Ferguson? Race? Poverty? Philanthropy?

If you're like me, you have stacks of books, publications and magazines in your home or office that you've collected and set aside for "future reading". While my home library includes books on history and science fiction, my work library includes books on innovation, mentoring, poverty, youth development, leadership, etc.

This image is from a small collection of my library in my office on the North side of Chicago. Between 1993 and 1999 the Tutor/Mentor Connection was hosted at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago and we had lots of space. Thus, we had a huge collection of publications and information files about Chicago area tutor/mentor programs. I also maintained a media clip file, of stories from local media.

However, we all know that once an article is printed, it's out of date. Thus, since 1998 I've been building a much larger library on the Internet than the one in my office. I host it on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site and I point to ideas from all over the world. Because I point to the web sites hosting those ideas, people looking at these ideas are also exposed to the web libraries hosted by others. It's a vast network of knowledge available to everyone.

This map is an outline of just one section, where I post research articles and publications related to the challenges facing youth living in high poverty neighborhoods.

The purpose of this library is to support innovation and constant improvement. If program leaders, volunteers and donors can look at what people do in one place that seems to be working, they can expand the range of ideas they have to improve what they do in their own location...as long as they have the talent and resources to apply those ideas.

I created this illustrated essay to show how this information could be used by many to influence actions of others.

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

I was contacted yesterday by a program leader looking for articles mentors could read that are related to some of the high profile media stories, such racial profiling and police shootings, domestic abuse, child abuse, etc. I was preparing an email response, and thought I'd just share that response here with more of you.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection web library has sub sections, and within these are sub-sub sections. One section titled homework help, has many ideas volunteers might look at for engaging their students. In this section there's also one focused on Black History, with links to some sites that could be used to develop discussion and activities.

Another section has the title of Law, Justice, Housing, Poverty and Prevention. Each of the sub sections have links to web sites that volunteers can visit to expand their thinking on issues affecting the youth they work with.

Another section focuses on research, which is also divided into sub categories focused on education, dropout prevention, social capital, mentoring and tutoring. The links I point to usually point to even more links.

I suggest that one activity any tutor/mentor program could undertake is to encourage a small group of youth and volunteers to go through the site, doing a deeper dive into the information. As they do this, they can create presentations that share sites they find valuable with the other youth, volunteers and staff in the organization...or with the larger community. I've been encouraging interns working with me to do this. This is an animation I made to introduce this concept.

New Assignment. A Quest. by tutormentor1 on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.

I've had interns from different colleges going through my web sites and library to create guides for users. Here's a video showing an animation created in 2009. Some of the links may be broken in this, but it illustrates work that can be done.

My library has been built over 40 years, starting with hard copy information, then moving to the internet in 1998. It was created primarily as my own "book shelf", providing ideas I could use to innovate better ways to recruit youth and volunteers, keep them connected, and have an impact on both groups. I've constantly borrowed ideas from others, and one complete section of the web library focuses on collaboration, innovation, knowledge management, etc. These are ideas that not only apply to tutoring/mentoring, but can be applied to many work/life situations.

Since I operated as a non profit from 1990-2011, one section is focused on philanthropy, and shows challenges that need to be overcome if high quality, long-term youth programs are to be in more places, reaching more youth.

I'm constantly adding to the library, and links often break. If you identify a broken link, send me a note. If you are building your own web library, with information that relates to my library, send me a link and I'll add it. I don't need to gather all knowledge in my library. I only need to point to knowledge that represents "all we need to know" to help well-organized non-school programs connect with youth in high poverty areas, and stay connected as those youth grow up and become adults.

If you're a university and want to co-host this library, or set up a curriculum to teach students and alumni to navigate the library, and use the information in their own actions, please connect. If you're one of the people featured in the philanthropy summit issues of Forbes, and want to put your name on this library and use if for your own purposes, I'd love to hear from you.