Increase flow of operating resources to needed youth orgs

This is a graphic I've used many times to illustrate how people from any part of the Chicago region can be encouraging friends, co-workers, family, etc. to support tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods with time, talent and/or dollars.

This is a graphic showing the home page of the Boston Indicators Project which I wrote about in an article on the Mapping for Justice blog. I hope you'll read the article and see how this site provides information about 10 different issue categories relevant to the Boston area, and points to a Giving Common, where donors can search the same ten categories to find organizations working in those categories which they can support.

In a number of articles I've written since 2012 I've pointed to MOOCs, like the Education, Technology and Media #ETMOOC, as forums where people from many places can connect around specific topics.

I think a next step for Boston, and other cities who might want to duplicate what Boston has done, or do it better, would be to create MOOCs around each of the 10 issue categories, and timed at different times of the year so they support what people are thinking about and what programs are doing at different times.

Thus, a MOOC focused on education, violence prevention, youth and workforce development, etc. might have events in August/Sept as school is started, and November/December when non profits are looking for donations. Events in Jan/Feb would help convert some of the volunteers who join programs in September into leaders, and help recruit replacements for those who have dropped out. A May/June MOOC might celebrate what has been done during the year, share best practices, and remind everyone that programs need to repeat and be in more places the following year since kids only go through school one year at a time, and cities like Chicago have too few programs where they are most needed.

I hope you'll share these ideas and read others I've posted on this blog since 2005. Follow the links to do your own deeper learning, or to create a study group in your family, business, faith group, etc. so more people use this information to support their on-going involvement in tutoring/mentoring, or in any other issue important to the well-being of Chicago, the USA or the world community.