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.