Create a New Tutor/Mentor Program Locator

With the help of others I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, with the goal of helping volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in every high poverty area of the Chicago region.  I've led it since 2011 through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

We launched a survey in January 1994 to learn what programs were already operating in Chicago and I've tried to keep a current list of those programs available for the past 27 years.

While we published a printed directory from 1994 to 2002 we launched this on-line directory in 2004. It shows how we attempted to categorize programs by a) type of program; b) age group served; c) time of day service was provided; and d) location (zip code or community area).

View archived version of this page at this link

The image above shows the search page of the Program Locator, which you can find at this link. The results of each search were shown on a Google map. Thus, searchers could see any tutor/mentor programs in a specific zip code of Chicago and find a website address they could use to go directly to each organization and learn more of what they do.

A map-based Program Locator was created in 2008, drawing from the same data.  You can view the archive at this link.  

Program Locator - 2008

This worked from a global perspective, showing the entire Chicago region and all of the tutor/mentor programs in our database, then enabled visitors to narrow their search by type of program, age group served, and location. It also included layers of information showing demographics, public school performance and assets (business, universities, hospitals, universities, faith groups) who shared the same geography and could be doing more to help programs grow.

While the Program Locator has not been updated since 2011, and some features do not work properly, it still is a template and model of the type of platform that is needed in every city. It was designed to provide decision support for community, business and philanthropic leaders while also helping parents, volunteers, educators, etc. find programs located in different parts of the Chicago region. 

View this concept map to learn more about the Program Locator. 

Over the past decade I've often wondered if anyone was using IRS 990 data to build a much more comprehensive understanding of existing tutor/mentor programs along with other types of your services. 

Today a LinkedIn post pointed me to this article, titled:  MapAgora, civic opportunity datasets for the study of American local politics and public policy.  

It's a detailed description of the process of building datasets that provide a comprehensive view of civic life across America.  The data they have collected  "illuminates where civic opportunities are available and which types of organizations provide them". 

The article says, "This entire pipeline is reproducible and relies on the two open-source R packages we developed: MapAgora (v0.08 https://github.com/snfagora/MapAgora) for parsing and integrating administrative data, and autotextclassifier (v0.05 https://github.com/snfagora/autotextclassifier/tree/main) for machine-learning-based text classification."

I did not see an maps showing this data, or anything like the Program Locator platforms we built in 2004 and 2008.  Yet, the data collection process is a blueprint for doing this and the datasets they built are available for anyone who might want to take this next step.

Do you know anyone doing this type of data collection/analysis?  Or drawing from this information to build platforms like the Program Locator? Or, anyone who wants to?  Please share the links.

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Thanks for reading.  I depend on contributions to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  Visit this page if you'd like to help.