What issues unite us?

The political and cultural issues of the United States are creating growing political divides, and growing "hate" and "distrust" of others. Political violence is creeping in.  I'm seeing more and more signs that we're losing our traditional democracy and gaining a narrow focused dictatorship.

I've used this blog since 2005 and my print and email newsletters since 1993 to focus attention on libraries where people can spend time learning about these issues and finding ways to connect with others who are trying to find a better way.

I use concept maps, like the one below to try to guide people to different sections of my library, which has links to more than 2000 external websites, with their own extensive libraries.

And, I've created visual essays, like this one, to show actions anyone can take to draw attention to the issues and causes that they care about.  Borrow what works for you. Teach it to others.

Unleash Your Personal Power to Make Change Happen by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

My own focus for the past 50 years has been to help youth who live in areas of concentrated, persistent poverty, get the extra, on-going support they need to move through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty.

I use visualizations like the one below to illustrate this goal.

The photo at the upper left is from the mid 1990s and the photo at the lower right is when one of those young women came back in 2010 to speak at our year-end graduation.  We're all now connected on Facebook and I'm seeing stories of their own kids finishing high school and college.

The graphic shown below emphasizes the need for long-term programs in high poverty areas of Chicago. If donors recognized this value, and the long-term support needed, my hope is that they would fund on-going general operations of programs who build such support for kids into their core strategies.  A map should show such programs reaching k-12 kids in every high poverty area, not just a few places.

In the lower left corner of this graphic is a  map of the Chicago area, with areas of persistent poverty highlighted.  Since 2005 I've posted more than 280 articles using maps to focus attention on specific areas of Chicago.  I highlight a few in this collection.

In this article I included this map of the United States, showing cities with high concentrations of poverty.  

The dark areas are metros. The orange area within each metro indicates an area of concentrated poverty.  Each of these cities should have a research intermediary that borrows strategies piloted since 1993 by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, who collects and reports information that everyone else in that city can use to supply the resources needed to reach a higher percent of kids in high poverty areas with well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs.

In another article I show a dashboard created by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) that shows areas of the United States where economic prosperity is more prevalent, and where distressed communities are located.  Below is one view of that dashboard.

Here is a second view, this time centering on the Chicago region, where I've worked for the past 30 years to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow.

This map shows that there are many places in the Chicago region and Northwest Indiana that have distressed communities. So do other cities surrounding Lake Michigan, such as Milwaukee and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Waukegan, Illinois, Benton Harbor and cities further East.

If you zoom out, you'll find places all over the country with areas of persistent poverty and/or where economic opportunity is low.

This means people from every one of these cities and states should be talking to each other.  Where is that happening?

So, what's your cause?  Saving democracy? The planet? People in distressed situations?  If someone is building a library like mine, it can be a resource used by anyone, anywhere, to find information about complex issues and ideas for trying to solve those problems.  The blue box in the graphic below illustrates the role of such libraries. 

As I wrote above, the Tutor/Mentor library has more than 2000 links to external websites. Many of those have extensive libraries on their own site.  Each resource I point to represents one, or dozens, of people who work with that organization.  Imagine finding web platforms where people from all of these organizations were connecting regularly to share ideas, build networks and relationship, and create blueprints that show what's needed, and in what sequence, to solve the problem they focus on.

This concept map is an example of a blueprint that could be used in every metro shown on the map above.  In every high poverty zip code all of the supports shown on this map, for each age group, need to be available.  Building the blueprint and getting support for it are two huge challenges.

I wonder if anyone has created a concept map like this showing steps that would reduce the growing conflicts dividing this country.  I'd love to see it.

Thanks for reading.  I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations building libraries and trying to draw viewers to their sites and events.  When I learn about these, I add them to my own library.

For instance, I added the SocialRoots website today. Check it out. 

I encourage them to dig into my blog articles and library and then include these in their own libraries. 

Then, reach out and connect with me on one or more of the social media platforms that I share on this page. 

If you value what I'm sharing and can help, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work.