Turning Research into Active Problem-Solving

Every month I see a new report showing the impact of concentrated poverty on school performance, health, economic well-being and other issues.  Last year A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025". I wrote about it in this article.  They issues an update in 2026 - click here

Below is a message I've shared often, in different articles, for the past 30+ years.

I’ve been collecting similar information since I became a volunteer tutor in 1973, showing where people need extra help, why, and what type of help could be offered to youth via organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

From 1993 to 2003 I shared this information via printed newsletters. Then on a website since 1998.   I’ve been pointing to that research in articles on this blog since 2005.

I’m sharing a few below. I hope you’ll open the links and take a look, then share the ideas through your own blogs, videos, etc.

Here’s an article where I use maps to show where people need extra help.

It’s one of dozens where I show the four-part, information-based problem-solving strategy that I’ve piloted since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. It’s one where I point to a section of my library with hundreds of links to articles and research about poverty, racism, inequality and social justice. And, it’s one where I encourage others to share this information in their network, so more people find it and use it.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection the goal was to help every existing tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the operating resources, volunteers and ideas each program needs to grow. Here’s one of many articles that focus on the challenges of finding on-going funding for mentor-based programs.

My leadership of a single volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 1992 and a second program starting in 1993, along with my career in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward corporation, provided the foundation ideas for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

These experiences led me to understand that organized volunteer-based programs were a way to connect kids in high poverty areas to people, experiences and opportunities that were not readily available in their own family/neighborhoods, due to extreme poverty. Over time, I began to understand this as a form of ‘bridging social capital’ and visualized it in graphics like the one shown below.

Here’s one of many articles where I write about mentoring as a form of social capital.

In my work at Montgomery Ward’s corporate headquarters, from 1973 to 1990, I learned how my department, and other functional teams, supported more than 400 retail stores spread in 40 states. We helped each store be good at attracting customers, selling merchandise and earning a profit. (at least we tried)

Thus, when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection plan in 1993 our initial strategy was to learn what programs existed in Chicago, then to build a public awareness strategy that would attract more attention, volunteers and donors to each program, and to every high poverty neighborhood.

This article shows how we began publishing a Directory of programs in 1994 and how this information was used to support programs.

In this article I describe an on-going information-based planning process, that uses information like I’ve been collecting.

This could be led from institutions who have deep roots in geographic areas, like hospitals, universities, businesses, etc.

To do this research, someone needs to host a library like mine, with lists and directories of youth serving programs, then use that information in an on-going planning, program development and public education and resource generation strategy.

This is a missing step in most of the research I’ve seen for over 25 years. Researchers get the money to do the research and produce a report, with a big event that shares it with the public, but then don't have the money to continue to share that research and draw people together to use it over the following years.  What I do is aggregate links to that research and try to motivate people to use it to support youth tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

I encourage you to look at articles, like this, where I point to work being done by Daniel Max Crowley, who I met on LinkedIn.  He calls on universities to go beyond collecting research to helping communities use it. 

Over the past 30 years I've piloted actions that I share on my website and that anyone can borrow and apply in their own geographic area.

While I do find a few who host lists of youth serving programs, and even plot the list on interactive maps, I don’t find any with multi-year public awareness efforts aimed at drawing volunteers and donors to every youth-serving program within their city.  If you know of any who do this, please share the link and I'll add them to my library.

Furthermore, I don’t find any doing the deeper research asking “what youth programs exist in your area”.

Doing such research and maintaining a list of programs is a big job, especially in cities as large as Chicago. That’s why, for many years, I’ve tried to motivate universities to build a Tutor/Mentor Connection-based strategy on their campus. This is one of several articles where I share this invitation. 

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

Here’s an article where I show 30 years of effort to build strategic alliances with universities. You can see a wide range of interactions with many universities, but no long-term initiative led by, and funded by, any university.

Why wasn’t I successful? Money. Reputation. Clout.

I never had much of any of these so when I met with someone at a university, I’d receive polite nods, with a “I’m already over extended. Find a younger professor.”

 The answer: ultra wealthy donors

Here's one of several articles where I show the potential of strategic investment by one or more wealthy donors.  Here's another. 

How might we find such donors? 

They are all around us. Do you watch NFL football games? How often do you hear players praised for their philanthropic work? I posted this on Twitter in 2024 sharing the idea from this post.

What if a university aggregated this information and then used it to recruit a group of athletes who support the same cause, to support a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy at the university that was building the database of athlete involvement?

What if? What if? What if?

What if you share this article in your networks? Maybe someone will read it and adopt the idea and actually take the next steps.

That’s why I write these articles.

If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Thanks for reading.  There's a lot here, so bookmark the page and return often.  Then, look me up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and let's connect.  If you're writing similar articles, which I hope you will, please share them.

Finally, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

Systems Thinking - Case Studies

 A few days ago I found this post on LinkedIn by Simon MacCormac. It shared a paper he wrote about Systems Thinking.  That's a topic I've written about often in the past. 

I started a conversation that ultimately asked, "Who is aggregating links to case studies showing the application of systems thinking in solving complex problems?"

Today Simon shared two links. The first is SCiO (Systems and Complexity Organization) which is building a library of case studies showing successful application of systems methodologies.  click here

Open the site and scroll through the collection.  If you're looking to solve a complex (or simple) problem you can find some ideas among these case studies.

The second is the Systems Thinking Case Study Bank, hosted by the UK Government. click here

I found the map shown above by scrolling through the list of articles on this page.  It was part of an interview with Caitlin Jones about a project aimed at reforming agricultural policy design.  There are many like this on the site.

I shared the graphic below and this article with Simon on LinkedIn. 

This shows my own application of systems thinking to visualize the many problems that need to be solved to make volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available to K-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood, then to help those programs build long-term connections between youth, volunteers and the program, that lead kids safely through school into adult lives.

Over the 30 years I've been leading the Tutor/Mentor Connection I've come to realize that this is only one of many challenges that need to be addressed. I show many of these on the right side of the graphic. Each one should have many people applying systems thinking practices to find solutions and make them available in every place where that problem persists.

That's a wicked problem. A huge challenge.  How to start? Collect information showing how others are already trying to solve the problem. Learn from that. Then begin innovating your own solutions.

As you do that share your ideas with me and others on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. We can learn from you as you learn from us.

If you appreciate what I'm sharing please help fund the work I'm doing. click here

What's Needed in an on-line Tutor/Mentor Program Locator?

This week I posted a new article on Substack.com that shows how I've been using GIG maps since 1993. I hope you'll read it. click here

I pointed to articles on the MappingforJustice blog, such as this one, that show examples of how I've used maps, and how others are doing similar work. 

And, I encouraged universities, and others, to borrow from my history  and build their own platform to support youth-serving programs in their community, and to help them reach more K-12 kids in every high poverty area.  

So what is involved.  Take a look at this concept map.

From left to right I show

a) boundary layers - city, zip code, community area, state and federal legislative districts, etc.

b) indicators layers - poverty, violence, poorly performing schools, etc.

c) programs - while I focus on tutor/mentor programs, this could also show arts/science, or other types of services which need to be located close to consumers, meaning many are needed throughout the city.  The programs layer can be sorted by age group served, type of program, time of day

sample map

d) this shows the goal of the program locator, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection/ Institute, LLC.  We want to help leaders use this to build support for existing programs and help new ones form where needed.  At the right is an example of a map view that can be created using the program locator, then adding additional annotation using Power Point

e) assets layers - in this section you can find sub sections for banks,  hospitals, universities, faith groups, drug stores, and insurance companies, with offices/branches in different locations throughout the city. 

sample map

Using this information a map of a small section of the city can be created that shows indicators of need, existing programs and assets who share the geography, and thus should be expected to support programs that help kids in that area.

Ideally an updated version of the Program Locator would find ways to pull data on assets from resource files on the Internet, making this a continually updated feature.

Two features were never built into the program locator.

a) I wanted to be able to connect data from indicators into a form that program leaders (or donors) could use to determine the need for tutor/mentor programs in specific neighborhoods.  Imagine clicking on a community area and getting a form showing number of kids; level of poverty, locations of existing programs, age group, type of program, etc. A program would just fill in their program information on the form and get a printed document to send to a donor.  View this PDF to see how a map might show the number of kids in a community area. 

b) I wanted to create another layer that could be used to raise money for programs shown on the map, and to track donations to do an analysis showing the different levels of funding going to different neighborhoods.  I describe what I have in mind on this page of my planning wiki.

In another concept map I've been sharing links to platforms that collect and map data, shown all the places in the country where people need extra help.

Most of these show where help is needed, but don't host a directory of organizations who are trying to solve those problems.  And, if a service needs to be close in order for people to participate, many such organizations would be needed in big cities like Chicago.

And they all compete with each other for scarce funding.

If you live in one of the cities where there are pockets of concentrated poverty and your newspaper headlines are showing "bad news" happening,  why not reach out to technologists in your community or at your local university.  Show them how I've been using maps and the Program Locator that was built in 2008. 

Encourage them to build a similar resource for your community.

If you'd like my help, just reach out on LinkedIn.

That's just one place where you can find me. Visit this page to see my social media links.

And, if you want to help me pay the bills, visit this page. 

Tutor/Mentor Learning Network - What is it?

I shared the two visual essays shown below in a new article on Substack.com.  I hope you'll take time to view it and dig into the essays.

The first shows how I've been collecting and sharing information for the past 30+ years, via the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present).  This slide shows how I link to other organizations that represent specific areas of expertise.

My goal is not to have links to "everything" on my website, but to point to other websites who aggregated information about specific topics, or specific groups of organizations.

Open the PDF at this link. 

The second essay shows more of what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been building since 1993.  I call it a "capacity-building" network.

Note the "mentoring to careers" graphic in the first image and the map of Chicago in the second. Both have photos of kids and volunteers who were part of the programs I led.  These signal an intention to help similar programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other places.

While many intermediaries collect and share information, I’ve found few who host a list of programs that do similar work, then constantly try to draw attention, volunteers and donors to EACH of these places. That’s what makes the Tutor/Mentor Connection unique, and difficult to understand.

Click here to view the visual essay.

While I've piloted this work since 1993, via a small non-profit (until 2011), I've constantly reached out to convince colleges and universities to adopt the strategy, as a teaching tool, and for their own self-interests.   The second visual essay shows roles students could take.  Many articles on this blog do the same.

This is becoming a much more urgent concern.  I'm 79 and in the early stages of a lung disease that will ultimately end my life.  This blog and the sites it points to are just one entry point into what started for me in 1973 when I became a volunteer in the Tutoring Program hosted by employees at the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago.  

I studied history in College then spent three years in U.S. Army Intelligence. Both taught me to look for best-available information to support my efforts to constantly improve my work in retail advertising at Wards and my volunteer-role as a tutor, then leader, of the program at Wards.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) I've been sharing this library with others in Chicago and throughout the world!

These visual essays show much of what I've been doing.  

If you have been blessed with great wealth, and you care about helping solve complex, long-term problems, please consider making a gift to a university, focused on building a Tutor/Mentor Connection-type program, including taking ownership of my archives, websites, blogs and all the work I've been doing.

I'd love to connect on ZOOM with anyone who is interested in helping make this happen.

These photos show me in 1973 with Leo Hall and in 2014 as he celebrated his 50th birthday. We're still connected in 2026.  It's one of many reasons I keep trying to help mentor-rich programs grow in more places.

Thanks for reading.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky and/or Mastodon.  See links here.

Finally, I don't charge people to use these ideas and resources, but there is a cost to me to keep doing this work.  Visit this page if you'd like to help me pay the bills.

Role for alumni of tutor/mentor programs

A few days ago I saw this post on Facebook.  It's from Kaeaiya Holmes, who, in the 1990s, was a student in the tutor/mentor programs that I led in Chicago.  She's now Regional Director of Nursing at Centurion Health.

She was responding to the LOGIC MODEL graphic that I had shared.

She started by saying, "This post resonates with me because I wasn't just connected to the Tutor/Mentor movement, I was impacted by it."

Click on the image and enlarge it so you can read the rest.

She's taking a role that I've encouraged many alumni to take. She talks about the value of mentor-rich programs and says "What I appreciate about this model is that it recognizes that  mentoring isn't just about one relationship.   In communities where poverty affects thousands of children, we need strong organizations, safe spaces, and mentor-rich programs that create opportunities for young people to learn, grow and thrive.  These programs become anchors, providing stability, hope and a sense of belonging."

Every time I post a blog article or on social media I'm hoping that one or more former students will take time to read it, then share it, using their own stories and talents, to encourage others to get involved and help mentor-rich programs grow in more places.

Be like Kaeaiya!

Focus on conditions that affect student performance - new UCLA Center report

Today I read a new article from the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools, titled "Disregarding Inequities Fuels Victim Blaming".  It focuses on how "far too little attention is focused on the role that societal and school inequalities play in shaping both student difficulties and school performance outcomes."  I encourage you to open this PDF and read the article. 

6-26-2026 update - the UCLA Center shared another report about the "Cycle of disinvestment in public schools".  Click here to read it.

This is not new information to me. I've been collecting articles like this for over 30 years and sharing them in my library and via posts like this.  

Below is a concept map showing sections of the library that have related information.  I added the new UCLA article to the "Education" research section.

This is something I started doing nearly 50 years ago.  It started as I was interacting with others, talking about ways to build and sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  Most conversations would include an introduction of new ideas from the people I was talking to.  In most situations, the ideas might generate interest, but when the two people leave the conversation, the ideas does not necessarily go with them.  

I started writing down ideas on scratch paper, even paper napkins, then putting them in a "ideas folder" in my office.  From time-to-time I went through that folder, reminding myself of these ideas, which often led me to include them in program upgrades.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I dramatically expanded the range of ideas I was collecting, and made them available to other tutor/mentor program leaders in Chicago.  When I started using the Internet in the late 1990s I moved the library to a website and I've been adding to it for the past 26-plus years!

Thus, if you look in the set of education research articles (at this link) you'll find many articles that point to this problem. It's not new.  

And, if you open the other sections shown on the concept map, you'll find even more information that supports the ideas in the Summer 2026 UCLA Center's article.

I created this graphic in the 1990s to show how anyone can take a role that draws people to this information and begins building understanding and a commitment to long-term, widely distributed solutions.  The big circle represents the library and smaller circles represent groups of people gathering regularly to read, discuss, reflect and innovate.

The map of Chicago at the far right highlights high poverty areas were these conditions exist. A full range of youth and family support systems is needed in EACH of these areas.

In 2011an intern from South Korea, via IIT in Chicago, looked at my graphic, then created her own version.  I show it below.

This is actually shown in two graphics. Visit this 2011 article and see both.   Note that the title of the article is "Volunteer your talent with Tutor/Mentor Institute".   It's an invitation I've shared over-and-over.  

That's because until people in every community are drawing their networks to this information, the problems won't go away.  Too few people are involved.  

Yet, as I wrote last week, students could be doing what interns did for me in past years.  They can look at the information I'm sharing, then create and share their own interpretations.  

They don't need to do this via the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  In fact, it really needs to be part of an on-going learning and leadership program embedded into every middle school, high school and college in the country.  There could be hundreds of blogs that aggregate and share student work. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn and other social media. Share your own ideas and visualizations.  Don't look back in 30 years at the Summer 2026 UCLA article and say, "Why has nothing changed?"

I still depend on a few donors to help me pay the expenses associated with my work. Visit this page if you'd like to help.

Response to post on LinkedIn - re making sense of youth unemployment in Tunisia

 As I scrolled through LinkedIn today I saw this map, posted in this article by Mark Oldenbeuving.

I wrote a comment on LinkedIn, but by the time I finished I was 300 characters over the limit.  So I'm posting it below.

------

Thanks for sharing your work. As I look at your map I say "there are a lot of people and organizations represented" and from your article I think you have a database of them.

Then I ask, "are you holding conferences, meetings and networking/learning events" that invite people from your database to attend? Have you done this once or twice a year for several years? I assume "yes" to the first, and "no" to the second, since your work is so new.

I started building a database of the youth-service/education ecosystem in Chicago in 1994 and begin inviting people to gather for conferences every six months. Last fall and this spring teams of students from Indiana University's Information Visualization MOOC created dashboards, and Kumu maps, using my participation records, that show "who was attending" and "who was missing". I wish I had had that info 20 years ago! You can view their reports at https://tutormentorexchange.net/mapping-participation

Below is a view from one of the Kumu maps. This shows the two 1999 conferences that I held in Chicago. Each green node is a participant.  The nodes in the middle are people who attended both events.

The underlying thinking is that kids need 12 years of support just to go from 1st grade to high school, and more to get into jobs. Maps can show underserved areas where comprehensive, on-going programs are needed for many years. Drawing attention and resources to these places can be a role taken by intermediaries, as well as youth themselves.

I posted an article earlier today showing a role youth could be taking to collect and share this information. 

As Mark indicated, there are many related issues that all make this more difficult. Building the database and starting an invitation process is a beginning.

The 2025 team created a tool that others could use to collect and map participation from their events. It's open source so you and others might try using it. 

Reaching out through social media to connect with others who are thinking about the same problems is one way I've expanded my own knowledge and grown the library of ideas that I share freely with others.

I hope you'll connect with me. 

Changing how social benefit organizations get funded

Last week I shared links to a couple of researchers at different universities in this article. I hope you'll read it then follow their posts on LinkedIn.

Here's another post by Daniel Max Crowley, which you can find here on LinkedIn.

As I thought about this I said to myself, "It does not go far enough."  That motivated me to look up an article I posted in 2007.  It's titled "Many to one. Not one to Many."

I'm reposting it below because the ideas are as important today as they were 20 years ago. Furthermore, the tools to identify where people need help, and what organizations already work in those areas, and who also need help, are dramatically better than in the past.  The articles I point to on LinkedIn illustrate this.

---- begin 2007 ----

The image of the lonesome warrior is one that reminds me of the men and women who are fighting overseas to make this a better world. As we count our blessings, let's pray for the young people in our armed forces.

However, this image is also one that I think of when I think of the people leading social benefit organizations around the world, mostly in isolation, mostly with too few resources to do everything they are trying to do.



Those who lead small non profits, or are struggling to get social benefit ideas launched, may relate to this One-To-Many graphic. We're constantly reaching out in many different directions, trying to find the help we need. We're like fish in a bowl, competing with thousands of others for a limited amount of dollars and volunteers. Unless you've got a powerful marketing machine, or are well connected in donor circles, you succeed some of the time, but not most of the time, and you spend tremendous amounts of emotional capital and energy all of the time.



Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I'm trying to change this. I'm trying to recruit leaders in many places who lead strategic thinking process in their organization that aligns social benefit with corporate and organizational strategy. Such leaders will use their own advertising, visibility and resources to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that lead kids to careers, because it's a core business strategy.

See this concept map at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Many-to-1

I've been saying this for a long time, but last week I found an article on the Harvard Business Review that reinforces this concept. The article is titled Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. Written by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer.

Education and workforce development are of strategic importance for most industries. Thus, if leaders of business, health care, law, journalism, sports and entertainment, etc. are strategic, they can use tools like the Program Locator and Chicago Program Links to choose what part of a city they want to support, and what programs they want to help grow from good to great.

This isn't a strategy to support just one tutor/mentor program, or one brand name like the Boys and Girls Clubs, it's a strategy to help every high poverty neighborhood have comprehensive programs that are one end of the pipeline to jobs and careers for businesses that are strategically engaging their corporate resources to help grow their future workforce.

Over the next seven days millions of people will make charitable decisions, either for good will, or for tax deductions. Choose a program like Cabrini Connections, which I led from 1992 to 2011, or one of the others listed in the Links Library, and this will show the impact of Many to One.

--- end 2007 -----

In April 2024 I posted an article with a PDF essay showing my 30 years of "reaching out to universities".  If you skim through the PDF you'll see some great work done by interns from many different universities.  Now imagine the impact if these had been on-going programs where the work done by interns in one year was carried forward by others the next year, and the year after that.

This was just one of many articles that I've posted on this blog the invite universities to create their own on-campus tutor/mentor connections.  I'd love to help.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and/or Mastodon.  

And, if you'd like to help me pay the bills to keep this information available to you, please visit this page and send a few dollars.

Unleashing Influence of Business School Students

On LinkedIn I'm following a series of posts by Brad Fulton, of Indiana University, showing how they are "Building a comprehensive data analytics platform that integrates information from millions of tax filings, grants and other sources related to philanthropic giving."

I introduced his work and provided links in this article about "Making Philanthropy Work Better".

More recently I've been following LinkedIn posts by Daniel Max Crowley of Penn State University, such as the one I show below. 

Dr. Crowley is challenging universities to rethink how they use their research to increase public impact.  I  introduced Dr. Fulton to Dr. Crowley this week, since getting more people to find and use the philanthropy research, can be part of the strategies Dr. Crowley advocates for.

This is something I've tried to influence for more than 25 years.  Find the graphic shown below in this article, titled "Leaders Needed to Solve Complex Problems". 

In that article I called on more strategic involvement from universities and shared a student-involvement strategy that I began framing in the late 1990s.  In 2006 a Net Impact Fellow from the University of Chicago formalized it in a wiki article titled "Business School Connection".

Here's a paragraph summarizing the goal.

The Business School Connection is an concept strategy created by the Tutor Mentor Connection in the mid 1990s. Its goal is to create a link between business schools and tutor mentor organizations around the nation where business schools and their students use the skills they are learning in an on-going effort to increase visibility and raise operating dollars and volunteers to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the city where a business school is located, and in other parts of the country. The T/MC believes that MBA students have unique ways of thinking and valuable connections that can be used to channel monetary and in-kind resources to tutor mentor organizations.

Below is a graphic showing the year-round public awareness and network-building strategy that I began in 1993 and still follow in 2026.  

Imagine what might happen if students from business schools, marketing and communications classes and journalism schools were running campaigns every year that use data like what Brad Fulton is collecting, to draw attention and resources to every high poverty zip code in the country. Imagine this being a competition between high profile universities, to see who does it better.

If the work done in one year, by one team of students, is saved on a website at the university, all teams could learn from what was done in the past in an on-going effort to do better in the future.  Sharing this resource across many universities would accelerate the innovations and the impact of this program on the well-being of the community surrounding the university.

Imagine the slices of the leadership pie in the upper left side of this graphic being different business schools, who each focus on building more support for youth-serving programs in their communities. See it in this article. 

Last fall and this spring students from an Information Visualization MOOC at Indiana University created dashboards to show participation in the 1994 to 2015 May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  This was a follow up to earlier work done in 2014. They showed how data can be collected from registration forms and/or surveys then uploaded into visualization tools like Kumu.io, Gephi and Tableau.  Below is one example.

You can read about the IVMOOC work in articles found here and here.

Now imagine a team of students using the tools the IVMOOC teams have created to identify all of the departments within a university ecosystem that focus on a common issue, which could be very narrow, like tutoring, or much broader, like education and youth development.

Connecting those already doing this work is a step toward identifying those who are not yet involved.  I suspect not many business schools would show up on the first round of surveys if the goal was to find programs aimed at expanding the networks of kids living in areas of concentrated poverty.

Last month this blog recorded 519,578 page views.  That's a huge increase over previous months. I'm not sure what is driving this, but I hope it continues and that it leads to people from more places looking at the ideas I'm sharing.  Maybe one will be someone like Mackenzie Scott, who's looking for new ways to make a lasting impact with their wealth.  

Funding a Tutor/Mentor Connection with Business School Connection at one or more universities would be a great investment.

Thanks for reading.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky and/or Mastodon.  See links on this page.

I depend on contributions from a small group of supporters to fund the work I'm doing.  Visit this page if you'd like to help.

Traffic up on this blog and Tutor/Mentor website

I've been writing this blog since April 2005 and look monthly at the "stats".  Below is the report through June 3, 2026.  Look at how many people visited the site in May.... 518,578!  That's the largest single month ever!

Then visit the home page of www.tutormentorexchange.net and look at the "Who's Online since 7-7-25" box in the upper right side of the home page.

That shows 2,580,506 guests since July 7, 2025.  This has averaged around 250,000 visits a month since last July when the feature was added to the website.

I don't get a lot of comments on the blog so don't know who, or how many, are using the ideas to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in the Chicago region or in other cities and states.  I don't know what sparked the huge increase of visits in May 2026.  

I even recorded a large number of views of my visual essays on Scribd.com last month.  Over 15,000!

Below is a graphic that I've used for many years.  The big circle represents all the information that I host on my website and share in my blog articles. The map of Chicago emphasizes my goal of helping long-term volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood.

The YOU represents anyone who looks at the information I'm sharing, then shares it with their own network.  That can be as simple as just reposting an article.  It can be more sophisticated, by how someone creates their own version of an article or visual essay, then shares it on their own social media platforms.  

As more people take this role, it leads more people to information they can use to build and sustain programs that help K-12 kids through school and into jobs and careers, free of the challenges facing those who live in areas of concentrated poverty.

I'll turn 80 this December. I hope. My lung doctor told me this week that my lung disease is not getting better and that I should be planning for end-of-life activities.  He did not say this was "imminent". But, it was part of the conversation. 

That just means it is more important than ever that a donor steps forward to provide funds that motivate a university to create an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection, with my archives, websites, blogs, etc. hosted by them and their students/alumni.  Here's one article where I've extended that invitation. 

If you are the YOU in the graphic shown above, who can you share this with who has the money/influence to motivate one, or many, universities to create an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection?  

I don't know how many years I have left.  Even without a progressive lung disease, none of us really knows when our time has ended.  In the meantime, I'll keep posting and keep looking for a way to preserve my 50 year history so others can learn from it after I'm gone.

Please share my posts and connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and/or Mastodon.

And, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills while I'm still here!

Thank you!   

Honor their sacrifices. Keep fighting.

Monday is Memorial Day.  I've posted articles like these, almost every year since starting this blog in 2005. They all have a similar message.  "Honor the sacrifices of those who served by giving your time, talent, dollars and votes to create systems of hope and opportunity for youth living in areas of highly concentrated poverty."

In 2013 Kyungryul Kim, an intern from South Korea, created this video, showing steps needed to fight this war.  It was based on a blog article I wrote earlier.

 

I point to more than 150 Chicago area youth-serving programs in lists I have built since the early 1990s. My goal has been to help each program attract more consistent attention and a better flow of needed operating resources.   

The "War on Poverty" video highlights each of the steps shown on this graphic.

Every city and state needs a planning process like this. I don't think I've ever seen one from any Mayor of Chicago.  That's one reason we're still fighting this war.  If leaders in your community have created a visual like this to show their process, please share it.

I follow most of Chicago's volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning organizations on their social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.  Very few post on BlueSky, Threads or Mastodon.  I don't use Tic Toc, so don't know how frequently Chicago youth-serving programs are posting there.

That means I'm able to see posts by leaders of many different tutor/mentor programs.  Many are eloquent in making the case for why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed.   

A couple of weeks ago Jeffrey Beckham, Jr,. CEO of Chicago Scholars, wrote this article, titled "The Power of Mirrors and Windows".   In it he wrote, 

"Someone else asked me recently, how do you not burn out doing this work? 

 The answer is the young people. They keep you honest. 

 Every single scholar I meet reminds me why it matters. You don’t burn out when you stay close to the people you are doing it for. You burn out when you get too far away from them, and it starts feeling like strategy instead of people."

I feel the same way.

My passion for the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I've led since 2011 through Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, comes from my interactions with students and volunteers of the Montgomery Ward-Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, which I led from 1975 to 1992 and Cabrini Connections, which I formed in late 1992 and led until mid 2011.  

Read Jeffrey's article, and follow the posts by other tutor, mentor and learning programs.  As we honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our country's freedom, these show that the war is not over.  There's much you can do to help youth and families living in areas of concentrated poverty.

There's much you can do to stop the damage being done to the United States of America by the current President and his supporters.  

One thing you can do is keep reading my blog articles, then share your interpretations of them with your own network, the way Kyungryul Kim did in 2013.

Many voices will be needed, for many years.

Have a safe holiday.  

I depend on contributions from a small group of donors to keep doing this work. If you can help, visit this page. 

Influencing Career Aspirations - Role of Business & Mentoring

I originally wrote this article in 2013.  Since the ideas still apply, I'm sharing it again, with a few edits and additions.

--- begin 2013 article ----

In this UK report titled "Nothing in Common: The Career Aspirations of Young Britons Mapped against Projected Labor Market Demands (2010-2020)" the authors show that career aspirations for many youth do not align with available jobs and call for greater business involvement with education efforts to change this.

This lack of alignment is probably as common in the US as in the UK. So what are businesses and mentoring programs doing about it? Since I've led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program for over 35 years I've come to believe that having mentors from different business and professional backgrounds involved with young people can expand the types of career choices youth might aspire to. The image below shows young people in the Cabrini Connections program engaged in performance activities. One of those young people, Tramaine Montel Ford, is now a professional actor in New York, who says his "acting bug" started with the video program at Cabrini Connections.



At Cabrini Connections every teen was in a one-on-one match with volunteers from different business backgrounds. However, since this was a site-based program, other volunteers were also able to participate, organizing small learning groups (we called clubs) focused on technology, art, video, writing, dance, etc. These never had funding for consistent staff support so the level of activity from year to year was inconsistent, but they all provided a range of extra learning opportunities for the teens who participated.

In the mid 1990s I tried to create a new term for this type of mentoring program. I called it "Total Quality Mentoring (TQM)" borrowing from the business concept of Total Quality Management. I was describing a type of mentoring that had many different influences, and was constantly looking for ways to improve its impact by engaging the talents of volunteers and youth in all phases of program operations. This graphic was created to demonstrate this program model.

The center of the "wheel" is a youth, with the spokes representing the different types of influences that a program might expose the youth to via the volunteers who participate and the activities the program offers. This graphic also is the model for a "program" which recruits volunteers from different work backgrounds and recruits youth in elementary or middle school and works to keep them involved all through high school. As the Internet became available, this vision extends to building a life-long network connecting youth and volunteers with each other in a virtual support system.

Each spoke of the wheel has an arrow going both ways. Every time a volunteer interacts with a youth in a weekly tutor/mentor session he/she is learning something about that child and the community he/she lives in. Every week that volunteer informally shares what is learned with his friends, family and co-workers. The longer the volunteer stays involved, the greater his empathy/understanding grows and the more he is willing to do to support the youth, and often the program. This animation illustrates this service-learning loop. If volunteers are well-supported by consistent staff involvement, they will stay involved longer and many will begin to bring other volunteers, other learning opportunities, and even financial support, to the organization.

Read this 2013 Education Week article about the "eight conditions for student success" and see how "belonging" and "heroes" influence student aspirations.  I was first introduced to this in 1999 at a conference in Portland, Oregon.  It changed my termination from "motivating" students to "building student aspirations".   

Every spoke in the chart also points to a specific industry cluster that has different workforce readiness needs. In this graphic I emphasize the 12 years it takes to go from first grade through high school and the ways business could support this journey with volunteer involvement, technology, ideas and on-going funding. If companies were to look at this strategically, they could be supporting volunteers with ideas they could take to their tutor/mentor sessions. Thus, volunteers from engineering and manufacturing could be using clay and animation to teach thinking skills to elementary school kids, that might motivate aspirations for these types of careers. They also might organize field trips and job shadowing during middle school years. In addition they might offer part time jobs and internships during high school years, and even provide scholarship money and summer jobs during college years.

Here's a visual essay showing the Total Quality Mentoring idea - click here

In the above graphics you'll see inserts with maps showing high poverty areas of Chicago.  While this article shares ideas for helping individual tutor/mentor programs constantly improve, the overall goal of my articles is to help motivate donors, policy-makers and business leaders to provide the on-going resources needed to make mentor-rich non-school learning programs available to K-12 youth in every high poverty area of the Chicago region.  

If political leaders recognized the importance of this strategy they could be recruiting and recognizing companies from every industry who were adopting this strategy. The result would be that volunteers and financial support would be coming to each program in the city from many different sectors, creating a broader base of funding needed to ensure that each program had talented staff that would stay with these programs longer, and that youth were surrounded with volunteers modeling many different career aspirations, not just one or two.

If you are a volunteer, alumni, student, parent, donor, etc. you can share this idea with people in your network who are involved in different industries, or who are in media, entertainment and/or politics and who might provide encouragement for companies to adopt the Total Quality Mentoring model.

If you're being asked to contribute $50 million for a new anti-violence strategy wouldn't it make sense if this was also a workforce development strategy?

--- end 2013 article ---

I wrote this 13 years ago yet, the need is as great, or greater, today than it was then.  And with COVID, distance learning, and artificial intelligence, there are new issues to understand.

Since last December I've been posting graphics like this, showing who participated in one, more more, of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. Browse these articles to see some of these. 

As I post articles like this one, my goal is that readers will share it with their networks and that this leads to people using the Open Source Mapping Tool created by the Fall 2025 IVMOOC team at Indiana University, to show who's connecting around these ideas.  

If  you're using these ideas or creating your own versions please connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Mastodon, Facebook and/or Twitter to share your work. 

Finally, I depend on contributions from a small group of supporters to keep doing this work. If you'd like to help, visit this page.