Mapping & Analyzing Participation - Spring 2026 IVMOOC

Over the past few months I've shared work done in Fall 2025 by a team of #IVMOOC (Information Visualization) students from Indiana University. They are using history of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago from May 1994 to May 2015 to build tools that anyone can use to understand engagement in events they organize and/or networks they have been building.   

In this post I'm introducing work done by the Spring 2026 IVMOOC team.

Below is the home page of the dashboard they developed.

Under the heading of "Mapping & Analyzing Participation" they wrote:  "Who shows up to build a community? Which organizations sustain engagement over years, and which sectors are consistently absent? This platform answers those questions using 6410 attendance records from 42 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences hosted by Daniel F. Bassill between 1994 and 2015.

Raw attendance sheets are transformed through a documented pipeline — normalization, network construction, and visualization — so findings can be reproduced, extended, and applied to future events. The methodology is explicit at every stage."

You can explore this at this link. 

Across the top of the page are tabs for "Methodology, Dashboard, Search, Network Maps, More".  

On the Methodology page they wrote: "This project documents a reproducible pipeline for transforming raw conference attendance records into analyzable social network data. Each of the four stages below is codified — the inputs, transformations, and outputs are explicit so the process can be repeated, extended, or adapted for future events."

The Analytics Dashboard is where you can explore the conference data.  I show two views from my own searching. The first looks at 1996 conference participation.  

The Fall 2025 data analysis did not organize the data by category, such as program, college, intermediary, etc.  The 2026 team has created 11 categories.  Thus you can explore by year and by category to better understand where there was strong participation and where it was weak.  The "blue" color represents people associated with volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs based in Chicago and other states. These were the majority at each conference.

The Network Maps page has three visualizations created using the data. Below I show a view created using Map 2 on the page.  

I entered "Lawyers" in the search bar at the upper left, and got a view showing the Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program. When I hovered my cursor over their icon, I received a view showing other organizations who attended the same conferences.

At the bottom of the map are the categories you can search to learn more about participation.  Below is a view that I created by selecting the "college" category, then highlighting DePaul University.

If I had this tool when I was hosting the conferences I could have collected data on what workshops people attended, then mapped this to show more ways people connected with each other.

The "More" button at the far right in the top menu has four sections.  One shows "previous iterations". 

This says, "Before this platform, a student team (Team K) built NetworkMap: a web application for collecting participant data at live events and converting it into network-ready exports. That work established the core problem statement — how do you get from a conference sign-in sheet to a social network graph? — and demonstrated one viable answer. This platform picks up where it left off, extending the pipeline toward rigorous analysis and reproducible visualization."

The Kumu.io visualization created by the Fall 2025 team enabled you to search by year, then look at participation in the two conferences held that year. An example is shown at the left. 

The Spring 2026 team enabled a search by organization, and by category. I showed a couple of examples above.
 
This is what I've hoped for in the past as interns have worked with me.  By having new students learn from past work, they can build improvements into the analysis.   On-going iterations of the work create high quality data and educate more people to use the resource in their own networking efforts.  It's been my goal when I've posted articles like "Reaching out to Universities."

Another page under the "more" tab is the "Project Roadmap". 

This is a detailed review of what work has been done and what work still needs to be done by future IVMOOC teams.  In the "Data Cleaning" column is a recognition that work still needs to be done to clean the data so that organizations who registered under different spelling and/or grammar, don't show on the charts as different orgs. 

For instance, if you use the Organization Search page you can enter the name of your organization and see if it participated in one, or many, conferences.  I searched for "lawyers" and the "Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program" showed up 18 times!  

Mapping & Analyzing Participation - Spring 2026 IVMOOC presentation.  Since this is a formal class project, the team was graded based on the presentation they created, which was shared via a ZOOM call last Monday.

Open this page and view the IVMOOC presentation.  Page 2 is shown below.

This says, "What Problem are We Solving?

 20+ years of conference attendance data exists but has never been fully analyzed in terms of reproducibility No system exists to visualize who participated, how often, or across which sectors. The data is the evidence base for Daniel's network-building work ." 

There is a LOT of information here.  Thank you to the students from Indiana University who worked on  it.  I hope many will take a look and then apply the ideas to their own work.

I have created a "Mapping Event Participation" page on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  Visitors can use this to learn about the work done by IVMOOC teams and to find resources they can use to apply this process to their own event management.

What's next.  I'll update this blog as I receive updated materials from the IVMOOC team.  Hopefully I'll be part of the Fall 2026 IVMOOC, or the one after that. There's still plenty of work to do.

Since 1993 interns helped me grow the site-based Cabrini Connections program and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  In 2006 I asked Michael Tam, and intern from Hong Kong to create a blog to share what he was learning.  You can read his posts starting here.

I've used his blog since 2006 to show work done by other interns since then. My most recent post's headline is "Tipping Point - Role of Universities". 

The work being done by IVMOOC teams illustrates my goal of motivating people to spend time reviewing my blog and websites, reflecting on the work being done, then creating their own interpretations.  This expands the number of people thinking more deeply about ways to help youth and families living in areas of concentrated, segregated poverty and the role of organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs.  

Thus, as you look at the work done by the IVMOOC teams, think of ways you can help others build this event analysis process into their on-going efforts.  And think of ways students from many universities can be helping.  If you have the means, consider making a major gift to your local university to create an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection, where there is a multi-decade stream of students looking at this work and building on what was done in previous years.    

I encourage you to connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and/or Mastodon.  (see links here).

And, if you are able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills.

Study Guide - Tutor/Mentor on Substack.com

When I became the volunteer leader of the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program in 1975 I was holding a full-time retail advertising job with the company. The program started that year with 100 pairs of 2nd-6th grade kids and workplace volunteers.

There was no way I could personally train every volunteer, so I tried to create a "learning" organization by providing information they could use via our monthly newsletters and weekly handouts.

I continued that practice through email newsletters, blogs, a website and social media through 2011 when I stopped leading a single program. I've continued that practice through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) in an effort to build more consistent support to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach K-12 kids in every high poverty area of the Chicago region and beyond.

I've posted articles on this blog since 2005 and on the MappingforJustice blog since 2011 (it was started by Mike Trakan in 2008). I've posted on the Intern blog since it was started by an intern from Hong Kong in 2006.

They are represent a curriculum of ideas that could be embedded in any leadership training program.

Since last fall I've posted a series of articles on Substack.com that aim to highlight featured ideas. Below you can see images for these posts.

You can find links to each of these at https://substack.com/@danielbassill319958

Open this 1984-85 Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program archive and you'll find copies of several newsletters like the one I shared at the top of this article. 

While the maps and much of the research points to Chicago where there are thousands of kids living in highly segregated high-poverty areas, the ideas and strategies can be applied in any city in the world.  I invite you to view them, and created your own versions, putting your own maps and ideas into them.

Then connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms and help build awareness and involvement with these ideas, and with youth-serving programs in more places. Find links on this page.

Thanks for reading.  I depend on a few long-time supporters for small donations that help me continue this work.  Visit this page if you'd like to help. 

Where does "tutor/mentor" land using AI search?

With the growing use of Artificial Intelligence tools like Gemini, I asked myself if these have replaced going to a Google landing page to do a search.  

I wrote this article in 2014, titled "Look in your Google mirror!"  In it I talked about how my websites have consistently shown up multiple times on the first and second pages of most searches when I entered "tutor/mentor".  That's been true since the mid 2000s.   

So I wondered what where my sites would land on a Gemini search for the word combination "tutor/mentor". Below is the result.

--- begin Gemini ---

For a search specifically using the "tutor/mentor" word combination (often stylized with the slash), the results are dominated by a specific long-standing initiative focused on social networking and community mapping, as well as university-specific peer programs. Here are the top ten organic (non-paid) results that appear for that specific term:

Top 10 "Tutor/Mentor" Search Results

Site Name	Focus Area	Resource Type
1. Tutor/Mentor Institute	Program Mapping	The primary hub for the "Tutor/Mentor Connection," focusing on using data/maps to support volunteer programs.
2. MENTOR Mentoring Connector	National Database	A massive search engine to find local programs based on the combined "tutor/mentor" service model.
3. University of Rochester Learning Center	Higher Ed Peer Support	A specialized program where "Tutor Mentors" provide both academic help and student life guidance.
4. Tutor/Mentor Connection Knowledge Base	Library & Archives	A wiki-style library containing decades of research on the tutor/mentor social movement.
5. Davidson Institute	Gifted Youth	A guide specifically titled for finding a "Tutor or Mentor" for highly advanced or gifted children.
6. Tutor/Mentor Conference	Networking Events	A site dedicated to the semi-annual conferences that bring together leaders of tutoring and mentoring organizations.
7. Medium (Daniel Bassill)	Strategy Articles	Deep-dive articles on the "Tutor/Mentor" philosophy and its application in urban environments like Chicago.
8. Scribd (Tutor/Mentor Program Profiles)	Data Documents	Publicly shared PDFs and profiles of various volunteer-based tutor/mentor organizations.
9. Tutor.com - Our Tutors	Service Marketplace	Though a commercial site, it ranks organically for its descriptions of staff who serve the dual role of "Tutor/Mentor."
10. Step Up Tutoring	Elementary Support	A program that defines its volunteers as "tutors/mentors" to emphasize the relationship-building aspect over just academics.

---

Key Takeaway for this Search

When you use the specific slash format "tutor/mentor", the search results shift away from general "tutor" ads and toward The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC). This is a framework developed by Dan Bassill that treats tutoring and mentoring as a single integrated strategy for poverty reduction and student success.

Most of the top results (1, 4, 6, and 7) are actually different branches of this same 30-year-old initiative.

 ---- end Gemini ----

Below is a view of the home page of www.tutormentorexchange.net.  When the site was updated last July a "who's online" feature was added.  As of today, 2.27 million visits have been recorded.

I'm not working with any SEA companies, nor do I have any money for advertising.

Yet having my sites show up when people ask an AI tool to look for "tutor/mentor" and show my sites featured in the results, must mean there is value to what I'm doing.  The 2.27 visits since July 2025 seems impressive. 

I don't know if that last paragraph in the Gemini response was biased because I asked the question, but if not, it's a great endorsement of what I'm doing.

I invite others to ask their AI the same question. Do you get a similar response?  Please let me know.

In 1999 I was awarded the Good Housekeeping "Good as Gold" award during the filming of the December 31, 1999 segment of the Montel Williams TV show.  A $10,000 check, payable to Dan Bassill, was included.  I asked them to redo the check, making it payable to "Cabrini Connections", which I had formed in late 1992. We added the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.

I wrote this article in 2011, titled "Ten Years Ago - Just Prior to 9/11".  It shows many recognitions for work I'd been doing. 

Now, it's 2026 and I'm living off Social Security and funding the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC through small contributions made by a small group of college fraternity brothers, past volunteers, and people who've become fans of my work over the past three decades.

I hope this article convinces a few more people to go to this page and send a contribution to help me keep doing this work. Thank you.

Compensation studies for Youth Development field

On LinkedIn Valerie Leonard, founder of Nonprofit Utopia, posted a comment about compensation of workers in the Youth Development field.

I don't think I have any specific links in the Tutor/Mentor library to reports about compensation in the youth development field so I asked Gemni to give me some information. 

Below is the response:

Working in the youth development field in the United States often involves a wide range of compensation depending on the specific role, region, and type of organization. Recent studies and surveys highlight these disparities and the push for better workforce support.

Here are three research studies and reports detailing compensation levels in the field:

1. National Power of Us Workforce Survey

Conducted by the National AfterSchool Association (NAA) and its partners, this is one of the most comprehensive recent looks at the Out-of-School Time (OST) workforce. The survey provides data on wages, benefits, and the professional backgrounds of youth workers to help advocate for high-quality jobs.

• Key Findings: The study explores the correlation between "high-quality jobs" and staff retention, emphasizing that current compensation levels often do not match the educational levels and commitment of the professionals in the field.

• Website provided by Gemni: National AfterSchool Association News;  This did not go directly to the survey. I searched and found The Power Of Us survey on this Wallace Foundation page

2. Staffing, Compensation, and Benefits Report

The American Camp Association (ACA) regularly publishes detailed reports specifically for the summer camp and seasonal youth development sector. While the most comprehensive full reports are published on a rotating basis (the 2019 report being a major benchmark), they provide specific data for both day and overnight camps.

• Key Findings: The report breaks down salaries and benefits for both year-round and seasonal staff, segmented by camp budget size, region, and affiliation (e.g., non-profit, agency, or independent).

• Website: ACA Research and Innovation.  This site provides a list of reports.

3. Afterschool and Summer Workforce Solutions Database

The Afterschool Alliance maintains ongoing research and a database focused on workforce challenges. Their research often highlights state-level and national trends regarding how pandemic relief funds and new state initiatives are being used to increase compensation and provide additional benefits like mental health support for youth workers.

• Key Findings: Recent updates (2024–2026) show a growing trend of utilizing "intermediary" organizations to bridge the gap in pay and professional development for community-based youth organizations.

• Website: Afterschool Alliance Research.  View list on this page, which focused on funding.

---

Current Compensation Estimates (2026)

While formal multi-year academic studies are published periodically, real-time data from professional networks indicates the following for Youth Development Specialists:

• National Average: Approximately $57,130 per year (up from $53,473 in 2023).

• Entry Level: Often ranges between $33,000 and $39,000.

• Top Earners: Can exceed $71,000 in high-cost states like California or Minnesota.

• Source: NASW JobLink Salary Data.  This site is probably the most direct link to information about compensation.

---- end Gemni information ---

In other articles, such as this one, I've asked for a more segmented understanding of youth development, tutor and/or mentoring programs.  These reports illustrate how much that is needed.  

Where the program is located, who it serves, what age group(s) is served, what it's mission and theory of change are, how it is organized and delivers service are all variables that need to be understood when making claims about levels of compensation, and, in building coalitions that raise the visibility of the sector, as part of an on-going strategy of increasing and stabilizing funding.

Budget size should also be included in this research. Organizations with revenue over $1 million may have greater ability to pay higher compensation than organizations with revenue under $250 thousand.

Do you have any specific research on this issue?  Please share it.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon and other platforms. (see links here).

I depend on a small group of donors to help pay the expenses of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Click here to help. 

Check out my articles on Substack.com

Since last August I've been using Substack.com to provide in-depth descriptions of some of my concept maps and visual essays.

This is my most recent. The headline is "What would convince you to support a tutor/mentor program?"

The headline of this article was "Shared Goal". It show actions that would lead to more youth moving safely through school and  into adult lives.

This article is titled "Start planning for fall 2026 tutor/mentor programs." It focuses on annual planning. While May-June is the end of one school year and tutor/mentor programs are celebrating, the new school year starts soon and programs need to be recruiting volunteers to help with planning and operations right now. 

This article asks "Can YOU champion this idea?"  It shows a role many leaders need to take to support birth-to-work programs that reach K-12 youth in areas of concentrated poverty. 

This article is titled "Mentor Kids to Careers - 4 Part Strategy"  

Read all of my Substack.com articles. Find the list on this page. 

Unless many people read and share these too few will ever see the ideas.  That's been the challenge since I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  It's one reason I encourage others to create their own versions of these, and incorporate them into their own leadership and advocacy.

I've depended on a small group of donors to help me pay the bills since 2011.  Many are former Acacia Fraternity brothers from Illinois Wesleyan who I went to school with in the mid 1960s. We're all getting older and each year one or more moves from this life to the afterlife.  

I will join them in the near future. Nothing immediate, but that's not up to me.  Until then, I hope new supporters will visit this page, and offer help for me to keep doing this work.  Thank you. 

Making Out-of-School-Time Programs More Available

 Last week I shared the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report from A Better Chicago in this post.

One of the insights of the report focused on Out-of-School and Community-Based Programs and Spaces.  

Visit this page and open the PDF report to view this page. 

The text above says that "Citywide, during the 2024-2025 school year, 31% of CPS youth K-12 participated in out-of-school programs.  Students in grades 3-8 were the most likely to engage in out-of-school programs (37%) compared to k-2 (29%) and high schoolers (27%).   The North Central (39%) and Far South (34%) regions of the city had the highest percentage of youth engaged in out-of-school programming, while the Near South region had the lowest percentage (23%)."

What the report did not include was an interactive dashboard showing out-of-school programs in Chicago, with an ability to sort by age-group served and type of program.  I would loved to see a page on their website listing the programs that are included in the 31% where CPS youth were engaged.  

For instance, they could point to the MyCHI. MY Future program, which does have a searchable map. I show the result of using the menu at the far right and asking for 'reading and writing' programs for youth between age 16 and 18 in this graphic.

You can enlarge the map and zoom into a specific neighborhood. You can drag the map view so it shows a different part of Chicago. 

When you click on a circle representing a program, you can see a description and find a website.  That's good.  What I found is that many of these are programs hosted at Chicago Public Libraries. While the site has many categories, it does not differentiate between nonprofit youth serving programs and government funded services, like the libraries.  

One strength of MyChi MyFuture is the on-going effort to bring stakeholders together for citywide meeting and to share information via email newsletters, their website and social media.  Furthermore, they have empowered the formation of 14 neighborhood networks of stakeholders to support youth in their communities.  

Visit this page on the MyChi MyFuture website and look at the community plans developed in 2023 and 2024 by each of these networks.  I just finished skimming through them. Some have great data. Some have maps. Most list stakeholders involved.  Most have comprehensive plans that stretch into 2025.

However, I found no links to websites for each of these networks, where they were actively implementing the plans, learning from what works, and each other, and developing actions for 2026 and beyond.  If you have a list of these, please share it and I'll put the link in this article.

What I wanted to find when I looked at the websites of A Better Chicago and MyChiMyFuture was a site that worked like the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which was built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2004.  Below is the screen users would use to search for tutor/mentor programs in different zip codes of Chicago.  Below that is the first page of a visual essay that shows features in this version of the Program Locator.

Open this PDF to see a description of how to use this Program Locator.   In 2008 this was re-built as a map-based directory.  This PDF shows its features. 

These were intended to help youth, teachers, parents, volunteers, donors, media and others find existing programs in different parts of the city, with features that narrowed the search by type of program (pure tutoring, pure mentoring, combination tutor/mentor) and age group served (elementary, middle school, high school). 

This page shows my long-term goal of "Using Maps to Build Capacity".  Due to funding challenges since late 2000s I've never been able to reach this goal, but still share it with hopes that it will inspire work of others.  

The report from A Better Chicago shows that "Chicago has a problem" and "They are part of the solution". And, it uses maps to show which parts of the city need more programs. However, it does not point to any listing or directory of existing programs, to help attract attention and resources to all of them.

The My CHI My Future site seems designed to help kids find opportunities.  I don't see any form of analysis that says "Do we have enough programs? or "Where are more needed?" Or for donors and volunteers to reach out and support existing programs.  I found this type of analysis on many of the community plans hosted by MyChiMyFuture, but in looking at the lists of stakeholders it seems that many of the organizations on my lists are not included in any of these efforts.  

Since I was looking at PDFs of plans developed in 2023-24, it's possible that a greater number of tutor/mentor programs are participating in these networks.

Below is the front cover of the 1995 Tutor/Mentor Connection Chicago Programs Directory.  It was created before we learned about the Internet. It used maps to show where programs were needed, and listed programs with the same sort features as the Program Locator that we put on line in 2004.

Here's a link to an archived version of the 1997 Director. We used this format each year from 1994 to 2003.  If you look at the listings in this Directory you can see the basic outline of the library that you can now found on the www.tutormentorexchange.net website. 

Below is a graphic showing year-round communications intended to draw people together to learn, share and generate resources for youth-support efforts in specific areas.

On this page I share strategies that the Tutor/Mentor Connection piloted, beginning in 1993 and that I still continue in 2026.  

In this article I show organizations who participated in each of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I organized between May 1994 and May 2015. 

Last week I included this map in my first article about the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report.

Ideally each year when I look at the community networks hosted by MyChiMyFuture I would find updated maps and graphics showing participation in their meetings and the sites of youth-serving programs in their community areas.  

And when I see new research from organizations like A Better Chicago, I'd find a page pointing to work being done by others to address the same issues.

Young people could be collecting and updating this information!  Maybe it's something the new Obama Center could champion.

Here's just one more map. 

This concept map shows intermediary organizations who support youth-serving programs in the Chicago region. It includes a link to the website of each organization, so that anyone finding my website and map can also learn about others working to make life better for Chicago youth and families.  Creating and constantly updating a concept map like this could be a project done by youth in each community area.

Read more

* 2019 article - What Tutor and/or Mentor Programs Operate in Chicago Region?

* 2019 article - "Now is the time for action. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good".  See the link to the LISC Chicago "Quality of Life Plans".

* 2020 article - "MyChi. MyFuture. Feedback"

* read these articles about "program design" and building a segmented understanding of what youth-serving programs exist, and where more are needed.

As today's article, and these articles from 2019 and 2020 illustrate, I've been sharing ideas that city leaders could be using for a long time.  

The challenge is motivating people to find time to read these articles and look at what others are doing.  I saw an announcement that "The Obama Foundation and After School Matters will provide paid out-of-school time opportunities to Chicago teens in surrounding communities on the South Side."  

This is exactly the type of program that could encourage teens to dig into articles I've been sharing and the organizations I point to in the Tutor/Mentor library.  As they do that they could be leading efforts that draw more people to the information and into actions that make more and better youth learning and development activities available during out-of-school hours.

That's something A Better Chicago's report is calling for.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon and share my posts with your networks.  

And, if you're able, visit this page and make a small contribution to help me pay the bills.

State of Chicago Youth - 2026 - Our kids need help.

I just read the State of Chicago Youth 2026 report published by A Better Chicago.  

Below is a paragraph from the introduction posted on Page 2 of the report.  It shows that Chicago has nearly 800,000 young people under the age of 25. But, "Opportunity remains out of reach for far too many youth, especially those in Black and Latinx communities on the South and West Sides."

I urge you to visit this page and download the PDF, then read the full report.

Then, take a look at what I wrote last April following the release of the 2025 State of Chicago Youth report.  Everything I wrote then applies now, except that due to ICE immigration raids in Chicago more young people are struggling to find their way through school.  Supportive adults in schools and non-school programs are needed more than ever, but too few still exist.

I think A Better Chicago is doing great work. Since 2010 they have provided more than $50 million in unrestricted funding and management support to help nonprofits in their portfolio grow.  Yet, that's not enough. Chicago (and many suburbs) need great tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty neighborhood.  That means someone needs to be raising funds to help youth programs that are NOT in A Better Chicago's portfolio grow!

In 2011 I obtained data from the Heartland Alliance to create a series of maps showing the number of kids age 6-17 who were living in each Chicago Community Area. I updated that in 2018.  My goal was that planners in each community area would use this information to better understand how many youth-serving programs were needed, and what programs were already available to youth in their area.  

My 2011 (yellow boxes) and 2018 (blue boxes) versions show the total number of youth age 6 to 17 in each community area, and the percent of those youth who were at or below the poverty level.  Based on this planners could determine how many youth serving programs were needed in the area, just to serve a small percent of the kids living there.  

I used the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator map as the base, then added the yellow and blue data boxes using Power Point.  Then I published the report in this visual essay.

Unfortunately the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator is no longer available.  However, if I had updated data I could re-create this report using the map that I host on this page.  Below is an example.

Using this data and my lists of Chicago youth-serving programs, anyone could lead year-round public awareness campaigns intended to educate potential donors, volunteers and business partners and turn them into proactive supporters of existing, or new, programs.

When we were creating the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in late 1992 we realized that one more great youth-serving program could be life-changing for the few youth and volunteers who become involved, but would have little impact on the more than 200,000 youth living in high poverty areas of Chicago.  So we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, to help all programs, including our own, attract more consistent media and donor attention.

I led this two-part strategy until mid 2011 when the financial crisis that started in 2008 finally caused our board of directors to drop the Tutor/Mentor Connection and focus only on the kids program.  I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to keep the T/MC available in Chicago to try to help similar strategies grow in other cities.  

However, I led this two-part strategy for almost 19 years!  Imagine how much impact might be generated if A Better Chicago and other youth-serving programs adopted this same strategy for almost two decades! 
 

The top graphic shows that attention and resources will grow if the same events and "call to action" are repeated quarterly from year-to-year.  The bottom graphic shows how anyone can be the YOU who calls on their stakeholders to get informed, then get involved, supporting tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of Chicago.

What it takes:
As long as someone maintains a list of youth-serving programs and makes it available on a website, anyone can build a campaign that draws attention and support to these programs. That's what I have been doing.  You can find my lists on this page. 

Maybe in a few years one or more intermediaries will be able to create their own version of maps like the one below, which shows participation in the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  See the dashboard on this page. 

For most of the past 30 years I've focused strictly on programs that identified as some form of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring based on this survey.  The programs on my maps are programs that fit this description.  However, I recognized in the late 2000s that I needed to be adding other types of youth-serving programs to my maps, but never was able to do that.  However, I have included many of them on lists found on this page. 

I'm now 79 and not in great health.  Someone needs to step forward and take ownership of my archives and responsibility for building a new youth-program resource that draws volunteers and donors directly to existing programs.

Until that happens, I'd appreciate any help you can offer to keep my lists up-to-date and to share my posts with more people.  That includes sharing them with people in other cities, where there also are concentrations of persistent poverty and too few youth-serving programs.

You can reach me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon, Twitter and Instagram.  See links on this page.

And, if you'd like to help me cover expenses, visit this page and make a contribution.