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!
Below is a collection of photos showing myself along with students and volunteers of the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program that I formed in late 1992 and led through mid 2011.
We did not have any dedicated funding in late 1992 when seven of us got together and decided to start Cabrini Connections, and a second program that was named the Tutor/Mentor Connection in mid 1993. We'd all been part of a program that was started in 1965 by a few employees from the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago, which connected 2nd through 6th grade youth from the Cabrini-Green neighborhood with workplace volunteers. I joined as a volunteer tutor in the fall of 1973 and became it's volunteer leader in the summer of 1975. I led it for the next 17 years while holding full-time retail advertising jobs.
That program is now Tutoring Chicago and they've bee sharing videos on their website celebrating their 60th year anniversary. Many include photos from the yearbooks I created and several have interviews with youth and volunteers from those years. They do a great job of showing what a well-organized, long-term program could look like.
From 1965 to 1970 volunteers and youth met in a building on Chicago Avenue, near the corporate complex. It moved to the basement cafeteria of the Wards Merchandise building in 1970 and to the first floor of the former Catalog building in 1980. From 1970 to 1990 Montgomery Ward provided space, security, utilities, janitorial services, printing, postage, insurance, etc. These were items that we began to pay for once we became a non-profit in 1990. All of the program leaders, starting with myself, were volunteers. Most had full time jobs at Wards. Thus, the expenses were low and there was no need for fund raising.
That changed in 1990 when we became a nonprofit and we started to pay a few people, including myself, to lead and operate the program. Part of that work involved raising the money needed. I had no experience in fund raising, but spent 17 years at Wards in retail advertising. I applied those lessons to my fund raising efforts. We raised $114,000 the first year and $214,000 the second year.
Then I left the program due to differences in philosophy between myself and the Board of Directors who I had recruited in 1990. With six other volunteers we formed Cabrini Connections. As part of the responsibility of leading that program over the next 18 years, I was the chief fund raiser and grant writer.
I wrote this article in December 2005, expressing some of my ideas and frustrations. I think those thoughts are still valid today, as we head into 2026.
--- start 2005 ----
I've been reading blogs on charity and philanthropy listed in the Non Profit Blog Exchange and in one the message is: Do your donors a big favor: ask them to give.
I cannot tell you how often over the past 13 years I've struggled to ask for money and how difficult others also seem to find this. Yet, here's a blogger saying that we're doing donors a favor because it feels good to give!!
I know this is true about giving of your time, but it seems harder when you're asking people to give their money. Yet, what's the difference? Time is money!! Therefore, as you head to the Christmas or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah feast, why not make everyone feel better by asking them to give to a charity that needs more dollars to do its work.
You can read more about "making donors feel good" on the Donor Power Blog, found at http://www.donorpowerblog.com/donor_power_blog/. This is one of several non-profit blogs linked together in the December 2005 Non Profit Blog Exchange.
Let me talk about this from the other perspective. I lead a small non profit. I've had former students and volunteers tell me how much being part of Cabrini Connections has changed their lives. I've had people from around the country tell me how they have started new mentoring initiatives based on the information they found on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site or how much they valued the information. Yet, I've also had to reach into my own pocket to pay the bills each year because I could not find enough donors to share this vision with me. (2025 note - that has never changed)
For charities like Cabrini Connections, the last six weeks of the year are critically important. We raise almost 40% of our annual revenue in these weeks. I'm please to say that we've received significant grants from HSBC, Hewitt, Kraft Employee Fund, Polk Bros Foundation, the Wm Wrigley Jr. Co. Foundation and many donations ranging from $5 to $1,000 from dozens of individuals these past few weeks, so my Christmas stocking is filling up.
But it's not overflowing, which means unless we find more donations this week and in the coming months, we'll be borrowing money in June and July to pay the rent!!
Not all charities are as good as others in raising money. There are many who do excellent work but work in relative isolation and struggle to find funds to do their work. We set up the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 (and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011) to try to change the way funds were raised and distributed to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. We've piloted GIS maps to show where these programs are needed, based on where poverty and poorly performing schools are most concentrated. We've created a searchable database to help people learn what programs are in what zip codes, or if there are zip codes where more programs are needed. You can find this in the Program Locator, now an archive, at https://tinyurl.com/ProgramLocatorSearch
I spend time writing blogs like this to try to help all of these programs get the resources they need, not just the programs I lead. I try to teach others to follow this example because I think it can increase the donor pool that supports all of us.
Note. When I wrote this in 2005, I was still leading the Cabrini Connections program. Thus, if you want to feel good, but don't want to send a contribution to Cabrini Connections, we offer you dozens of other programs in Chicago where you can help kids and mentors connect. Furthermore, if you search the LINKS library, we offer you almost 900 links to organizations who do great work in all parts of the US, and who seek charitable contributions to sustain what they do. That library is now here.
I have been doing this work for more than 30 years. I've been blessed in more ways that I can count, starting with the kids and volunteers who have let me be part of their lives, and going on to my own children who are the result of me meeting and marrying a women who I met in 1980 when she became a volunteer in the program I was leading.
I hope that many of you have found the same type of joy from giving of your time, talent and treasure. And I hope you'll keep giving until it feels good!!
As you celebrate this holiday please look for ways to share some of your own blessings with people who are helping kids and who are trying to end poverty through mentoring and career education. ...or who are doing other forms of charity and service that also need to be funded with your contributions.
To all who have helped Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, with their donations, with their volunteer contributions, and with their encouragement, I say "Thank You!"
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
--- end 2005 article ----
Reach out and give till it feels good! Boy is that needed now in 2025, in the USA, and all over the world.
I hope you'll read more of my blog articles and share them in your networks and that we connect on one, or many, social media platforms in 2026.
I'll be 79 on December 19th, and would greatly appreciate if you'd make a contribution to light a candle on my cake. Click here.
In my September newsletter I featured a blog written by Sheri Edwards, a retired educator from Washington State. I met her in 2013 through the online #CLMOOC community and we've stayed connected since then.
Below is a post Sheri made on Mastodon about the October National #WriteOut event. She points to this page on her blog.
I follow Sheri and many other educators on several social media platforms. Many are involved in the annual #WriteOut event and share their work on social media and their own blogs. You can learn about it on this page.
I share this because every volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning program, along with every school, could be using the #WriteOut event to stimulate student curiosity, reading and writing during October as volunteers are just beginning to build relationships with students, or at any other time of the year.
In the programs I led, between 1975 and 2011, we included writing activities in October and throughout the year. We published what students wrote in our newsletters and in special publications, because one of the greatest motivations for writers is seeing their own words in print!
Below is the December 1978 newsletter, which at that time we called it "Monkee Words" after Montgomery Ward, which hosted the program. Many people referred to Wards as "Monkee Wards".
Scroll through the pages and you'll find many poems written by 2nd to 6th grade students.
Below is a copy of the November 1983 newsletter. The name had been changed to Tutoring Tattler, which was used through 1992 (and might still be used by Tutoring Chicago). This shows winners of the Halloween writing contest and includes some student work.
By 1991 we were creating separate publications to share student writing. Below is the October 1991 KidsWork.
I left the original tutoring program in October 1992 and with a few volunteers formed Cabrini Connections, to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have continued support through high school. This is when we also created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to share work we and others were doing to help programs like ours grow in more places.
We continued to encourage student writing and creative expression. Below is the "WUZ UP! teen news from 1996.
Visit the Cabrini Blog and look on the right side. You'll see a link to the Writing Club, along with links to other creative learning activities, that expanded the tutor/mentor experience beyond the one-to-one tutor/mentor relationship. This blog was active from 2006 to 2011 but was not continued after I left the organization in 2011. While it is an archive now it offers many lessons others could borrow for their own programs.
In the Homework Help section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website you'll find many more activities that you might use to engage students and volunteers on fund, creative and on-going learning and relationship-building.
I've been honored to be part of the Tutoring Chicago 60th Anniversary campaign, which has shared clips from an interview with me in several of their posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. I wrote about it in this post.
I hope that this leads more people to my blog and websites so that more begin using the ideas and archives I share to build and sustain mentor-rich non-school programs that reach K-12 kids who live in high poverty, under-resourced, neighborhoods of Chicago and other places.
I hope it also encourages a few to reach out and help fund my work, or to help create a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy on one, or many, college campuses. You can find me on many social media platforms. See links on this page.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy a safe and fun Halloween weekend!
I began my tutor/mentor journey in September 1973 when I was matched with a 4th grade boy from the Cabrini-Green Public Housing Projects. His name is Leo.
We're still connected. He's in Nashville. Married. Two sons. Both college graduates.
My experiences as a volunteer leader of a tutor/mentor programs between 1975 and 2011 fuel my commitment to help similar programs throughout the Chicago region, and in other cities and states, get the attention and resources each need to support the on-going interactions of youth and volunteers.
In many articles I point to lists on the www.tutormentorexchange.net website that enable people to shop and choose what program to support, based on what the program shows on their website, where they are located, and who they serve.
I also host lists showing Chicago program accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you follow these programs you'll see what they post and that will help you choose who to support and how you'll support them.
These lists include Tutoring Chicago, which is celebrating its 60th year this fall. I led that program from 1975-1992, first while it was volunteer-led (up till 1990), then as it became a nonprofit (1990-1992).
They aren't the only long-term program in Chicago. Chicago Lights, Midtown Education, Chicago Youth Programs, Inc. and several others have long histories of service. Look for that type of information on program websites. Look for endorsements by alumni, parents and volunteers on websites, and social media.
My experiences in leading a single program over many years is what led me to form the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 as we were launching a new program to help teens in the Cabrini Green area have continued support as the move through high school.
The graphic below shows that we served one neighborhood with our single program, but supported programs through the entire region, through the Tutor/Mentor Connection.
I still lead that, through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, although I have had limited resources to do this since 2011.
Unfortunately, the Cabrini Connections program that I and six other volunteers created in late 1992 and that I led until mid 2011, was not able to continue to survive the constant challenge of finding resources, and ceased to operate around 2022. Yet, that program still exists via the connections I've made with former students and volunteers on Facebook, and how they are connected to each other.
I was able to lead the program at Montgomery Ward for so many years partially because of how I reached out and networked with leaders of other similar programs. I was also able to draw upon the work I did in retail advertising at Montgomery Ward's corporate headquarters in Chicago, where we created weekly ads do draw potential customers to more than 400 stores in 40 states.
Then, between 1990 and 1993 I also spent time as a Loaned Executive for the United Way Crusade of Mercy, which supported several hundred nonprofit organizations spread throughout the Chicago region.
From my own experiences and what I learned from other programs I realized that "all program have the same needs" but not every program is equally able to attract a constant flow of volunteers and donors.
That's why we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. Our aim was to build a master list of every volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in the region, then create on-going events that attracted media attention and drew more support to every program on our list.
I'm still doing that today, but with far fewer resources and in a much more difficult media environment. It's more important than ever that more people take a role of drawing people to my library, then directly to youth serving programs in high poverty areas throughout the region.
That's why I urge each reader to become the YOU in this graphic. Bring your network to information that shows where and why people in high poverty areas need extra help, and how volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can provide an important part of that help, while also increasing the number of people who become advocates and reach into their own networks to find additional help.
I encourage you to create your own versions of my graphics and blog articles, or record them and share them via different media. If you're in another city, create your own version of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If you're in Chicago reach out to talk to me about adopting the T/MC and rebuilding it, so it continues to provide help to kids and families in this region.
Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on social media (see links here). If you're able, help me with a contribution that funds the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.
A few months ago I was invited to be part of the 60th Anniversary Celebration of Tutoring Chicago, which started in 1965 as the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program. I joined as a volunteer tutor in 1973, during my first year of starting a retail advertising career at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago. I joined the volunteer leadership committee in 1974 and became the program's volunteer leader in 1975. I held that role through 1990 when we converted the program to a non profit, called "Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, Inc." I led it until October 1992 then left because of disagreements with the volunteers on the Board of Directors, who I had recruited to their roles.
That led me to form a second program, helping kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade get continued tutor, mentor and learning support through high school. That also led to me forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help our program, and every other tutor/mentor program in Chicago, get more consistent media attention and a more consistent flow of operating dollars.
The original program is now Tutoring Chicago. I was asked to share my thoughts and this video is a portion of them.
For those who are interested here are the questions from Tutoring Chicago and answers that I shared with them prior to doing the video interview.
In many articles on this blog I've shown the vision driving my daily work. Below are portions of an article I wrote in 2017 under the headline of "Go Forth and Multiply."
---- begin 2017 article ---
I led a volunteer based tutor/mentor program in Chicago from 1975 till 2011 and have collected a load of endorsements and paper archives. I've been digitizing these and last week converted a 22x26" Thank You, Dan! card from 1989-90, signed by students and volunteers. Click on the graphic at the left and you can see a few comments.
I put the entire card into a PDF and uploaded it to SlideShare. You can view it below. Use your zoom button to enlarge and see all the signatures and comments. One of the joys of having led these programs is the enthusiasm and positive feed back that I've received. However, that has to lead to more than just "thank you cards". Read more after you view this.
I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 (and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011) to help mentor-rich non-school programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and since then have created a huge library and hundreds of articles and strategy presentations that are tools others could use to help with this strategy.
Since I never had many dollars for advertising, and I'm not a celebrity or part of a wealthy family, or politically connected, this strategy has always depended on others carrying the ideas I launch on this blog and my web sites forward to their own friends, family and co-workers.
This graphic illustrates how ideas I share can be shared by people who read them, with others who will read them and then pass them on to even greater numbers of people. I included this in a 2011 article, and in many others.
I was thinking about this last week during a Twitter chat with educators from around the world and the I began to think of this graphic as a form of fireworks.
Posting an idea, like this article, is like lighting the fuse on a fireworks rocket. As it explodes it creates a constellation of stars, which represents people who are exposed to the message.
Some of these also explode, creating another burst of stars, representing the message reaching a new network of people. Often there's a third, and a fourth blast, meaning the ideas are reaching more and more people.
Think of my Tweets and articles as a daily blast of exploding ideas.
Below is an example of what I hope happens every day:
That's an amazing resource. Am saving it right away and will spread further. Thanks for sharing Daniel!#nt2thttps://t.co/Xc2yw9swTh
Since 1975 several thousand youth and adults have been part of tutor/mentor programs I've led. Some have provided endorsements and "thank you, Dan" messages, like those you can see above.
However, so far, too few are passing on the ideas I share and taking actions that result in more and better volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs reaching k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities.
In addition, too few are providing talent and dollars to help me continue this work, or to help me pass this entire library and mission on to a younger, more talented generation of leaders. I saw a tweet this morning with a quote saying "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now" I re-tweeted it with this message.
Had a few leaders helped me "plant the Tutor/Mentor Connection tree" in early 1990s, and helped me continue to nurture it for the past 24 years, I feel Chicago would have a much denser network of mentor-rich programs helping kids in poverty, and many more people taking active roles to share these ideas, get more people involved, and build sustainable and on-going flows of talent and dollars to every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities. Many might be able to show "thank you" cards from alumni students and volunteers on their own web sites similar to mine.
Thanks for reading and thank you to everyone who has helped Tutoring Chicago grow for the past 60 years, as well as those who help other volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs in Chicago and other places.
The challenges of operating these programs have always been great. In these days of political turmoil and destructive actions from the leadership in Washington, DC, it is even more difficult to attract consistent attention for these programs, which makes it more difficult for them to attract the resources they need to operate, and constantly improve.
I'll be 79 in December and will continue to end my blog articles with a call to help me find one or more universities and/or institutions to take ownership of my archives and my vision, and lead it for the next 20 to 40 years!
Connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Substack and other platforms. Share your own ideas and strategies. Borrow mine and share them in your own community.
And visit this page and use the PayPal button to send me some financial support.
When we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 our goal was to build an information base consisting of "all that was known" of volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region. This led to building a list of Chicago area programs that we initially published in a printed Directory (1994-2003), then an on-line Directory (2004-2018) and that we used to invite programs to gather and share ideas through May and November conferences that we hosted in Chicago (1994-2015). It's still available on this page of our website.
As I wrote in last week's post, the www.tutormentorexchange.net site has been reconfigured after being moved to a new server. That results in a revised look and feel. But it also meant that I've had to fix a lot of broken links and formatting problems.
Yesterday I updated all the links on the "In the News" page shown in the two graphics posted below. These are media stories generated through the strategy we launched in 1993.
This page has a long list of stories. Included is a link to an archive, that shows additional stories, including those that focused more on the Cabrini Connections part of our local-global strategy.
This media strategy was Step 2 in a 4-part strategy developed in 1993. It's visualized on this concept map.
It's important to keep in mind that when we formed a new organization in late 1992 our first goal was to create a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program that would continued support to 7th graders who had aged out of the program hosted at the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago (which I led from 1975 to October 1992) to help them move through high school. We named that Cabrini Connections. As we launched that strategy in January 1993 we were also in the beginning stages of building the second strategy, which became the Tutor/Mentor Connection.
Thus, over the 19 years that I led this two part strategy our first priority was always what we called the "Kids' Connection". This map shows our location in the Near North part of Chicago and the location of other tutor, mentor and learning programs in other high poverty areas of Chicago.
We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to draw needed resources to EVERY other program in Chicago as a strategy to help draw more of these same resources to OUR OWN program. The information that has been archived in the Tutor/Mentor library was first intended to support the volunteers, students, leaders and donors of our own program.
The media stories shown on the "In the News" page and the archive show how successful this strategy was despite having consistent challenges caused by the loss of our major supporter, Montgomery Ward, in 2000, then the economic downturns of the 9/11/2001 attack, and the financial collapse of 2008-10, which led to the split in mid 2011 which led to me forming the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to keep the T/MC available in Chicago and help similar efforts grow in other cities.
In most of the articles posted on this blog I've encouraged programs in Chicago and in other cities to embrace a "Tutor/Mentor Connection" type strategy and for universities to lead it. Doing so can draw more support to your own organization, while helping your city fill all high poverty areas with needed youth serving programs.
I hope you'll take time to look at these media stories. If you can find a similar list of stories created by anyone in your own community, over such a long period of time, please share it.
If not, then why not put together a team and duplicate it. The problems are still with us, and may grow more severe in the coming months and years.
Share you thoughts and resources with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and other sites. See links to my social media on this page.
If you want to recognize, or reward, or support my efforts, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me keep doing this work.
I saw the visualization below last week. It was created using Kumu.io, which I've written about before. In the different nodes it shows places where students from many universities can do volunteer service in organizations working to help refugee, immigrant and LGBTIQ communities. I liked it because of the way it organizes and shares information.
Open the graphic at this link. In the center are three nodes showing the Columbia Global Emerging Scholars Fellowship, the Harvard Refugee Fieldwork Program and the Refugee Rights Clinic. Click on the icon with any node on the map and you'll find information about that organization or resource. It's a fantastic way to share information and connect networks of people who focus on related issues.
I've been trying to harness ways to do this since I started leading a tutor/mentor program in the 1970s. Initially, I used type-written newsletters and a copy machine and distributed my information by hand to volunteers and students attending weekly tutor/mentor sessions, or by letters to corporate leaders and supporters.
By 1993 when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection I had an extensive library, but it was only available to people who came to my program offices in Chicago, where we held weekly tutor/mentor sessions. It wasn't until around 1998 when our first website was created, that I found a way to share this with a wider audience in Chicago, and the world.
This graphic was used on the home page of the first Tutor/Mentor Connection website and I've used the hub/spoke graphic for the past 28 years since then. The spokes represent the different types of information found on the website. These linked to internal pages with lists of information and links to external websites. I've tried to animate it, or make it interactive, like the Kumu maps I've pointed to, but not with consistent success.
Below are some examples of what I've been trying to share and ways I've been able to do it.
The goal: Open this link to view the map shown below.
This shows a goal of helping kids born or living in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs and starting careers by their mid 20s. In the middle is the concept map shown below, witch outlines the 4-part strategy needed to achieve the goal.
Open the concept map at this link. Or, visit this blog article to see a description of the content of this map.
Below is a short video that describes the four-part strategy.
Below is a graphic from a presentation created by Mina Song, an intern from South Korea, who created a five-part overview of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and its 4-part strategy. Find the links to this and the other four Prezi slide shows on this page.
Here's an earlier visualization, showing the goal and four-part strategy, created by in 2008 by one intern, then updated in 2009 by Alan Yoo, another intern from South Korea. The voice over is by Bradley Troast, our Northwestern University Public Interest Fellow. Since all of this was created with Flash Animation, I created and narrated this video a few years ago.
The Kumu map demonstrates one way to share information. The other maps and videos show ways I've been able to do this with the help of many interns and volunteers.
I share this with one goal in mind.
I created this graphic in 2016 for this blog article and I've used it often since then. It shows my goal of helping teams of multi-talented people form and build, then sustain, constantly improving, volunteer-based youth tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach kids in all areas of persistent poverty and help them through school and into jobs and a life free of poverty.
The Kumu map illustrates how one team of people is visualizing ideas. My maps and videos show how I and interns working with me have visualized ideas, strategy and available resources.
Today's blog article shows how I continue to seek others who will duplicate my work, do it better, and spread it to more people in more places.
I invite you to share this with others so that teams WILL FORM in cities across the world, creating their own versions of my maps, graphics and blog articles, which they share with the same goals.
This is more important than ever. With the current administration burning books, deleting history from government websites, and cutting funding for many education, youth serving and social benefit programs, leaders are scrambling to find resources.
Non-profit and social benefit organizations are COMPETING against each other, harder than even before.
Why not devote some time, energy and creativity to working collectively to change how donors, volunteers, media and policy-makers support all programs in this sector, so that everyone has a more consistent flow of resources, not just a few?
Thanks for reading. If you're sharing similar ideas, please connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, BlueSky and Twitter.
I depend on contributions to fund the work I do. Please visit this page and help.
I often look at articles I wrote in the past for inspiration. Today I looked at an article I wrote on March 31, 2019. I'm posting the full article below. It's still relevant.
However, some things have changed since then.
First, the day after I wrote my 2019 article I was hit by a car and suffered a fractured leg and shoulder. I was in a wheel chair for the next 4 months.
Covid-19 had not yet hit. That came a year later. In April 2020 after the lock-downs began, I wrote this article. We're still suffering from Covid and now face new epidemics with a Federal government that is cutting research and has an anti-vaccine stance.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did not win the November 2024 election so this article that I wrote about Governor Walz's interest in mapping probably does not apply to anyone in the new administration.
In 2023 I wrote this article about information-based problem solving. I don't expect anyone in the current administration to apply this thinking but those looking to save our democracy, and our planet, sure could use these ideas.
So, here's what I wrote on March 31, 2019:
Monday is April 1, which for many, means it's a day of practical jokes. For me, it's a new week, of a new month, and new opportunities.
Here's the goal:
While the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago was done 1993 it was launched in January 1994 with a survey to identify every non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago. Using maps we began to plot their location, in an effort to determine what neighborhoods were well served, and which needed more programs.
We published the list of programs in a printed directory in the 1990s and on the internet since 2004, along with a growing library of links to web sites that provided information about where and why these programs were needed, and how to build great non profits, to support great youth programs.
For the past 25 years every week has started with efforts to draw attention to this information, and motivate leaders in every sector, to take roles in building and sustaining constantly improving programs, which work to help kids succeed in school, stay safe in non-school hours, and move toward high school graduation, post high school education, then jobs and careers.
The graphic at the top of this page was used in this article. It's one of more than 1,000 posted on this blog since 2005.
I want you to read them all, and use the ideas to do more to help kids living in poverty.
That's no April Fools joke.
Of course, I don't expect anyone to do this in a day, but it could be done over a year, or two. Maybe not by many people, but hopefully by a few who will adopt the strategy and intermediary role I've piloted for the past 25 years so that more people try to make this happen.
Actually, I doubt that many will make an effort to read even a few of my past articles, let alone all of them. That's why I've tried to enlist teachers in high schools and colleges, to make this part of a learning curriculum, that youth start looking at when they are in middle school, and are still looking at as they finish college. I posted this article with that goal last week.
Do you think that's a joke? Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives. Why can't we enlist people in reading material that helps them create a better life for people who are alive now, rather than in an afterlife?
If the type of learning I've described were happening some would be well prepared to be leaders of mentor-rich youth programs while many others would be prepared to take on the critically important role of building the resource flow and supply chains, that enable programs to grow from good, to great, and then to stay great for many years.
I've been trying to make this vision come true for over 20 years, but so far no one has embraced it. Maybe people think I'm just joking. Like every day is April 1st.
SunTimes, Oct 15, 1998
Except, it's not a joke. Every week we read about some kids being shot in Chicago. At the right is the front page of the Chicago SunTimes, from October 15, 1992. This was when I was in the process of forming Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.
The headline of "7-Year Old's Death in Cabrini Requires Action" has been a constant reminder of the commitment I made then and continue to try to keep in 2019.
It's a commitment that many need to make, and keep.
I hope you'll think about this as you enjoy your week.
--- end 2019 article ---
Much has changed since 2019 and some problems seem much more urgent now than building systems of support for kids living in high poverty areas.
I included this graphic in a 2022 article with the headline "Kids not living in high poverty need mentors, too."
If we don't build systems that help all kids become learners, creative-problem solvers and active leaders, we're doomed to giving our country, and our future, to a small group of ultra wealthy who want to take us back to the dark ages when monarchs ruled by decree and most people had few rights.
In my 2019 article I wrote, "Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives." Sadly, this is one reason we have something called PROJECT 2025 and why millions of America have joined a cult that elected the current President and resulted in his selling of America to the highest bidder.
Information-based problem solving is intended to provide ideas to support your efforts to solve problems like this. Finding the time and motivation to dig into this is just one more problem.
Thanks for reading. The problems we face are no April Fools Day joke.
If you appreciate what I'm writing, please visit this page and make a contribution.
I've been sharing information on two main blogs for more than 17 years. This is the main one. The MappingforJustice blog is the second one. Many of the articles highlight information I've been aggregating in the Tutor/Mentor library that I've been building for 50 years.
Below is a concept map that I created several years ago to highlight some of the articles in these blogs.
These articles focus on issues like the climate crisis, income inequality, segregation, poverty, the digital divide, and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. In each I've added additional links, as updates, over the past several years. Thus, they serve as "mini libraries" that focus on specific topics.
Below is another concept map that shows the challenges kids, families and schools in areas of concentrated poverty face as they try to help kids from birth-to-work.
You'll notice that the issues featured in the top concept map are some of the same issues shown on the bottom map. The goal is to create an archive that people from anywhere can use to deepen their understanding of issues, see how other people are already trying to solve those problems, then innovate solutions that might work in their own locations.
While this information can be used to build systems of support for kids/families in areas of concentrated poverty, they also show an information-based problem-solving strategy that can be used anywhere.
Do you have maps like this? Please share your links. Please share mine.
Thanks for reading. If you'd like to help me pay the bills, please visit this page and send a contribution.
How to use this blog: Each article includes graphics. Click on them to get enlarged versions. Each article has many links (which are often broken on older articles). Open the links to dig deeper in the ideas and strategies I share. On the left side are tags which you can click to find articles that focus on the same topic.
Note: the PO Box address shown w many graphics no longer is active.
Learn more about me at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/dan-bassill.
I combine 17 years of retail advertising, 3 years in Army Intelligence and 40 years of leading site-based tutor/mentor programs, the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Few people in the US have a similar depth of involvement and experiences.
I describe my work as information-based problem solving and host a library of my own ideas plus links to more than 2000 other sites which people can use to build and sustain volunteer-based non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs in high poverty areas.
You meet me in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or other links shown below.
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