What if CEOs in every sector took these roles?

Between 1973 and 1990 I held various roles in the retail advertising department of the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago. I learned how functional teams worked daily to support more than 400 retail stores in 40 states, while my advertising team worked to draw customers to those stores. All of these roles were needed.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 these strategies shaped my thinking. There are hundreds of youth-serving programs in big cities like Chicago. They all need to be great, or getting there with constant investments of time, talent, learning and dollars.

I've two sections on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website where I share many resources that elevate this thinking and are intended to provide ammunition for leaders in business, sports, healthcare, higher education, religion, media and other sectors to use their own resources to help on-going volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago (While I piloted these ideas in Chicago they apply to anyplace in the world with large concentrations of segregated poverty). 

This is the Leadership Strategies page

This is the Business Involvement page

Many companies spend billions of dollars on research and development (R&D) so they stay competitive in their markets or capitalize on new opportunities. How many spend even a few thousand dollars a year researching reasons for being strategically involved in youth tutoring/mentoring programs? Think about that as you read the articles I share on my website.

How can we stimulate this learning? What role could universities, even high schools, take?

A few months ago I included the graphic below in this article showing how billionaires could fund programs at universities that build a pipeline of leaders and supporters who would help make volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs available in more places.

Imagine if someone provided the endowment for the ideas I've been sharing for over 30 years to become curriculum that educated a new generation of leaders to think differently about how they support social benefit organizations.  

Contact me. I'd love to help you train your AI to build a curriculum drawing from my collections.

I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon and post at Substack.com and Medium.  I urge you to connect with me in these places and share your own strategies.

Finally, I depend on a few donors to help me pay the bills. Please visit this page and make a contribution if you can help.

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.

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.

Many leaders needed to help youth programs grow

It's almost June, which means most school based youth tutor, mentor and learning programs are celebrating the end of this school year and are in the early stages of planning for next year. 

I led volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago from 1975 to 2011, so repeated this cycle for 35 consecutive years.  In doing so, I constantly struggled to find volunteers and donors to help.  That's what motivated me to create the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 when we were forming the new Cabrini Connections program to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have continued support from 7th grade through high school.

In many of my blog articles and PDF essays I share the strategies I've piloted since 1993 and use maps to focus attention on supporting youth tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

The strategy the Tutor/Mentor Connection developed in 1993 (and led through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011) was to build an information base showing where tutor/mentor programs were most needed, why they were needed, and ways volunteers, donors and businesses could help each program grow.  We added to this a comprehensive list of Chicago area, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, and used maps to show where they were located, with overlays showing where they were most needed.

Then we built a year-round communications program intended to draw programs together and attract students, volunteers and donors to each program

Using this any corporate leader could make the commitment shown in the Concept Map below, putting the company name, or CEO name, in the blue box at the top.  

I started sharing those steps in the mid 1990s.  You can now see them in this Role of Leaders PDF. 

If you're involved with any youth tutor/mentor program, as a volunteer, student, alumni, parent or donor I encourage you to share the information I show in this blog and on my website and use it to help high quality, long-term, mentor-rich youth programs grow in your community.

Furthermore, I urge you to connect with myself and others on-line and share your strategies, while helping build awareness of the need for a wide range of youth serving programs that reach K-12 kids in all high poverty areas, as well as in other places where  kids need extra help.

I share this photo often because it shows a role anyone can take to point to places where concentrated poverty and systemic racism have made it more difficult for kids to move through school and into adult lives where they have jobs and careers and can raise their own kids free of poverty's grip.

With the current US President and his administration working to roll back support for people who need extra help it is more important than ever that individuals build their own information-based strategies to do this work.

I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. I hope you'll connect and share your own maps and strategies.  

Finally, I hope some of you will value what I'm sharing and visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills.

VP Candidate Tim Walz and GIS Maps

I invite you to go over to my Mapping For Justice blog and read about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's long history with GIS maps.  click here

This article includes a link to an ESRI blog article that provides a great overview of Walz's  history with maps.  

This means a lot to me, since my history goes back to 1993 when I began to learn about GIS mapping.  In 1995 ESRI donated software that the Tutor/Mentor Connection used to make maps from then until 2011.

Below is an image showing a collection of map stories, created since 1995, using donated ESRI software, and using the interactive Tutor/Mentor Program Locator which was built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection by a team from India in 2008.  See it in this article. 

I wish I'd connected with Tim Walz 20 year ago. Maybe I'd still be hosting this mapping resource and maybe more leaders would be using maps the way I've described in dozens of articles, to point resources to places where people need extra help.

I've two sets of links in the Tutor/Mentor library to pages where I show uses of GIS maps.  This page, and this page.  

Any leader, in any city or state, could use my library as part of their own research and development information base.  I keep adding to it.  For instance, I added links to the ESRI article and the Minnesota Mapping page yesterday.

I hope someone will introduce my blog to Gov Tim Walz once he becomes Vice President Tim Walz, and that he will champion this use of maps throughout the country and provide the resources organizations need to not only create maps, but create on-going stories that draw more viewers to the maps and the information they share, then to places where the maps show people need more help. 

This was me in the mid 1990s, using a map from a Chicago Tribune story, to emphasize the need to help kids in every high poverty area of Chicago.  I wish I had a collection of similar photos, where the person in the photo was one of our former mayors or governors.

If you know of others with great mapping resources connect with me on social media. Visit this page to find links to where I'm active.

If you value the information I'm sharing please visit this page and send a contribution to help me pay the bills.  Thank you. 

Athletes Adopt-A-Neighborhood Vision

I've been digitizing my files over the past couple of years and the big questions are "Who will look at these?" and "Who will take ownership, preserve, share and teach from these after I die?"  

One answer to the first question is "ME".  In looking at conversations and vision statements from the past I remind myself of what I've been trying to do and gain new ways of sharing messages that too few ever saw in the past.

Here's an example.  

In the 1990s a group of retired professional athletes was trying to set up a social enterprise where they would raise money by selling branded apparel and use that money to fund causes they supported. 

I told them of my vision of athletes using their visibility to draw attention and resources to youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of Chicago. During one meeting they told me they were holding a golf outing and that other athletes would be participating.  I asked them if they would present my Adopt-a-Neighborhood idea and have athletes sign their name on a map showing high poverty areas of Chicago, to indicate their support for the concept.  

They did. That map is shown below.

The map was signed by Carlton Fisk, Tim Fisher, Steve Avery, Darryl Ingram, Jim Miller, Robyn Earl, Jason Herter, Otis Wilson, "J Peterman" - Sinfield, George Foster and Emery Morehead.  As noted on the map, signing this indicated support for the concept, but not a commitment to "adopt" a neighborhood and participate in the program. 

I've shared this graphic in several of my sports-focused blog articles, but without a lot of background information.  Today as I was looking at my digital library I saw this map and opened this PDF, created in 2011, which provides more detail on what I was hoping the Adopt-A-Neighborhood program would become.

Unfortunately, the group of athletes who had approached me never got their business off the ground and no one has ever provided the leadership and money to make this Adopt-a-Neighborhood idea a reality.

What if?  What if it had been adopted by a local sports team and if a year-end event for the past 20 years had featured high profile athletes and celebrities boasting about what they did to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in the neighborhood they had adopted.  What if there were a library, like my T/MI Theater page, showing athletes describing what they had done to support their adopted neighborhood for the previous year?

I think there would be a lot more comprehensive, long-term, mentor-rich youth programs spread throughout Chicago and other cities, and more kids would now be adults talking of how these programs had helped them through school and into jobs and adult lives.

I keep posting information about persistent poverty in America that shows the need to expand networks of support for youth and families in these places, so as we head further into 2024 and beyond, there's still a need for athletes and celebrities in every major city to adopt this idea.

I keep sharing ideas of what athletes and celebrities can do beyond what they already are doing.

So I encourage you to share this "Adopt-a-Neighborhood" idea.  Start a conversation. There are plenty of athletes and celebrities doing great work, yet I don't see any with a map saying "great work needs to reach every high poverty area of my city" and "I can't do it all myself."

Maybe one or two will adopt this as their "game plan" for making the world a better place.

I'm on social media so please connect with me on Twitter (X), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon, BlueSky and/or Threads. See links here.

My Fund T/MI page is at this link.  If you value what I'm sharing please make a contribution to support my efforts. 

PS: I've not found an answer yet for the second question I started this article with.  

Building Great Tutor/Mentor Teams

I created the graphic shown below in December 2016 for this article.  In today's article I'm going to re-emphasize the need to teams with a mix of talents and networks at every tutor/mentor program in Chicago and other places to help build and sustain long-term birth-to-work mentoring programs in high poverty areas.

Below is another graphic that I've used often.

I've been a football fan since the early 1960s and know that for a team to have a winning record, or be the champion of their league, they must have talented, highly motivated, players, with specific skills and experience, at every position on the offence, defense and special teams. Even the coaching staff needs special skills. 

It's the fans, owners, media and city leaders who provide the resources to build and sustain great teams.  As a long-suffering Chicago Bears fan, I recognize that this is not easy.

So let's look at another graphic.  In the upper left is a photo from the mid 1990s, showing teens and a staff member from the tutor/mentor program that I led from 1993 to 2011. At the lower right is one of those teens, in 2010 when she spoke at the program's year-end dinner.

I'm still connected to most of these teens, and many others who were part of tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011 (I left the first program in 1992 and we formed the second program, which we named Cabrini Connections).  Visit this conversation on my Facebook page and you can see many student and volunteer alumni (and Claudia Bellucci, the staff member in the top left photo) posting "Happy Birthday" greetings to help me celebrate my December 19th birthday. 

If you rotate the graphic so that it is vertical, you'd see the message shown in the graphic below:

At every school and non-school program a range of age-level learning and enrichment opportunities are needed to help kids move from one grade to the next, then the next, until they graduate, more through college or vocational school, then into the workforce. Along the way volunteer tutors and mentors can provide support and open doors.

I was supported by many volunteers with many skills during the years I led a tutor/mentor program. That prompted me to create the two concept maps shown below:

Talent needed. Click here to open the concept map.

Network needed. Click here to open the concept map.   

These two concept maps show the different skills and networks that need to be involved at EVERY tutor/mentor program in the Chicago area.  They are also needed at the larger community area level, and citywide level, so that great programs grow in EVERY high poverty area.

If an organization can draw talent from a broader network they can accomplish much more than if all of their talent comes from one sector.

One of the challenges is that not every youth serving organization has the resources to hire this mix of talent, or the network needed to recruit volunteers to fill all of these roles.

That's why cities need a "Virtual Corporate Office" strategy that recruits volunteers with functional skills, from every industry, to support individual tutor/mentor programs.  

Between 1973 and 1990 I held various roles in the retail advertising department of the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago.  I learned how functional teams worked daily to support more than 400 retail stores in 40 states, while my advertising team worked to draw customers to those stores.  All of these roles were needed.

In the ROLE OF LEADERS essay shown below I encourage CEOs from every industry to take roles that encourage employees to take on roles that support tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods, with the goal that every program, in EVERY neighborhood, would have the mix of talent needed to do constantly improving work.

Role of Leaders - How CEOs ... by Daniel F. Bassill

There are dozens of other articles on this blog that relate to this article. I encourage you to spend a little time, over many years, reading and understanding them.  I urge donors to endow programs at universities where students study these articles over a period of years, so they  leave college knowing what it's taken me 50 years to learn.

That's because great teams require great leaders, with broad visions.  This country needs a disciplined, sustained effort to develop and support such leaders.  

If you understand this, then please share it with your network, via your own blog posts, videos, GIFs, podcasts, etc.  Help recruit the talent needed in Chicago and other cities with high concentrations of poverty to fuel a broad network of constantly improving, mentor-rich, youth serving programs.

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings and to those who also sent contributions to support my work.

Over the next two weeks and throughout 2024 I hope many readers will visit this page and make contributions to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  

Using Our Resource Links to Tell Stories and Create Change

I've been building a resource library since the early 1990s intended to help people develop strategies that support more kids in high poverty areas as they move through school and into adult lives.  I added two new links today.

First, is an article by Thom Hartmann, which I saw in this Twitter post. 

America is rapidly becoming two nations because Red states are able to mooch off Blue states, using stolen tax money to reinvent the old Confederacy, “own the libs,” and wage “war on woke.” How do we end Red State welfare?https://t.co/gqOvMkyisC

— Thom Hartmann (@Thom_Hartmann) June 27, 2023

I read the article and I hope you will, too. Then I added it to a list of similar articles which I've been aggregating since 2017 on this Dropbox page. If you skim the list you'll find numerous articles about race and class in America.

The Dropbox list is just one place where I've been aggregating links to articles about race, poverty, inequality, social justice, prevention, etc.  The nodes on the concept map shown below open to sections of the library. At the bottom is a "New Links Are Added Regularly" note, with a "see also" node where you can find links to my Dropbox pages. 
 

The second resource is a map on the CARES (Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems) website, which shows data at the county level for indicators such as Children In Poverty, Mortality, Rank by County, etc.  This is a "build your own" platform.  Start at the home page and choose what information you want to show on your map. 

I added a link to this CARES map in this section of my library.  That means anyone can use this site to build a map that focuses on any part of the USA.  Student activists can learn to do this. 

So how do you combine these two resources?

If you read the first article, you can use a map view from the CARES site to emphasize the levels of extreme poverty in Southern states, fed by the self-interested policies of the rich and powerful in these states.   You can also use other data maps, which I share in this concept map.

I'm just one person. Thousands of people need to be digging into this information and creating articles, videos, promotional materials, etc. that aim to increase the number who use their time, talent, dollars and VOTES to blunt the efforts of oligarchs and racists in the South, and across the country, then REVERSE their policies, creating a brighter future for America and the world.

Below is a Tweet that's an example of work that needs to be done.

📣 I know Virginia gets all the "odd-numbered year election" attention, but KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA and MISSISSIPPI all have elections in 2023 as well. Donate to help shore up Dems in red states TODAY!https://t.co/o6XGhck8nQ

— Charles Gaba isn't paying for this account. (@charles_gaba) February 23, 2023

This Tweeter, Charles Gaba, is trying to raise money to help progressive candidates win seats in RED, GOP controlled states, as well as in traditionally BLUE states.  Scroll through his Tweets for the past six months and you'll find Tweets that focus on many different states.

YOU can do this too.  Or you can just help draw attention to this information, using your own social media and communications skills.  

Below is a graphic that I created several years ago to visualize the choices we have.

Imagine a snowball rolling from the top of a mountain, down toward the valley. As it grows it collects more snow, ice and rock, and gets bigger. Unless something stops it, it will eventually demolish every home in the valley. The snowball is the problem of inequality, and the challenges of getting millions of people from beyond poverty personally engaged in helping kids born or living in poverty have the opportunities they need to climb the ladder of social mobility.

YOU have a choice. You can say ENOUGH, and try to stop the forces of evil, or you can let it gain momentum, and destroy any future of peace, hope and opportunity for generations to come.

Thanks for reading.  Share this article and you've made your first choice. Create your own version and share it and you've made two more choices.  Keep making these choices every day.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon and Instagram (see links here). I hope you'll follow me and introduce me to your networks. 

If you're able, please visit this page and send a small contribution to help me fund this work. 

Greater Business Involvement in Youth Development

Last April I posted an article with photos of former President Obama, Education Secretary (and CPS CEO) Arne Duncan, and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, who's now campaigning to become the next Mayor of Chicago.  

Today I posted this Tweet after seeing a story in the Chicago Tribune about Arne Duncan's strategy for reducing violence in Chicago.  

.@arneduncan says "we need violence prevention at scale, more effective policing and a major commitment from the business community", I agree. We also need more support for k-12 programs that prevent kids from needing programs like CRED. https://t.co/0FiqLreXPu https://t.co/oXOTxOlYe1 pic.twitter.com/1ysniSRwIK

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) October 11, 2022

I've been sharing ideas on this blog, my website and in print newsletters since the 1990s showing strategies leaders should embrace.  I shared these personally with Arne and Paul Vallas in the mid 1990s when they were at Chicago Public Schools (CPS). I pointed Barack Obama to these ideas when he was the keynote speaker at a 1999 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.  I also shared these ideas with Michelle Obama in the 1990s when she was working at the University of Chicago.

In the Tribune article, Arne Duncan says "we need violence prevention at scale, more effective policing and a major commitment from the business community".

I agree. However, I think he needs to offer a lot more detail.  I have the same thoughts for what I'm seeing for Paul Vallas.

So, here's one of my presentations, focusing on increased business involvement. 

Creating Virtual Corporate Office to Support Mentor_Rich Youth Programs in Multiple Locations from Daniel Bassill

Below is one of the slides from the presentation.  It includes a map of Chicago, showing areas of concentrated poverty.  In an article last month I pointed to research showing areas of concentrated poverty in cities across America.   Leaders in each city should be using maps the way I've been using them, to focus attention and resources to every high poverty area.

In the presentation I compare a site-based tutor/mentor program to a retail store, like a Walgreens, or a Wal Mart.  Leaders of these companies build stores in places where they see large numbers of potential customers.  Planning teams make sure the stores have merchandise customers want, and have friendly, courteous store staff, to ensure customers will return to the stores over, and over.   

Advertising teams publish weekly messages intended to draw customers to their stores and to sell specific products and services. 

A tutor/mentor program that offers a variety of learning and enrichment experiences, targeted to specific age groups, or to volunteers, provides reasons for them to come to the program and return every week.  I call this a "retail store full of hope and opportunity". 

Below is a chart that lists some of the "stuff" that each site-based program should have available.  It's also in the presentation. 

The reality is that few non profits have all of these elements. Nor do they have the resources to attract them.  Nor do they have advertising dollars to attract customers (volunteers, youth, donors, etc).

That's where businesses and their employee volunteers can make a difference.  Below is another presentation, titled "Role of Leaders".  

Role of Business Leaders - Helping Kids From Poverty Areas Move to Careers from Daniel Bassill

I encourage anyone who is reading my blog to take time to view these presentations, then create and share your own interpretation.  Apply the ideas to your own leadership strategies.  They are freely available to everyone, including Arnie, Paul, Barack and other visible leaders.

One first step for any leader is to build a resource page on their website, pointing people to learning that helps them better understand issues and opportunities.  Adding http://www.tutormentorexchange.net opens all of the resources I point to, including these PDF presentations, to their own followers.  

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I hope you'll connect with me and share your own ideas.  I'd be happy to help you understand the thinking behind these presentations. 

If you appreciate what I'm sharing, consider a small contribution to help fund my work. 

Role of Leaders in Mobilizing Corporate Support

In building the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993  (now Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC) I've borrowed from many sources.  One was Chicago's United Way/Crusade of Mercy, where I served as Loaned Executive from 1990 to 1993. 

Below is a concept map that visualizes the African proverb: "It takes a village to raise a child."  

If you click here, you can find 30 articles where I've used this "It Takes a Village" concept since I started this blog in 2005.  I use the ideas as a strategy that needs to be growing in cities all across the country, and demonstrated with web sites that show a commitment visualized in the strategy map below.



When people in business, media, entertainment, politics, religion, education, colleges, and every other part of the "village" adopt this commitment, with themselves shown in the blue box at the top of the graphic, then we can begin to build the public will and long-term commitment needed to fill every high poverty neighborhood in a city with a wide range of supports needed to help kids move successfully and safely from birth to adult lives free of poverty.

When I was a Loaned Executive I collected donation history for 10-15 companies, showing per capita giving, percent participation, leadership giving, etc. within a company and within similar companies in the Chicago region.  I then briefed CEOs of major corporations who then met with CEOs who they did business with, or had an influence, (and were my accounts). The goal was to solicit campaign pledges each year that grew each company's giving history. 

I borrowed this strategy when forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

My goal since 1993 was that leaders in each industry (shown as clusters on the village concept map) would adopt a Chief Crusader role and would a) commit to recruiting volunteers and providing funding for youth tutor/mentor programs from their own company; and b) would recruit other leaders in their industry, or geographic region, to make the same commitments. 

Over time that would have led to consistent funding and volunteer support to tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of the region.  

That has not happened. Yet, to reduce violence and improve workforce readiness, it needs to happen. 

How to get started? Make a leadership commitment, as a teacher, a college professor, a Rabbi, a CEO, then appoint someone to take the lead. Start a learning process, where you open and close every node on the strategy map so you know the information it's sharing, and you know what your commitment involves.

Role of Leaders - How CEOs can help inner city youth from birth to work by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

View these presentations, created by interns, as part of their own learning between 2006 and 2015. Youth and adults could be creating similar presentations, focusing on their community and their strategies.

Create a version of the strategy map and share it on your website and blog. Teach others to use it.

Raising kids and helping them be healthy, productive, contributing adults who can keep America great, and keep this planet safe and nurturing of all of its different populations and resources...human, animal, plant... is something that everyone should be able to agree on.

It does take a village. But until we have responsible, on-going, commitments of time, talent and dollars from every part of the village, supporting youth in the most economically challenged parts of every city, these will just be empty words.

That means students, volunteers, college researchers, and others will need to learn to create maps that show who in the village is involved, and who is still not involved.  You can see some examples of event mapping of past Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, at this link. Many different forms of mapping are highlighted in articles on the Mappingforjustice blog.

Part of the learning that people do will need to include finding ways to map participation .

I've been posting ideas on this blog, on web sites and in printed newsletters since 1994. The tags on the side of this blog are shown in this graphic, and in articles like this,  in an effort to help people navigate through this vast web of information and ideas.

If you share this commitment, please share this and other ideas shared on this blog and my Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site.  Help build the village in every part of the country.

Thanks for reading.

Please connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  

If you value the ideas I'm sharing, please visit this page and send a small contribution. 

Creating year-round attention

I have used graphics for 20+  years to communicate ideas. Almost all related to what we need to do to build mentor-rich non-school, and school-based, support systems to help kids in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives.

Because this blog has a vertical structure (you only see the most recent on the home page), some graphics don't get as much attention as they should. Here's an example.

We did the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and launched it with a first Chicago tutor/mentor programs survey in January 1994.  Over the next few years we developed a year-round series of events intended to draw attention, volunteers and donors directly to the youth programs we were learning about in our surveys, while drawing those programs together to learn from each other.  

View this video to see animation showing  year-round strategy, created by intern in late 2000s.

We published our list of programs in a printed directory each year from 1995 to 2003 and have shared the list on-line since 1998. You can find it now at this link. 

We started using maps of Chicago in 1993 to show where non-school tutor/mentor programs were most needed, based on poverty, poorly performing (and poorly funded) schools, etc. We plotted locations of existing programs on these maps. I've posted more than 250 articles demonstrating how maps can be used and created an entire blog focused on uses of maps. 

Conferences in May and November, a city-wide volunteer recruitment campaign in August/September, a Tutor/Mentor Week in November were events my team organized.  We drew upon the January National Mentoring Month publicity to try to build renewed attention to tutor/mentor programs in February, when many were looking to replace volunteers who had dropped out over the holidays.  We had other goals but they never were able to be developed.

Visit this page to read more about these activities. 

We're now in the Back-to-School volunteer-recruitment period and this morning I looked at this blog to see when I last used this graphic.  It was last November, in this article. 

It's an important concept because it emphasizes the role anyone can take to draw attention to youth serving programs in their community.  I'll share this on Twitter because while there are countless politicians calling for your votes, and your dollars, I don't see many (if any) using their Tweets to draw volunteers to youth serving programs in the districts they want to represent.

Maybe this can encourage a few to add this message to their posts. 

While I no longer organize conferences or a site-based volunteer-recruitment campaign, I still host a library and encourage youth programs, volunteers, youth, business, donors and others to draw ideas from it that they use to help kids in poverty move safely from birth to work.  Furthermore, I share history of events I organized, such as the recruitment campaign, and the tutor/mentor conferences, with the goal that others in Chicago and other cities will create their own versions of these, and their own year-round calendar of youth support events.

You can find me on each of these social media platforms

And, you can help me cover the costs of keeping this information available to you and others around the world by visiting this page and making a small contribution. 

Thank you for reading and sharing my articles. 

If you scroll back to articles from past years are there some graphics that I used in the past that you think I should emphasize with a new post?  Let me know.