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.

New Research on Mentoring Shows Funding Challenges

This week I received a new report from MENTOR, titled "Opportunities to Invest in Long-Term Social Capital for Our Youth: A Philanthropic Agenda."  You can download the report from this page. 

Below is a passage from the report's introduction:

I highlighted the part that said "A striking data point from the study's survey showed that most funders want to invest in long-term positive changes (71%), yet none expected outcomes to take five to ten years.  Instead, the majority of funders said they expected to see outcomes in just one to two years."

I've used the graphic below for many years to show that kids in middle school require four to six years of continuous support just to finish high school and another four to six to get through college. Even then, if they don't have people in their network who can help open doors to jobs, that degree may not be enough to help them reach their full potential.

The kids in the photo on the left were part of the Cabrini Connections program in the mid 1990s. We operated in the third time frame, after 5pm, when workplace volunteers were more consistently available to serve as tutors and mentors and program leaders.  The photo at the right is one of the teens shown on the left, who was the graduation speaker in 2010.  I'm connected to her and many other alumni on Facebook, and thrilled to see many of them with advanced college degrees and many showing photos of their own kids finishing high school and college.

I could not have convinced donors in the mid 1990s that this was the long-term outcome we wanted. Thus we struggled each year to patch together the funds needed to operate.  Ultimately, this was the fundamental reason I left Cabrini Connections in 2011 and formed the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to try to continue supporting the city-wide strategies of the T/MC. 

If you read the MENTOR report you'll see that many other programs, in 2023, are struggling the same way.

This entire blog, written since 2005, and the www.tutormentorexchange.net website, launched in 1998, offer ways to change how programs are funded, and how this can lead to constantly improving non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach kids in more high poverty areas....which is where long-term, mentor-rich programs are most needed.

This graphic was created by an intern from South Korea nearly 10 years ago, who was prompted by a similar graphic in articles like this from 2009.  

The goal is that groups of people gather regularly, like people in faith groups do, or people in high school or college classes, or in business, to look for ways to solve problems, using information that I and others aggregate in web libraries and share in articles like this.

Below is a graphic showing part of a Tutor/Mentor blog article written in 2009, 25 years after the murder of Ben Wilson in Chicago.

I highlighted "We are still having this conversation 25 years after the death of Ben Wilson because the writers ..... don't focus on ways to build a consistent flow of operating dollars to help constantly improving youth serving programs be in all the neighborhoods where kids need this help, for dozens of years, not just for one workshop, or for one intensive intervention...."

That's just about what the MENTOR report was saying.  

So what can you do? Form a learning circle, just as the graphic above suggests.  Read something every week, then talk about what it means and how the ideas might apply where you are, and based on who you are.  

Every one of my articles has tags at the bottom, which you can see at the left side of this blog.  You can use these to focus your discussions.

Or you can go to my Wakelet page and look at collections of blog articles. 

Or, you can visit this Tumblr site and look at the articles I've posted there, which represent most of the key ideas I've been sharing.

As you do your learning share your understanding and ideas with your own graphics, concept maps, videos, etc.  

8-19-2024 update - here's another article that focuses on the funding issue. It's titled "Should we pay for relationships? Why philanthropy needs to invest in social capital?"

Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. and share your work with me so I can learn from you and share your ideas with my own network.

The MENTOR research shows the challenges and a path forward.  It's not a new path, because I and others have pointed to these challenges for many years.

The question is, will you say ENOUGH, and begin to take actions so we're not having this conversation again in 25 years? 

Mentoring Month Message to Volunteers

As we start a new year, and a new decade, and the National Mentoring Month, we also welcome a new President.

For the past year Democratic Presidential candidates have bombarded us with stories of hope, and change. It would give me more hope for the future, if I could see change in the way elected leaders (and candidates) act as leaders.

I led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago from 1975 to 2011 ( I joined the leadership committee of the Montgomery Ward Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program in Sept. 1994.) 

I formed the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in 1993 to help teens from the original 2nd to 6th grade program at the Montgomery Ward HQ in Chicago get the extra support they need from 7th grade through high school, in order to be prepared for college, vocational education, and the next steps to a job and a career.

When kids and volunteers joining us each year we're making one promise: 

We will do everything we can to assure that each student who joins us will be starting a job/career by age 25. We are only limited by how much our students, volunteers, alumni and supporters are willing to share this responsibility.

Below is a message I shared with our volunteers to start 2008. This message can be just as relevant in January 2020 to volunteers in any tutor/mentor program, or to newly elected leaders to city, state and national offices. 

 --------------------------- 

I hope that all of our volunteers have had great holidays and that you are looking forward to continuing your role as a tutor/mentor volunteer at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

As you prepare for the second half of the school year, I encourage you to read some of the articles posted at Cabrini Connections - Tutor/Mentor Program in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago (archive.org)

I've been a leader of a tutor/mentor program since 1974, and I've learned that every volunteer and student are different, and constantly changing. Thus, while I can provide a structure for your participation, I can't teach you everything you need to know, or everything I've learned. I can try to help you, and your student, form a learning strategy, where you know where to find information, and find help, so that as you meet weekly, you know where to go for ideas to stimulate and support your involvement. 

Last Christmas, Rebecca Parrish (a Cabrini Connections volunteer) gave me the book "The Starfish and the Spider" as a present. As I read it, I realized that this book was describing Cabrini Connections and the role of every volunteer, staff member, and leader. It also describes the role of alumni, and veteran volunteers. 

We are a decentralized organization in which each volunteer is the CEO of his/her own tutoring/mentoring business. We succeed in life by our own efforts and by what we can learn from others. Our networks are important. They expand opportunities, open doors and provide resources. 

As you go through the tutoring year, each volunteer is learning to individualize his/her weekly activities based on the needs of your student, your own abilities and time, and the level of experience you have gained. Veteran volunteers, alumni, staff and coordinators are able to support you with ideas, information, and structure, but it is your own learning and networking with other volunteers that gives you ideas for what you do. 

Each week I'm trying to coach you with this email, with my blogs, and with the information and networks available to you on the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which we started in 1993 at the same time as we launched the Cabrini Connections program) website at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org 

You all already know how difficult it is to motivate many kids to do home work, do extra learning, and take charge of their lives. Imagine how difficult it is for me and the leaders of Cabrini Connections to recruit busy people like our volunteers, and convince them to spend time beyond their weekly tutoring/mentoring, learning how they can become more effective tutors/mentors, or giving help to others who are seeking help. 

Yet, this is the only way we can succeed in keeping the promise we make to our kids. Read more at http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/good-to-great-in-decentralized.html

I thank you all for your involvement in Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. On behalf of our volunteer board of directors, I welcome you back for our 16th year of tutoring/mentoring since January 1993.

Dan Bassill
President/CEO

Cabrini Connections 

Tutor/Mentor Connection 

 --------------------------------- 

In what ways will our newly elected leaders support the involvement of volunteers, donors, businesses and universities in programs like Cabrini Connections? Will they use maps to build a distribution of resources into every neighborhood where tutor/mentor programs are needed? Will they use their blogs, web sites, public speaking to connect volunteers with non profits in their district, using links to a Program Locator, so volunteers and donors can search for where to get involved? 

Or will the volunteer and donate button on their web site only point to themselves, in an effort to get elected, or stay elected? 

True leadership lifts up everyone. Real Generals understand the need to distribute troops in all places where the enemy is concentrated, and they understand the need to have an infrastructure that supports those troops with food, clothing, pay, training, weapons, etc. so they are better equipped than the enemy.

Which of our leaders are going to be demonstrating this type of leadership when they take office or ask for our votes again in a few years?

Since I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 Chicago has had three different Mayors and the USA has had four different Presidents and will have a 5th in late January 2020.

I've been sharing ideas like these in printed newsletters, websites, blogs, email newsletters and social media for 25 years yet I still find few leaders using maps to show all the places where kids and families need  help, and where they are distributing needed resources.  I find few using concept maps as blueprints to visualize all the supports needed to help a youth in a high poverty area move from first grade to their first job, with a commitment to "do everything we can to assure that each student who joins us will be starting a job/career by age 25."

I thank you for reading this far and sincerely thank those few who have made contributions in 2020 to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  

Please go a step further and share my blog articles with your own networks so more people see these ideas and adopt them as their own.  Below is an example of one of my own recent Tweets.

Can we get @JoeBiden and/or @KamalaHarris to adopt the goals of this #conceptmap, putting themselves in the blue box at the top center? Follow the lines.
"My goal is..." https://t.co/lHeYxjMhtr pic.twitter.com/3wi0qQt15l

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) December 15, 2020

The strategy map that I point to in this tweet can be found on this page, along with all my other concept maps.  Open it. Read it aloud. If it makes sense to you, create your own version. Record it. Share it. Maybe in 2021 we'll finally find leaders who will make this commitment. 

I'm on Twitter @tutormentorteam and you can find me on Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram  (see links on  this page). I look forward to connecting with others who share this commitment. 

Focus on Youth Tutor Mentor Programs in High Poverty Areas

It's the annual January National Mentoring Month, where thousands of organizations are drawing attention to mentoring, of youth, and of adults.  If you do a Google search for National Mentoring Month, you'll find the images shown below. Mostly logos, with a mix of photos showing a mentor and mentee.   

Do web search for National Mentoring Month, then look at images

Now use "tutor/mentor"  and repeat the search. Look at the images and you'll see what's in this graphic.

We search for "tutor/mentor National Mentoring Month"

On this image I've circled graphics from posts I've made over the past 10-15 years, which focus on marketing and resource building strategies needed to develop well-organized, non-school, mentor-rich programs that reach kids in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.

In both sets of graphics, you can click into a web site to see how it is used. Maybe you'll find maps and graphics like mine on the sites of many of the mentoring programs shown, but usually that's not the case.

I think the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), which I created in 1993 and now lead via the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, is fairly unique in how it hosts and information base and shares ideas focused on building the programs needed to make on-going and long-term connections with youth possible in more places.

One of the graphics you'll see is this one, that shows the Logic Model, driving why the Tutor/Mentor Connection was created.

From the left -

a) youth in high poverty areas benefit from support of mentors and extra, non-family adults

b) because of the size of big cities like Chicago, organized programs are needed to facilitate weekly involvement of volunteer tutors and mentors with inner city youth

c) using maps of Chicago and other cities, with demographic overlays showing indicators of need, you can see that there are many areas, and thousands of youth, who would benefit from well-organized programs.

Thus, leaders are needed to help such programs start and grow in all of these places.

Take some time to view this presentation. If you agree with the logic, support the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, and form a team to duplicate these ideas and strategies in your own city.

Expanding Network Of Adults... by on Scribd

I've been creating visual presentations like this since the late 1990s.  On this page you can find a complete list of the presentations I've created, along with links to places where you can view them.

I wrote a post last week under the "What the heck am I doing?" title, which contained a few of my graphics. To really understand what I've been trying to do,  you need to spend time looking through my complete library of presentations and past blog articles.

Here's another way to get involved.

On this page you can find visualizations created by interns between 2006 and 2015 to communicate ideas in my blog articles, web sites and these PDF presentations.

Anyone can duplicate this!

Anyone can use my presentations for personal learning, or to stimulate a group discussion.

Use these ideas.

As you go through January, and the next 12 months, I encourage you to use these ideas and resources to help build and sustain on-going, mentor-rich programs in all high poverty areas of your community. 

My hope is that some of  you will reach out to help me update and maintain this resource, and pay the bills. Click here if you'd like to do that.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN if you'd like to connect and start a conversation. I look forward to helping you dig through this extensive library.

Find a Program and Volunteer Time, Talent or Dollars

Every year since 1995 I've pointed people to a list of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs and said "choose one where you can use your time, talent and dollars to make a difference".

Almost every article on this blog focuses on helping well-organized, mentor rich non-school k-12 youth programs reach kids in every high poverty neighborhood.  As we move through July I invite you to browse through past articles written during this time of  year and apply the ideas to helping kids in Chicago and other cities.

Since there is no single master list showing every youth serving organization in Chicago or any other city I created this concept map to point to my lists, and to other sites which also serve as resources for learning about youth organizations in Chicago and other cities.

Take some time to get acquainted with the information, then spend time weekly encouraging others to do the same.

These are some of the kids you'll be helping.

Father's Day. Family and Extended Mentoring Family

I've seen lots of inspiring Father's Day posts on Twitter and Facebook today. They inspired me to create the two montages I show below.

My own father, siblings and children.

My Dad died on Father's Day in 1986, so this is kind of a sad day for me. He and my Mom are shown in this photo. I also show my Dad with his nine living children, in photo taken in early 1980s. I show myself with my two Philadelphia brothers, Billy and Chris and with the two brothers I grew up with, Steve and Nick. I show my son and daughter, Amanda and Jacob, along with my wife Emily, my Mom and my sister Rose and her husband Pete.  It's a big family with dozens of nieces, nephews spread all over the country.

This second photo is from my mentoring and tutoring family, which I joined as a volunteer in 1973.

While I was born into my biological family, I was recruited into this second family. First as a tutor/mentor matched with a 4th grade boy named Leo, shown in the upper right in 1973 and just below in 2014.  Leo posted a message on Facebook today saying:

fathers to me while growing up.
Thanks to:
William Holden
Daniel F. Bassill
Dr. Leon E Drouin
Clifford Gibson
Ajamu Jabari-Akil
You guys have been there one way or another.

I was recruited to lead the tutoring program at Montgomery Ward's corporate  headquarters in Chicago in the summer of 1975 and spent the next 36 years doing what was needed each year to recruit others to volunteer and donate time and talent so that several thousand youth and adults could be connected to each other in on-going and growing tutor/mentor relationships.

"Thank You, Dan" card

I've received many awards for this work, such as the 1999 Publisher's Clearing House Good as Gold Award, but the best were the friendships and thank you's offered by kids and volunteers over the past four decades, as well as the photos I see on Facebook showing the sons and daughters of former students now finishing high school and going to college, and/or starting their own families.

In organized and informal mentoring programs throughout the world extra adults are serving as informal "fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles" to kids who need a few extra adults in their lives.

I want to say "Thank you" to all of them. I also want to say "Thank you" to the many donors who have provided the dollars every year to enable formal, volunteer-based tutor and/or mentor programs to exist.

Let each Father's Day be a time to reflect, share photos and offer "thanks and well-wishes". But let it also be a renewal of the commitment volunteers, leaders and donors need to make every year to support existing programs and help new ones form where kids still don't enjoy this type of support.

Transforming Adults Involved In Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs

I wrote this article in 2009 and said, "Now that Chicago won't host the Olympics, can we create "gold medal" thinking about ways to help kids from poverty win their race to futures?

Me & Leo - 1973

I've updated this for 2017.  We still don't have much "gold medal"thinking.  Please read on.

When I first became a volunteer tutor at the Montgomery Ward program almost 35 years ago, I had no idea that I'd someday be writing articles like this to encourage others to become involved. What transformed me over these years? What if hundreds of places where volunteers connect with inner city youth were trying to transform their own volunteers for the same benefit?

I attend many meetings where the problems and tragedies of poverty are discussed. Almost all bring together many people with personal experience and good ideas. However, a time in the meeting comes when we talk about funding, and then we all recognize that this is a problem, then we go on and talk more about the problems, and what we could do IF we had the money.

I focus most of the articles in this blog on what steps we might take to increase the flow of resources to all tutor/mentor programs in a geographic area, on a long-term basis, which includes money, but also includes talent and technology, and ideas.

Yesterday as I sat in another meeting, I scribbled out some concepts, which I later polished up on a concept map. If you've skills in animation, you could do even more with this idea.

http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Vol-Growth-Cycle

This chart shows a cycle that takes place almost every day, in hundreds of locations throughout the country. However, it may be happening with less purpose and impact in most places, than is needed to change the flow of resources to tutor/mentor programs.

Let me try to break this down for you.

The first step in volunteer involvement is creating advertising, or network building, that motivates a volunteer to seek out a place where he/she can get involved. This could be the Cabrini Connections (now Chicago Tutoring Connection) program which I led from 1993 to 2011. It could be one of the programs on the list of Chicago programs maintained by the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993. It could be one in any other city, found by searching through any of these volunteer-matching systems.



The next stage of volunteer involvement is on-going. This involves the coaching, training, and peer mentoring that a volunteer receives in the program where she became involved. This also involves the learning which a volunteer does on his own to build his skills as a tutor/mentor. This type of support varies dramatically from place to place, depending on the level and experience of staffing, and the structure of the program. If a volunteer is well supported, and if the student attends regularly and is not what we call a "volunteer killer" (meaning they don't want to work, are disrespectful, or don't attend regularly and the volunteer gets frustrated and quits), then the volunteer will stay longer with the program.



Now comes the important, trans formative stage. As volunteers who don't live in poverty become personally involved with kids who do live in poverty, they begin to learn more about issues and challenges the kids deal with on a daily basis. They begin to become more interested in learning more about these issues. Some will do this on their own. However, some programs make an effort to broaden the volunteer's understanding of the issue by organizing conferences, training sessions, or by providing reading materials, or on-line libraries of information that the volunteer can learn from.

Each week, as the volunteer grows his/her relationship with the youth, they also grow their understanding of the issues. If the program nurtures this, the volunteer takes the next step, to becoming an advocate for the student, the program, and the tutor/mentor industry.

Initially this might be the volunteer making contact with the student's parent, or teacher. It might grow to making a greater effort to find study ideas, and college and career resources. It might lead to creating a part time job at the volunteer's company for the student, or other students in the program, or to recommending speakers and other resources.

As the volunteer shares his weekly experiences through informal story telling, a few friends and co-workers may offer to join her as a volunteer.

If the volunteer is coached, or self-motivated, he might begin to raise money to support the organization. Some volunteers might join fund raising committees, or even become part of a board of directors.

If this is happening in many programs, in the same city, or in multiple cities, and the number of volunteers increases, the impact of their informal networking can result in more volunteers becoming involved, and more people donating money to support their programs.

However, if there are face-to-face events, or on-line platforms, where volunteers from the same program, for from different programs, can connect with each other, then the sharing of information can include more people, and the hosts of these events can become more strategic.

Imagine if we were able to attract two or three thousand volunteers from tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Miami, LA and other cities to the same on-line forum. What if a volunteer said, "I'm from Microsoft. Are there any other volunteers from there?"

This could lead to volunteers who work in the same company, same industry, or attended the same college, forming groups where they share tips and ideas that enable each member to be more effective in how he supports his/her own student.


It could also lead to these volunteers beginning a process of "What could we as a group, or as a company, do to support our programs more consistently? Or, What could we do to improve the quality and experience, and retention, of key staff members who are essential to coaching volunteers and students into long-term involvement? What could we do to lower the costs and frustrations of fund raising?"

Such discussions, happening in many groups, could lead to a more strategic understanding of a tutor/mentor program and how we transform the lives of kids, by transforming the lives of the volunteers who we recruit from areas beyond poverty, and from the many industries who benefit from a well-trained and diverse workforce.

Ultimately, such strategies would increase the number of well-organized, volunteer-based programs, where leaders incorporate this thinking into their own core strategies, which would just lead to a greater on-going growth in the number of volunteers who are involved and transformed.

Created by Intern from Hong Kong in 2007

I call this a Service Learning Loop. You can see an animated version of this here.

Instead of thinking of a shrinking economy and support system, we should be thinking of this as a growth strategy.

I encourage you to borrow the charts I post on this blog for your own articles, brain storming and visioning. Just point a link to us as the source. You can find essays with some of these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library. I also encourage you to join me on social media where we can meet without the costs of travel to attend face to face conferences.

Since I first created this article in 2009 an intern from the University of Michigan, working with a public interest program fellow from Northwestern, created an animation to share this information. That can be seen in this video.

In addition, the Service Learning Loop animation was updated by an intern from South Korea who was part of a program with IIT in Chicago.

You can see the animation in this video.

If you're a writer, graphic designer, film maker, or student looking for an internship, or for a masters, or PhD project, we offer the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a project that you can study, and where you can apply your talent to enhance and improve what we're doing.  As these videos demonstrate, any of the ideas I share on this blog could be re-done many times, by students and volunteers from many places.

I encourage that to happen.

Use Website to Communicate Youth Program Design

 I point to nearly 200 Chicago youth serving programs in the links section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site.  On many web sites there is a list of services, and tutoring and/or mentoring might be included. On others there is a page on the web site with a message something like this.

School-Age is a program that provides educational support, cultural enrichment, and recreational development activities to student ages 6 - 12. It’s open five-days-a-week and full-time during the summer and on school holidays. The program is for low-income parents who are either working, in school, or job training.

Other web sites seem more fully devoted to youth tutoring and mentoring, and the first page on the web site uses photographs of youth and volunteers to signal this purpose. Some provide a great deal of information showing program design, history, alumni, etc. Others show far less information.

What I see frequently in the youth development field, and on Chicago programs' web sites,  is an emphasis on the act of "tutoring" or "mentoring" or arts, technology and/or video making,  but not a strategy that weaves those acts into a long-term web of support that helps kids in poverty areas move through school and into careers.

I think of non-school volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs as a potential "learning distribution system", like a retail store, with a wide range of age-appropriate mentoring and tutoring and experiential activities, made possible by volunteers from different work/life backgrounds and a consistent flow of flexible operating dollars.  Such programs are needed in every high poverty neighborhood.

A few years ago I created a presentation that I titled "shoppers guide" to show some things that I think parents, volunteers and donors might want to see on a youth tutor/mentor program's web site, to help them decide whether or not to get involved with that program.  Here's the presentation:

Shoppers Guide for Choosing a Tutor/Mentor Program to Support by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

I created another presentation, titled "Virtual Corporate Office", to show how volunteers from different industries, trade associations and universities could help programs build a mentor-rich program design, and communicate it effectively on their web sites.

Virtual Corporate Office: Strategy for Helping Youth Tutor/Mentor Programs Reach Youth in More Places. by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

In most of my presentations and many of my blog articles I use GIS maps, showing where comprehensive, long-term, tutor, mentor and learning organizations are needed, based on high rates of  poverty, segregation, crime and violence, etc.  While there are a few really well designed programs doing great work, programs in every poverty neighborhood need to be great, and constantly getting better.

For that to happen businesses and other assets in a neighborhood, and in the city, need to form teams of volunteers who work to help programs become great, by working to help employee volunteers and corporate dollars become involved as long-term support systems.

I attended a presentation yesterday where the President of a Chicago business emphasized the importance of leadership commitment to partnerships with youth serving organizations.  In this Role of Leaders presentation I emphasize that commitment, but also show how this can lead to the growth of an employee led team of volunteers who work to engage the company, and its industry, effectively in support of youth programs that have long-term career-focused strategies.

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

In many past articles I've focused on the need for leaders in every industry, university, hospital and faith group to make a long-term commitment to help kids move through school and into careers.

A version of this concept map should be shown on the web site of every leader who makes this type of long-term commitment, and supports the four-part strategy needed to make great programs available in more places.

The Mayor of a city, and Governor of a state, should be the number one cheerleaders, recognizing leaders who make this commitment and show it on their web site, and arm-twisting others who don't take a similar role.

Hosting a list of youth serving programs is a huge challenge, but it's really only the first step of building an information base that helps us understand the different types of youth serving programs available to youth at different age levels, in different zip codes.  I've reached out to people in business and  universities over and over for many years, seeking others who would dig into the list of youth programs I host, and build a deeper level of understanding about what's available in Chicago (or other cities) and what more is needed.

That type of research is still needed, in Chicago, and in other cities. 

I'd be happy to help you walk through the ideas I share on my web sites.  If more leaders take the roles shown, more youth program web sites will begin to show a comprehensive theory of change, a long-term program design, and alumni who are now working as a result of support the program provided during k-16 years.

"So You're Trying to Duplicate What Kids Have in Affluent Areas!"

I led a non-school tutor/mentor program in Chicago from 1975-2011, serving inner-city youth from the Cabrini-Green area.
This is the graphic one of my volunteers was looking at in the 1990s when he turned to me and said, "So You're Trying to Duplicate What Kids Have in Affluent Areas!"

Yes. That's what I feel a mentor-rich, non-school, tutor, mentor and learning program can try to do.

I've written about this many times in the past, but was prompted to write again today after reading an article titled, "I look like a self-made millionaire, but I owe my success to privilege."

Same challenges. Different resources.

Since 2015 I've posted articles about a book written by Dr. Robert Putnam, titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis", where he shows that affluent youth have growing advantages that are not available to low income youth of any race. I created this concept map to illustrate this.  If you're an African American living in poverty, you have even more challenges to overcome.

In the graphic at the top of the page I show a small map of Chicago in the lower left corner. This is to emphasize the need for well-organized, long-term, tutor/mentor programs to in all high poverty areas, serving a growing number of youth from first grade through high school and beyond.

That's the type of support affluent families and communities offer their kids. Since families in  high poverty areas struggle just to put food on the table and pay rent, and deal with outside influences such as violence, crime, racial discrimination, etc., it's up to people who don't live in poverty to help make needed programs available, and keep them available for many years.

So where are leaders talking about this?  What are the challenges? What are the Tipping Points?  I've spent over 30 years thinking about this. Below is one of many presentations that share my ideas.

Tipping Points: Actions that might transform lives of inner city kids by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

If we want well-organized, on-going, non-school tutor/mentor and learning programs to reach youth in high poverty areas of big cities, rural areas and reservations, we need to be building libraries of information, which I have been doing, and then using that information to train leaders who will staff these programs and who will support decision making among businesses, foundations and government policy makers.

Influence both sides.

I created this graphic a couple of years ago. If we want kids in poverty to move through school more safely and into jobs and lives free of poverty, we need to influence what non profit leaders and staff do, and we need to influence what business, foundations, government, etc. do.  Read the article.

I've spent 40 years thinking of ways to recruit adult volunteers to be tutors, mentors and change agents in the lives of  urban youth. I've been writing articles and sharing them via printed newsletters and Internet for 23 years.

I don't expect anyone to instantly grasp what I'm describing. It's only by spending time reading, reflecting, and creating your own visualizations, over and over for many years, that others will build a shared understanding.

That means the learning needs to begin while future leaders are still in middle school!

I keep searching for partners, benefactors, universities, etc. who understand the long-term work that needs to be done in order for well-organized, long-term programs be be reaching more youth in high poverty with support systems that give these youth some of the same "privileges" as affluent White kids grow up with.

If you want to help please reach out to me.

#InternationalMentoringDay - Connect Cities, Volunteers Throughout World

My Twitter feed is full of #internationalmentoringday motivational messages. So is my Facebook feed. This is an annual day of celebration that recognizes people involved in mentoring and (hopefully) encourages others to give a donation, their time, their talent, or even a hug to support people involved in local and global youth serving organizations.

Since I led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor organization for 35 years that has depended on the contributions of time, talent and dollars from many people, I’m delighted to write about this.

In fact, I’ve been writing about the challenges of making mentor-rich non-school tutor/mentor programs available in hundreds of locations for the past 23 years in my role as leader of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (T/MI).

I hope you’ll take some time to read some of the past articles.

The challenge of a non-profit leader is the same challenge I had when I worked as a retail advertising manager of the Montgomery Ward Corporation between 1973 and 1990, yet larger.

At Wards during the 1980s we had a $250 million advertising budget to reach out to 20 million people three times each week with advertising intended to draw customers to our 400 stores located in 40 states. In these ads we provided a range of merchandise and services that we knew some people were looking for each week. We also provide incentives to motivate people to come to our store instead of someone else's store. These included HALF PRICE, NO MONEY DOWN, LIMITED TIME ONLY and many similar messages.

In the non-profit sector each organization competes with each other on a daily basis for dollars and volunteers and public attention and few have the advertising budgets that are available in for profit corporations. At the same time as they are searching for dollars to pay the expenses they also are innovating ways to use the dollars effectively to provide public benefit.

Few non-profits have the ability to say HALF PRICE SALE, or THIS WEEK ONLY.
Thus most don’t have the consistent involvement of volunteers and donors that are essential to build and sustain the work each program is trying to do.

That’s why events like International Mentoring Day are important. Someone is taking the lead on January 17 to motivate people all over the world to seek out and support mentoring-based organizations, locally, or globally. The many messages on social media fill an important role by encouraging bloggers, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook people to write about mentoring, thus expanding the “advertising reach and frequency” that is needed to attract the attention of millions of people who might make small donations of time, talent or dollars to fuel the work of non-profit tutoring and/or mentoring programs.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection supports the involvement of volunteers and donors by maintaining a map-based Directory of Chicago organizations that offer various forms of tutoring/mentoring in different neighborhoods of Chicago. T/MC also hosts a library of links to web sites of these organizations and to information that people can use to understand why and where tutor/mentor programs are most needed.

Since 2011 I've led this effort through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. I've not had much financial or volunteer support to maintain the on-line resources as well as they need to be updated and so forth, and still don’t yet have a giving feature tied to the maps that works like crowdfunding platforms, but we’d like to add this if we can find the money, or a technology partner.

If #InternationalMentoringDay and the weight of many on social media can draw a few more donors and volunteers to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities, this is a good thing.

However, it will be even better if the following happens.

a) Groups of people who support the goal of tutor/mentor programs will begin to innovate ways to duplicate Wards Sears, McDonalds and other businesses, to create events 365 days of the year that draw the attention of the world to small charities doing needed work

b) Some of these groups will see the value of map directories and portals like the T/MC and will add their own time, talent and dollars to help innovate more ways that we can draw volunteers and donors directly to programs, the way mass merchants draw shoppers to stores. Help us build this capacity and help us share this with people in other cities.

c) People focused on other social benefit causes will see that the T/MC concept can duplicate in other sectors and will reach out to partner with us for their own self-interest

d) Some people will begin to use visualizations, such as concept maps, to show program design, planning processes, and the need to build public will and long-term support for mentor-rich programs in thousands of locations, and these will be shared in future events like #InternationalMentoringDay.

Margaret Mead talked about how a “few people can change the world”. Events like #InternationalMentoringDay can reach millions of people and inspire them to spread their time, talent and dollars to all corners of the earth where they can become part of the few, the proud, the difference makers.

I hope the resources I share can  help that happen.