Connecting People, Ideas and K-12 Youth From High Poverty Areas

I've spent the past 51 years connecting youth from high poverty areas of Chicago with volunteers from many different backgrounds, as part of an on-going effort to expand the networks supporting kids as they grow up and as they begin their adult live/careers.

Initially this was through the tutor/mentor program that I led at the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago from 1975 to 1992.  Then it continued through the Cabrini Connections program that I formed in late 1992 and led through mid 2011.

When we formed the Cabrini Connections program we recognized that one more small program could be life-changing for the teens and volunteers who were served, but would not have much impact on the more than 200,000 school aged youth living in high poverty areas of Chicago.

So we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and launched it in January 1994. I've led it since then, but through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011.  

The programs I led served youth who lived in the Cabrini-Green area on Chicago's Near North side until the early 2000s when we began to accept kids from other parts of the city.

I've been interested in using maps since the late 1970s when we plotted locations of buildings in the Cabrini-Green area to show where our current students were living. We used this to target recruitment of new students to buildings where current students were living, thinking that this would help convince new students to join.  We did that using sketch paper, since I had not learned about GIS mapping at that time.

I did begin to learn about GIS mapping in late 1992 as we were planning the strategies of the new Tutor/Mentor Connection. And by 1994 we were producing maps on a regular basis, with the help of donated software and computers and volunteer talent.

In 2008 we received a $50,000 gift from an anonymous donor, focused at rebuilding our mapping capacity. Half of that went toward hiring Mike Traken, a GIS specialist, to make our maps.  Above is one that he produced in 2008 showing where our Cabrini Connections students were living.

At the right is one of many maps that Mike created between early 2008 and early 2011.  It shows where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are most needed, based on indicators like high poverty and poorly performing schools. Then it adds overlays showing locations of tutor/mentor programs in our database, and in this example Citi Bank locations in Chicago.  Browse this set of articles on the MappingForJustice blog to see more business maps created by Mike. 

Our goal was to convince businesses, professional groups, faith groups, health care and higher education leaders to use maps to form strategies that would support tutor/mentor programs that were located near their facilities, or where employees lived, or on the routes they take to and from work each day.  

While I've found many examples of business using maps to plan store locations, or to draw customers to stores, I've not found examples of them using maps to guide philanthropy or employee engagement. If you have examples, please share them. 

During the mid 2000s I learned about another type of mapping that could be used to visualize your network, showing who you were connected to and how strongly you were connected.

In 2010 I was able to obtain donated software from Valdis Krebs of Org.net and to recruit students from three Chicago area colleges.  They met with me on the TutorMentorConnection.ning.com site in a group established to focus on network analysis. 

One outcome of that was a set of articles showing participation in 2009 and 2010 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago from May 1994 to May 2015.

Unfortunately I was not able to keep these interns with me so their work did not continue.

However, my interest in understanding networks did not change.   In Spring 2012 two interns from South Korea, via IIT in Chicago, took a look at participation in the Ning site since it was formed in 2007.

Each student created a presentation using Gephi software.  View this one here.

The second presentation can be seen here

I keep looking for examples of other people using maps like I'm demonstrating. 

However, the really important use of network maps is to help show how organized tutor/mentor programs are expanding networks for the kids and volunteers in their programs.

In 2010 I posted this graphic in the Ning group and wrote, "One of the goals of our Social Network Analysis is to find a way to show how the networks of kids living in highly segregated, high poverty, inner city neighborhoods changes over many years as a result of being part of a tutor/mentor program like Cabrini Connections. In this web site, Bob Pearlman shows that "who you know" is more important than what you know. He points to a Silicon Valley study by AT Kearney, which shows how kids living in poverty don't have people in their lives modeling college and technology careers, thus they are less likely to pursue those careers.

Thus, if we can create a SNA survey that shows how frequently kids are in contact with people who went to college, hold jobs in Science, Math, Technology, Engineering, health care, law, etc., we can ask our teens to take this at the beginning of each year. Comparison maps from year to year, should show an expanding network created as a result of being part of a tutor/mentor program."

I was not able to do this in the Cabrini Connections program since I left in mid 2011. And while I've shared this idea often, I've not found any youth-serving program doing this type of network analysis.

Last fall a team of students in an information visualization MOOC at Indiana  University created a new analysis of the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Conferences.  The image below is an example of the type of information that can be pulled through the map.  This shows the number of conferences that were attended by Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Metro Chicago. 

They also created an open source network mapping tool that anyone can use to create a data collection sheet and upload it into Kumu.io or Gephi.  

You can find links to both of these on this page. 

I no longer lead a tutor/mentor program so I don't have access to students and volunteers to survey them to collect data that could be mapped using this tool.  However, any youth serving program could do this. Perhaps you can even enlist manpower from a local university to do the work for you.  Just point to what past interns have done for me.

The maps showing participation in Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences show that I was connecting to the majority of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and to many in other cities.  My follower lists on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram show that I'm still connected to many of these people and to many others who represent the broad ecosystem of the education/youth development world.

However, that does not mean they are talking to me, or to each other, about the challenges they face and the opportunities they perceive.  It's possible to create a data collection form using the new Network Mapping tool, that people in my network could use to show how they are connecting to me and each other.  The data from that could be converted to spreadsheets and then network analysis maps.  

I wonder how many might respond to an invitation to share that information.

5/4/2026 update - In this blog article you can see the work done by the Spring 2026 IVMOOC team at Indiana University, which builds on what was done by the past two teams. 

7/24/2026 update - I encourage you to read this article titled "How to Turn Any Network Into an Interactive Knowledge Graph To Discover Hidden Insights."  There are many ideas that could be applied to the work of the IVMOOC teams.

These are things I think about every day.  If the ideas resonate with you, please share them in your own network.  Create your own version of my maps and graphics, focused on your own city/state.  Then share them so I can learn from you as you are learning from me.

You can find links to my social media sites on this page.

And, you can find information about helping me pay the bills on this page.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

It's Super Bowl Week. What's the Game Plan?

It's Super Bowl Week. While a large part of world attention will focus on the game, the commercials and the halftime show, I've posted articles here almost every year since 2007 that show a role athletes can take beyond the charity causes they already support.

In 2024 I used this image from the NFL Awards show in this article, with a headline of "Multiplying Good - Map the Network".  The goal of the article was to encourage one or more data researchers to create a library of EVERY pro sports athlete, and the causes they support.  Make it searchable by city, by sport, by cause, by team, etc.  Use visualizations like Kumu.io and Gephi to help people use this information.

 

In March 2025 I included the graphic below in this article, showing an example of how networks can be mapped.

In this section and this section you can find many more articles about mapping networks using tools like Kumu.io and NodeXL. Find more ideas in this section.

In January 2026 I wrote an article titled "Making Philanthropy Work Better" and introduced Project 990, which is mining data of all nonprofit 990s reports and mapping the information. 

Since the 1990s I've been trying to influence what visible people do to support youth and youth serving programs in all high poverty areas of the cities where they play sports, or where they grew up.  

In the mid 1990s the Tutor/Mentor Connection created the map below, showing high poverty areas of Chicago and locations of non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  It was signed by 11 pro athletes during a weekend golf event, to indicate their support of the idea of athletes "adopting neighborhoods", not just single programs.  I've share this often, such as in this 2024 article. 

If you search "Super Bowl" on this blog you'll find many articles where I've shared ideas similar to these.  In 2007 I wrote "Go Bears! The Super Bowl of Life". In that I wrote:

While many athletes have foundations and do great things to help their communities, there's no strategy that I know of that enlists athletes and coaches in an effort to use their celebrity visibility to draw attention to a social cause, and to draw volunteers and donors to specific neighborhoods throughout a city.

For instance, on the Super Bowl broadcast Terry Bradshaw, a former star quarterback, and current TV broadcaster, made an appeal for viewers to stay involved in helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The TV footage focused at New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward, but I heard him end a phrase with "and the other areas".

If someone created a map of the area that had been destroyed by the Hurricane, it would be possible to enlist athletes from many sports to adopt different communities, or zip codes, in the entire area. Then, whenever that athlete were to have a TV opportunity, he/she could draw attention to his zip code, as part of an effort to keep attention on the entire area of destruction. As the season moves from Basketball to baseball to football and back to hockey and basketball, different stars, in different cities, would have many opportunities to focus attention, and draw resources to the various parts of the entire geographic area where volunteers, donors, and all sorts of help will be needed for many years.

In the same way, I want to enlist athletes to focus attention on the high poverty neighborhoods of big cities. Instead of just talking about the Boys and Girls Clubs, or Big Brothers, Big Sisters, or other highly visible charities, we need to focus attention regularly on every neighborhood where kids need help, and the organizations in those neighborhoods who are providing help. 

This is a strategy I hope athletes will adopt. If you read this, and you know a Bear, or a Bull, or a college coach, or even a high school coach, who might want to be a champion of this idea, please pass this on.

While I've shared these ideas for many years I still have not found any photos of a pro football or basketball player standing in front of a map like I do in this 1990s photo, urging people to support youth programs in EVERY high poverty neighborhood, not just the few high profile programs in a few places.

I still have found no athlete or team supporting the "Adopt a Neighborhood" strategy that I outlined.

So as you watch this year's game, I hope you'll share this idea with high school and college coaches, and with any athlete you know.  Think of these articles as a "playbook" that coaches and players can study to see how they can do better next year than they did this year.

That's a habit that could make a quantum difference in the lives of millions of people.

The best time to have started this was 30 years ago. The next best is now, in 2026 when the technology available to build big databases and visualize the information is now available.

Thanks for reading.  Enjoy the game!

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

And, if you value what I'm sharing, please visit this page and help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

Map your network! New example.

Last week I shared an example of mapping networks to learn who's involved and to help members connect with each other.

Today I found another example.  This is the Global Futures Society Network Map, which was shared on LinkedIn by Victoria Mulligan, in this post. I'll share a few screenshots.

This view can be seen at this link. 

At the right is a great explanation of how to use the maps.  It starts with a statement of purpose, saying:  "The Global Futures Society (GFS) Network Map is a strategic tool designed to visually represent the member organisations, and individual members in addition to the relationships between them. In a field as diverse and dynamic as foresight, it can be challenging to track ongoing projects, partnerships, and initiatives. The GFS Network Map addresses this by offering a clear, interactive view of how the membership are connected, what they're focused on, and how their efforts contribute to shaping the future."

Here's another view: 

This shows text further down on the right side, that explains what data is shown and how to use the map.  Across the bottom are some search parameters.  They are 1) connected; 2) communicating; 3) coordinating; 4) collaborating. Click any of these and the map reformats to show that data.

On the lower left is another menu. In this case I  selected "academic, or research institution" and "non-profit organization".  The map below shows that view.

The map shows these people and how they are connected to each other.  Note: my screenshot only shows a portion of that view. You can zoom in and out on the Kumu map to see information in much greater detail, or to get a wider perspective.

Here's another view:  Click on any node and at the right you'll find information about who they are, what organization they represent and even "requests to give or share information". 
 

In this case I've singled out Victoria Mulligan, who was part of the team that created this platform.

In the article I wrote last week I showed how a GIS map was used to show where people were doing research.  The Global Futures Society map also has a GIS feature. It shows connections like on the Kumu map, but on the GIS map. See the example below.

Click on any node to learn who it represents.  This has the same filters on it as the KUMU map uses. Zoom in closer to see who is from Europe, the USA, South America, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.  I've not seen anything like this before, but since KUMU offers this feature I suspect I see more in the future. 

Here's one more view.  I circled the menus at the lower left and the lower center.  In the upper right are menus that enable you to choose what view you want to use.

I could spend a lot of time exploring this map and still not find everything that's included.  What I'd love to find is a set of blog articles written by people who are exploring the maps and using it as Victoria Mulligan wrote in her LinkedIn article:

"I’m pleased to say we ended up creating something really exciting, and have now designed and produced these “network maps” for a number of organisations - charitable, philanthropic and global industry groups. They’ve come to us not just for the pretty visualisation (isn’t it pretty though?) but because it’s now the best way of showing where your network is strong, where there are bottlenecks and whether any one organisation has too big a role (or too little) - that their fortunes will affect the fortunes of the whole network. 

Who does this map suit? Anyone working with a network of individuals or organisations working towards a common purpose. It’s particularly useful for funders and industry associations who want to measure progress across multiple fronts, and to understand where there might be challenges. Until now these challenges felt invisible, and tended to be stuck inside the heads of those working on the front lines - we're so proud that this tool can help them articulate their day to day barriers and point to opportunities to help their network thrive!"

Visit Victoria's website at this link. 

I highlighted what I've been focusing on for many years.  How can an intermediary, or member of a network,  understand who's involved, who stays involved, and who's missing?  If they know who's missing (a skill, or a representative of a key network), they can target that person or group with invitations until someone joins.  How can they connect beyond being one face in a big crowd at an event. How can these connections grow stronger over time, and have a greater impact on the work they all are doing? 

I included this "How can we do this better?" graphic in my new post on Substack.com.  

I think one way we could do more to help kids in high poverty areas is to use mapping tools like shown here and in my other blog posts, to understand who's involved and to recruit those who need to be involved.

Are you doing this?  Read what I wrote last week about mapping universities.  Such research should identify faculty and departments where students are learning these tools and who might support their use in area nonprofit and social benefit organizations.  

What if this were a project within a tutor/mentor program, showing volunteers who were involved, and who had been involved in past years?  Could youth in such programs learn to build and maintain such maps?  

If you have examples, please share them.

Thanks for reading this. 

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon. Better yet,  please represent these ideas on other platforms where I don't have an account.  

And, if you're able to help, please visit the contribution links on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net site and send a year in donation.

What's your personal learning network (PLN) look like in 2024?

Over the past 15 years I've written many articles about personal learning networks (PLN) and about social network analysis, or mapping networks. Below is a graphic from one of those articles.

In that article I wrote, "We all have networks. Most of us don't spend time segmenting our network into family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. then look for ways to tell them "I'm involved", yet if more people did that on a regular basis, more people would be giving time, talent and dollars to support youth tutor, mentor and learning programs and that might reduce the number who get involved with gangs and end up on the wrong end of a gun."

In another article I used the concept map shown below.

I created this concept in the mid 2000s to visualize my goal of helping students and volunteers, at the tutor/mentor program I led in Chicago,  build personal learning habits, drawing information from the Internet, and the wealth of people you can meet there if you spend time looking. 

I started connecting with others using the Internet and e-Mail list serves in the 1990s.  Below is part of a message I posted in 2000 on a Digital Divide list. 

You can read this in my archives - at this link.  It was exciting back then to be connecting and sharing ideas with people throughout the USA and the world.  It's motivated my on-line efforts for the past 25 years.  

I began using Twitter (now X) in the late 2000s and my use has grown since then.  Thus, the change in ownership and policies over the past couple of years has really been discouraging.  

Last week I read an article written by some of my CLMOOC education friends who I first met on Twitter in 2013, titled "Lines of Flight: The Digital Fragmentating of Educational Networks".   For some of you who have been connecting with myself and others on Twitter, this article will be valuable.  

For many others, who have never posted anything on Twitter, or who may have stopped using it more than three years ago, this may not matter to you.

For me, the Internet has been an essential tool to share ideas and try to motivate leaders to take on strategic roles that make volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs available to more K-12 youth in more high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with persistent poverty. 

I created the graphic shown above in 2011. It's intended to show how an idea spreads as your network expands.  The longer you work at this, the farther your reach will be.  I'm still just a speck in the ocean of ideas, which is why I keep asking readers to share my blog articles.

If you're interested in network building and network analysis, dig into the articles on this page. 

Why is this important?  A couple of weeks ago I posted an article using the graphic shown below.

Our world faces a tsunami of challenges.

Many of the issues on this graphic are directly related to what we do to help youth in high poverty areas via organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  Other issues are challenges the kids we mentor, our volunteers, and everyone else in the world, are facing now, and will continue to face for the next century.

I've built a web library over the past 30 years to aggregate information people can use to better understand problems, to see how people in other places might be solving those problems, and to find ways to work together to develop local and global solutions.

This concept map shows the role of information in an on-going planning process. 

While much of this work needs to be done at the one-on-one and small group level, the problems are too big and in too many places, for small groups to have much of an impact.

You, we, ME, all need to be connected in one or more on-line platforms and constantly learning from libraries like mine, and each other.  

I've moved from AOL Digital Divide, to Mott Afterschool Lists to  Yahoo Groups, G+, Ning.com, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other platforms over the past 30 years.  If you open the PDF that I referred to at the top of this article you can see some examples of early efforts to map my network and show who I was connected to.   You can read more about network analysis in this series of articles. 

I don't know what's going to happen with Twitter. I still use it, and encourage others to connect and share ideas there, and in other spaces.  I don't find many who are mapping their networks.  It's something that youth in tutor/mentor programs might learn to do, with help from volunteers. 

If you know of people who are doing this, share that with me in the comment box, or, on social media!

I received a call last week from Leo Hall, who was in 4th grade in 1973 when we first met.  He's celebrating his 60th birthday this year and wanted me to send a video, since he knows that I am not traveling any longer.  I wrote this article in 2014 after attending his 50th birthday.  This article includes a message Leo sent me in 2006.

Also last week, I received a wonderful message on Facebook from a student from the 1990s who ended her message saying, "the rides you gave me, the scholarship to high school, the trips to different places may have been small gestures to you but they meant so much more to me."  

She was living on the West side of Chicago, after moving from the Cabrini-Green area. Our program was located at the Montgomery Ward Corporate office in the Near North part of Chicago.  So, for two to three years I gave her and her siblings a ride home after weekly tutoring sessions, as I headed to my home in Park Ridge.  We had many interesting conversations.  

My own experiences and feedback from former students keep motivating me to reach out and connect with others because I can't do all the work that needs to be done, or have the impact that's needed, for the country to do all it needs to do to help  kids in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs and lives free of poverty, and racism, and bigotry, and all the other problems we, and they, will be facing.

I hope you'll connect with me on social media, or take time to visit articles on my blog and website and then share them with people in your own network.  Small daily actions can make a big difference.

Thanks for reading.  

If you're able to help me pay the bills, please visit this page. 

7-7-2024 update - Mapping changes in network over time - Kumu.io blog article - https://blog.kumu.io/mapping-changes-over-time-in-kumu-14c015554dbf

Network Building - A Process

I've been building the Tutor/Mentor library since 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Institute (T/MI) is to gather and organize all that is known about successful non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.

My daily journey through the Internet uncovers many resources that I add to the library. I draw attention to these by my e-mail newsletter, my blogs, my posts on social media, and my website.

Last Friday, and again today, I participated in a ZOOM call hosted by the Strategic Doing community, which I've followed on LinkedIn for many years. Below is a screenshot from last week's presentation, which you can view at this link.

If you view the mission statement of the Tutor/Mentor Connection you'll see that I've been trying to build a knowledge network, or ecosystem, of people, organizations and ideas that anyone can use to help kids from birth-to-work.

In today's ZOOM call the topic was "how universities solve complex problems".  Below is one of  many visualizations I've created to show long-term support kids need to move from birth-to-work.

I think universities could play a much greater role in helping kids in high poverty areas move through school, and college, into jobs, and then spend a lifetime helping others and working to solve complex social, economic and global problems.  

The challenge has always been to find someone in the university who would devote their career to building such a support system, involving others from the university, as well as alumni, business and community assets.

The graphic above is from this page on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website, showing eLearning goals that I first began to share back in the early 2000s.   

I organized Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 to bring parts of this ecosystem together.  The eLearning goals were developed as IUPUI helped us host our first (and only) on-line conference in 2004. My work on social media is a continuation of this effort.

The graphic below was created by students from Indiana University, and shows participation of organizations from throughout the USA in these conferences.

You can view the map in this article, and see universities that hosted conferences in this article.  

Below is a graphic showing work interns from different universities did between 2005 and 2015 to help me communicate ideas and strategies. 

These show what's possible from university engagement, but also share my frustration for never have been able to find a long-term partner at any of these universities who would apply their own time, talent and dollars to the strategies I've shared in many articles on this blog.

This has been made even more difficult as platforms where I connected with people have constantly changed over the past 20 years.  Even the www.tutormentorconnection.org site that was my primary resource from 1998 to 2018 is no longer available.

Since 2013 Twitter has been a growing source of network building and idea sharing. But recent changes in ownership are making that site much less reliable. So I've launched myself on new platforms.

Mastodon is one place where I can now be found.  It is a decentralized network of meeting places.  I've actually set up accounts on three, and am not yet close to the number of followers I have on Twitter.

BlueSky is another where I've recently began to build a network.  As with Mastodon, I'm not yet close to the following I have on Twitter. 

I have a page on the Tutor/Mentor website with links to these platforms and others where I'm trying to connect.  That's where you can also find my monthly newsletter. 

I've a section in the Tutor/Mentor library focused on collaboration and community building.  It has more than 50 links, including one to the Strategic Doing website.

One of the many challenges we face in solving complex problems is "drawing people to engage with each other,  on OUR platform.  I've spent 30 years building a body of knowledge on MY platform and on some of my social media networks.  Going into a platform hosted by someone else, and building a network is a huge challenge. It takes time. That's time I (and others) need to be spending drawing people to our platforms, and maintaining the quality of their content.

This is one reason there are so many silos, of people and organizations not connecting strategically with each other.  

In today's ZOOM call I asked the speaker if he had done any network analysis to know who was participating in his planning groups, and who was missing.  I had in mind the network analysis maps done by an intern working for me in 2010, which you can see in this blog article.  And, in this series of blog articles. 

One way I try to connect people is by putting them in my library and sharing their links via concept maps like the one below.  

This shows intermediaries in Chicago who focus on the well-being of youth.

If you look at the map you'll see a yellow text box in the lower right corner with the heading "Help Update This".  It asks "are there other Chicago area intermediary groups that can be added to this map? And it says "I need research help to know what businesses,  universities, philanthropy orgs, etc. support volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago."

If someone is hosting that information on their website I can add them to my library and my maps and help them connect those organizations to each other.  

This is work students at any high school or university could be doing....to help me update my Chicago area information, and to build similar maps and libraries for other communities.

One of the comments on today's Strategic Doing call came from someone in the business community who talked of how there is a need to achieve results through short term involvement. That's one of the problems.  Look at the graphic below, which you can view in this article.

This visualizes a goal of pulling youth through school and into adult lives, with support starting as early as preschool and lasting each year for 20-30 year....for each youth! Just building a network of stakeholders who understand and support this goal would take several years. Building such a network at many universities would take even longer.  Getting agreement on goals and setting up programs that engage students, faculty, alumni and community would take even longer. Then comes the year-to-year work, evaluation and constant improvement that improves what the university community does, and fills high poverty areas surrounding a university with a pipeline of birth-to-college-to-work programs.

Note that the far right part of this graphic focuses on helping some students graduate and take life-time careers in direct service programs while others graduate who make life-long commitments to support these alumni with time, talent and dollars.

Show me a university with a visualization that communicates this goal.  Or that is connecting the ecosystem of the university in efforts to achieve the goal.

There's no way I can communicate this with an introduction on a new platform, or a social media post, or a comment during a ZOOM call.  I need to motivate people to read my blog articles and study the information on my website, then share what they are learning via their own blogs and videos, just as interns did between 2005 and 2015.

However, this needs to be a multi-year learning process, perhaps part of a Masters or PhD program, not a short term internship.

Who can help make that happen?  

Thanks for reading. And thank you to those who visit this page and send contributions to help me do this work.  

Building youth networks.

Below is a graphic I created in 1990s to show the range of adults from different backgrounds who were connecting with teens in the Chicago tutor/mentor program that I led from 1993 to 2011.

Note the pre-school through career timeline in the middle of the circle. This shows the multi-year support needed by kids living in high poverty areas, where too few of the people surrounding them work in the wide range of careers that more affluent kids are exposed to.  Note also the circle showing public school above the timeline and the 3pm-5pm and 5pm-8pm circles below the timeline. This shows that the 3-5pm non-school hours are the typical after-school program, needed in all areas where Mom and Dad have full-time jobs and kids need safe places during this time frame.

The 5pm-8pm timeframe is more unique to big cities where workplace volunteers are more able to become tutors and mentors in on-going programs. That was the timeframe when the programs I led operated. 

I did not realize until I read Dr. Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone book in the late 1990s that what we were doing was creating bridging social capital for our kids.  Around 2013 Putnam published another book, titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" which I've written about often. 

In my graphic at the top of this article I show a hub and spoke design, where the hub represents a tutor/mentor program, or an individual youth. The spokes represent all the people who could be part of that youth's network, made possible by the family and community she is part of, or by the organized tutor/mentor program she is part of.

But how do we show this?  

At the left is another graphic that I've used for many years. In the mid 2000s I begin to learn about social network analysis, which is a tool for mapping connections between people and showing them in a visualization.  

Here are two articles written in the late 2000s where I introduce social network analysis, and one of it's pioneers, Valdis Krebs.  Click here and here. 

Yesterday I did a web search using the terms "tutor mentor push pull maps".  Below is a screen shot of the images from the top results on that search. Many of the images shown are from this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. 

I often do searches like this to make sure my web content can be found if people are searching for terms that include "tutor mentor".  In this search I saw that there were some others who were mapping networks.

One was a mentoring network map from Lehigh University. 

The second was an Earth Sciences mentor network map.

Both of these graphics use a "hub and spoke" design, similar to mine.  Both are trying to teach people to "know their networks".   I encourage you to visit their websites and read more about their network mapping.  Learn from them and apply the ideas to your own program design. 

Here's another great resource.

In 2021 I connected with the Christensen Institute on Twitter and posted the graphic below in this blog article, titled "Digging Deeper into Social Capital Thinking".  

The Christensen Institute has a collection of articles on its website that focus on increasing social capital.  I also have a collection of links to social capital websites and research in the Tutor/Mentor library.  The more you know and understand these terms and how expanding social capital can be a strategy for creating opportunity while reducing violence, and improving workforce readiness, the more you might apply these ideas in your own work.  

So how are youth programs showing social capital in their program design and outcomes? Are they?

From posts I see and websites I review, I know many Chicago tutor/mentor programs are connecting inner-city kids with adults from diverse workplace backgrounds.  At the left is a post on Twitter from Chicago Youth Programs, Inc. Their website does a great job showing their long-term support for kids and families.  However, I don't see the term "social capital", although they certainly do help kids build their networks.

Furthermore, I don't know of many foundations funding youth programs based on their social capital-building designs.  I pointed to recent MENTOR research in this article, that shows how few foundations fund long-term operations. That's a problem. 

There's a lot to digest in this article. The two mentor network mapping sites that I point to above focus on adult-to-adult mentoring.  The Christensen Institute seems to focus on what schools can do to expand student networks.  

Thus, I don't see many using work of people like Valdis Krebs to figure ways to show how student networks expand over a period of years as a result of intentional program design, funded by committed philanthropic partners.

I'm still connected to Leo Hall, who I first met in 1973 when I was assigned to be his tutor/mentor.  He's one of many former students, volunteers and staff members whom I'm connected to on Facebook. 

I've dabbled with network analysis over the past 20 years.  In 2010 we set up this intern group on our Ning site, where our goal was to create a tool to map network growth.  That fizzled when I could not retain interns for more than a few months. 

In 2012 I created a network analysis map showing my Facebook followers. You can see the analysis in this PDF essay.   

I'd love to find student researchers who'd continue the network analysis work I point to above.  It's not something I can do on my own.

Are you doing this type of analysis?  How can we apply the network mapping graphics used in workplace mentoring to better understand the impact and program design of youth tutor/mentor programs?  How can we convince funders to provide operating dollars based on this information showing up on a youth program website?

Where are you connecting and talking about building social capital for youth in high poverty areas?  I host a list on Twitter that includes the people I've mentioned here.  I hope you'll connect.

Here's my list of Chicago youth tutor/mentor programs. Take a look. See which, if any, are building social capital through program design and which, if any, are writing about this in their blog, or strategy pages.  If you know these programs, connect them to articles like this on my blog.

Thanks for reading.  As usual, I encourage you to connect and follow me on social media and to visit this page and make a contribution to support my work.

5-5-2025  update - here's May 2025 newsletter from Julia Freedland Fisher and the Christensen Institute. Note the feature article about social capital.  click here