Unleashing Influence of Business School Students

On LinkedIn I'm following a series of posts by Brad Fulton, of Indiana University, showing how they are "Building a comprehensive data analytics platform that integrates information from millions of tax filings, grants and other sources related to philanthropic giving."

I introduced his work and provided links in this article about "Making Philanthropy Work Better".

More recently I've been following LinkedIn posts by Daniel Max Crowley of Penn State University, such as the one I show below. 

Dr. Crowley is challenging universities to rethink how they use their research to increase public impact.  I  introduced Dr. Fulton to Dr. Crowley this week, since getting more people to find and use the philanthropy research, can be part of the strategies Dr. Crowley advocates for.

This is something I've tried to influence for more than 25 years.  Find the graphic shown below in this article, titled "Leaders Needed to Solve Complex Problems". 

In that article I called on more strategic involvement from universities and shared a student-involvement strategy that I began framing in the late 1990s.  In 2006 a Net Impact Fellow from the University of Chicago formalized it in a wiki article titled "Business School Connection".

Here's a paragraph summarizing the goal.

The Business School Connection is an concept strategy created by the Tutor Mentor Connection in the mid 1990s. Its goal is to create a link between business schools and tutor mentor organizations around the nation where business schools and their students use the skills they are learning in an on-going effort to increase visibility and raise operating dollars and volunteers to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the city where a business school is located, and in other parts of the country. The T/MC believes that MBA students have unique ways of thinking and valuable connections that can be used to channel monetary and in-kind resources to tutor mentor organizations.

Below is a graphic showing the year-round public awareness and network-building strategy that I began in 1993 and still follow in 2026.  

Imagine what might happen if students from business schools, marketing and communications classes and journalism schools were running campaigns every year that use data like what Brad Fulton is collecting, to draw attention and resources to every high poverty zip code in the country. Imagine this being a competition between high profile universities, to see who does it better.

If the work done in one year, by one team of students, is saved on a website at the university, all teams could learn from what was done in the past in an on-going effort to do better in the future.  Sharing this resource across many universities would accelerate the innovations and the impact of this program on the well-being of the community surrounding the university.

Imagine the slices of the leadership pie in the upper left side of this graphic being different business schools, who each focus on building more support for youth-serving programs in their communities. See it in this article. 

Last fall and this spring students from an Information Visualization MOOC at Indiana University created dashboards to show participation in the 1994 to 2015 May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  This was a follow up to earlier work done in 2014. They showed how data can be collected from registration forms and/or surveys then uploaded into visualization tools like Kumu.io, Gephi and Tableau.  Below is one example.

You can read about the IVMOOC work in articles found here and here.

Now imagine a team of students using the tools the IVMOOC teams have created to identify all of the departments within a university ecosystem that focus on a common issue, which could be very narrow, like tutoring, or much broader, like education and youth development.

Connecting those already doing this work is a step toward identifying those who are not yet involved.  I suspect not many business schools would show up on the first round of surveys if the goal was to find programs aimed at expanding the networks of kids living in areas of concentrated poverty.

Last month this blog recorded 519,578 page views.  That's a huge increase over previous months. I'm not sure what is driving this, but I hope it continues and that it leads to people from more places looking at the ideas I'm sharing.  Maybe one will be someone like Mackenzie Scott, who's looking for new ways to make a lasting impact with their wealth.  

Funding a Tutor/Mentor Connection with Business School Connection at one or more universities would be a great investment.

Thanks for reading.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, BlueSky and/or Mastodon.  See links on this page.

I depend on contributions from a small group of supporters to fund the work I'm doing.  Visit this page if you'd like to help.

Mapping & Analyzing Participation - Spring 2026 IVMOOC

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

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

Below is the home page of the dashboard they developed.

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

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

You can explore this at this link. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This says, "What Problem are We Solving?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tipping Point - Fixing Distribution and Infrastructure Problem

A few weeks 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.

Today I asked Google Gemini to look at that article and rewrite it from the perspective of a business leader trying to convince philanthropists and local universities to create on-campus 4-6 year degree programs based on the ideas I shared.  Take a look. Feel free to use it.

-- start Gemini ---

As a business leader, I look at social challenges the same way I look at market inefficiencies: we aren't suffering from a lack of capital or talent; we are suffering from a distribution and infrastructure problem.

The following is a strategic breakdown of how we can leverage the unprecedented philanthropic capital of billionaires like MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates to create a "Tipping Point" for social mobility by integrating universities directly into the youth-to-career pipeline.

Memo: The "Tipping Point" Strategy

To: University Boards, Philanthropic Foundations, and Corporate Partners

From: [Your Name/Title], Business Leadership Perspective

Subject: Scaling Impact through Academic-Philanthropic Integration

1. The Problem: The "Resource Gap" in Mentorship
We have thousands of youth-serving organizations, but they operate in silos. They are perpetually "scrapping" for dollars, volunteers, and talent. Even with billions in donations from high-profile philanthropists, the impact is often fragmented. We aren't building a system; we are funding individual lifeboats.

 2. The Solution: The University as an "Impact Engine"
The article highlights a transformative role for higher education. We should not just view universities as places where students go to get degrees, but as the central hubs for a birth-to-work pipeline.

The Strategy: A New Academic Curriculum
We propose a 4-to-6-year Master’s or PhD track specifically designed to build a "Pipeline of Leaders."

* For the Direct Service Leader: Students earn degrees in building and leading mentor-rich organizations. They don’t just learn theory; they serve in elementary and high school programs throughout their college career, tying coursework to real-world outcomes.

* For the Business Leader: We need a university-wide humanities requirement that teaches all students—regardless of major—how to be "Proactive Resource Providers." When these students enter the corporate world, they shouldn't just write a check; they should enter the workforce knowing how to provide talent, technology, and internships to the programs in their backyard.

3. Why Philanthropists Should Fund the Pilot
Billionaire funding is most effective when it is leveraged. 

* Melinda French Gates' focus on women and girls is a perfect match for this model. By funding a university pilot, she isn't just helping a group of girls; she is creating a repeatable curriculum that trains thousands of leaders to support girls for decades to come.

* MacKenzie Scott: By directing a portion of her HBCU grants toward this "Tipping Point" curriculum, she empowers these institutions to become the permanent infrastructure for social change in their communities.

4. The Business Case for Collaboration
From a leadership standpoint, this is about ROI and Scalability.

* Talent Development: Corporations gain a pipeline of "socially literate" graduates who understand complex problem-solving.

* Sustainability: Instead of programs disappearing when a grant runs out, the university provides a permanent stable of student volunteers and alumni donors who are "anchored" to the mission.

* Efficiency: Using GIS mapping, digital learning, and collaborative technology (as outlined in the Tutor/Mentor Institute library), we can identify "service deserts" and deploy resources with surgical precision.

5. The Call to Action
It only takes one university to pilot this and one visionary benefactor to provide the seed capital.

We aren't just looking for "charity." We are looking to build a professionalized, world-class infrastructure for mentorship that moves kids from poverty to careers. If we align university curriculum with philanthropic capital, we don't just close the opportunity gap—we bridge it permanently.

Let’s stop funding the status quo and start building the pipeline.

--- end Gemini ---

Where to begin?  Read the blog article. 

Fund "visualization competitions" that motivate students to dig into the information I share on this and other blogs and on the main Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  This idea is described on this page.

Review the "university partnership" ideas posted on this page. Recruit one faculty/student team to do initial research.  Review articles on this blog to see how student interns have done this type of research in past years.  The change I'm suggesting is that the students are working for the university, not for the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

Use the Gemini script to create your own letters and outreach to philanthropists and universities. Be the first to adopt this idea.

Thanks for reading. I started developing these ideas in the early 1970s as I became the volunteer leader of the tutoring program hosted at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon and share my posts with people in your networks. Find links here.

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

Engaging Universities - Who's Connected?

In 2009 Chris Warren, a Northwestern University graduate and Public Interest Fellow at Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, created the concept map shown below and shared it in an article titled "Mapping Northwestern University for Tutoring/Mentoring Programs". 

He wrote, "So as I've mentioned in previous posts, Colleges and Universities are full of valuable assets for Tutor/Mentor Programs like ours. They are chock full of smart and engaged people who want to make a difference. However, for better or for worse, universities are multifaceted communities, with a wide variety of buildings, departments, offices...etc. They also have an unfortunate tendency to be composed of various organizational silos that inhibit communication between different parts of the university. In fact many a program coordinator has been frustrated by the seemingly endless amounts of emails and phone calls necessary to reach the right administrator who can actually begin to help forge a mutually beneficial relationship.

Therefore, after facilitating a workshop about ways to constructively engage Northwestern University at our May Conference, I decided it would be beneficial to put together a concept map of all of the different parts of NU that could help a tutor/mentor program like ours. From the various service learning, work-study, internship and practicum opportunities available for non-profits to secure skilled and committed volunteers to the various philanthropic wings of the university, consider this map a guide to the assets of Northwestern University."

Unfortunately, Chris was with us for only one year and no one at Northwestern picked up his work, and kept updating his concept map.  So, the silos still exist.

I wrote an article earlier this year showing my 30-year effort to build strategic alliances with universities. In that, I pointed to a strategic plan developed in the early 2000s by students at DePaul University, and intended to be used by faculty and leaders at universities.  

You can see in the title that this was aspirational. I called it "A Vision of What's Possible".   In the slide below I show a "vision" of a university being the first, or second, resource that anyone in the world visits to learn about poverty and the roles volunteer tutors/mentors can take in helping children grow up safely and move through high school and college into careers."

In this slide I show that "The ABC University T/MC site will unite all stakeholders around actions that help youth move toward careers."

And in this slide I show a benefit to the university that adopts this strategy.

These are just a few of the many slides in this visual essay. I hope you'll view the entire thing and share it with MacKenzie Scott or other billionaires who are making multi-million dollar gifts to universities. It takes only one of them to make this a reality.

So, how might this be done? How would anyone know who was doing needed work in different silos?  Here's a potential answer.

Above is a view of an "Interactive Research Map" created by a team at the University of Central America in El Salvador.  You can view it and find a research paper that describes how it was built and what its purpose is at this link. 

The project is called Micelio (in Spanish) and Mycelium in the English translation.  On the home page it's described as a platform that "seeks to promote collaborative work among researchers and research networks, in order to share the  University's scientific output with the academic world and highlighting the importance of knowledge exchange within a single network."

Open the interactive KUMU map and you can search by any of the topics shown across the bottom. Here's one view.

You can zoom in to enlarge the map and you can click on any icon to see connections between it and others, as well as a text description showing who that person is.  

They also have linked the data they are collecting to a GIS map that shows "where" the work focuses on.

The project developers wrote, "This tool provides users with the ability to visualize the geographic distribution of research projects, thus enriching the user experience and offering a broader perspective on the geographic impact of the research conducted."

I began creating maps to show who was participating in Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences in the late 2000s.  The November 1988 conference map is shown below.

And, in 2010 I began to try to show connections using network analysis maps. One example is shown below. 

The volunteer who built the Tutor/Mentor Conference website in the mid 2000s created an on-line registration form that collected information showing what zip code the person came from and what type of organization (program, university, business, etc). With that, these maps could be created. Visit this website to see these maps and graphics. 

Interns from Chicago area universities worked with me in 2010 to create the network analysis maps, and teams from Indiana University did research projects in 2014 and 2015 that used the data to create new maps. You can see their work in this article.

Unfortunately, the work was being done by myself and interns working with me. It was not sustainable. I've found no example where someone within a university is collecting this type of information, or the information Chris Warren shared on his map, and used it to build connections and foster collaboration within a single university and across many universities, as I've envisioned in the  University T/MC strategic plan. 

Thus, I'm thrilled to connect on LinkedIn with Kevin Amilcar (Kevin Gutierrez) who created the KUMU maps for the Micelio Project.  He shared this report with me. Since it's in Spanish I used Google Translate to create an English version.  This is an example of what's possible, and has commitment from within a university.  

The report shows an intentional effort to share the Micelio project and recruit more participants. This is the type of work students in a University T/MC could be doing on an on-going basis.    

The report states, "The implementation of Micelio as a centralized platform for managing research outputs has proven to be a significant technological advancement for our institution. This tool has enabled the efficient management and dissemination of products that, until a year ago, could not be managed on any institutional platform. These products include researcher profiles, projects, research studies, and datasets. The value of this implementation lies in its ability to facilitate the organization of and access to critical information, which in turn fosters greater collaboration among members of the academic community. The growing participation and interest in the platform demonstrate its relevance and potential to improve the visibility of research and promote knowledge sharing. 

Furthermore, Micelio has transformed how research results are managed internally, providing a crucial data infrastructure that not only optimizes internal processes but also expands opportunities for dissemination and external collaboration. This change not only improves operational efficiency but also positions our institution as a leader in academic knowledge management, thus contributing to the strengthening of the research ecosystem in academia. To this end, a workflow is proposed that aims to be replicable by other academic institutions for managing scientific work. This process diagram seeks to illustrate the life cycle of a research project, from its planning to the self-archiving procedure in Micelio." 

I'm working with another IVMOOC team at the University of Indiana this fall, with a goal that they could create an on-line event registration/network analysis form that could collect the type of data included on my maps, and Kevin's maps, and could be easily fed into platforms that create KUMU maps, and GIS maps. 

If such a tool were freely available, would it be  used?  Do other universities in the USA or the world already have a project similar to Micelio?  If you know of one, please share the link below or on LinkedIn.

11-17-2025 update - The Global Futures Society's Network Map does much of what I envision. https://kumu.io/gfs/gfs-mapping#gfs-map

11-18-2025 update - This is a map showing four departments of the University of Navarra - https://en.unav.edu/research/mapa-tematico

This is a 1994 article in the Chicago SunTimes showing how I left my corporate job for a career of helping kids in high poverty areas.  It includes one of the first maps we created to show where poverty was concentrated in Chicago, and where existing volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs were located. You can see more stories generated by this strategy on this page. 

Imagine how much attention a University T/MC could generate if it adopted the ideas shared in this article.   That would be a good thing. 

Here's a recent example of a major donation to a Chicago university. I hope the research team is reading some of my blog articles! 

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms.  You can find links on this page.

Furthermore, I hope a few will give support through my December 19th birthday campaign or annual Fund T/MI campaign.  See links on the www.tutormentorexchange.net site. 

By the way, I'm still connected on Facebook to the student shown with me in the 1994 article. She's now a mother with one son in college and another finishing high school, has two Masters degrees, and a great job.  That was our goal when we created Cabrini Connections in late 1992 and launched it in January 1993. 

Using Research in Planning, Problem-Solving

Last week A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025". I wrote about it in this article. 

I’ve been collecting similar information for over 30 years, showing where people need extra help, why, and what type of help could be offered to youth via organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

And, I’ve been pointing to that research in articles on this blog. I’m sharing a few below. I hope you’ll open the links and take a look, then share the ideas through your own blogs, videos, etc.

Here’s an article where I use maps to show where people need extra help.

It’s one of dozens where I show the four-part, information-based problem-solving strategy that I’ve piloted since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. It’s one where I point to a section of my library with hundreds of links to articles and research about poverty, racism, inequality and social justice. And, it’s one where I encourage others to share this information in their network, so more people find it and use it.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection the goal was to help every existing tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the operating resources, volunteers and ideas each program needs to grow. Here’s one of many articles that focus on the challenges of finding on-going funding for mentor-based programs.

My leadership of a single volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 1992 and a second program starting in 1993, along with my career in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward corporation, provided the foundation ideas for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

These experiences led me to understand that organized volunteer-based programs were a way to connect kids in high poverty areas to people, experiences and opportunities that were not readily available in their own family/neighborhoods, due to extreme poverty. Over time, I began to understand this as a form of ‘bridging social capital’ and visualized it in graphics like the one shown below.

Here’s one of many articles where I write about mentoring as a form of social capital.

In my work at Montgomery Ward’s corporate headquarters, from 1973 to 1990, I learned how my department, and other functional teams, supported more than 400 retail stores spread in 40 states. We helped each store be good at attracting customers, selling merchandise and earning a profit. (at least we tried)

Thus, when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection plan in 1993 our initial strategy was to learn what programs existed in Chicago, then to build a public awareness strategy that would attract more attention, volunteers and donors to each program, and to every high poverty neighborhood.

This article shows how we began publishing a Directory of programs in 1994 and how this information was used to support programs.

In this article I describe an on-going information-based planning process, that uses information like I’ve been collecting.

This could be led from institutions who have deep roots in geographic areas, like hospitals, universities, businesses, etc.

To do this research, someone needs to host a library like mine, with lists and directories of youth serving programs, then use that information in an on-going planning, program development and public education and resource generation strategy.

This is a missing step in most of the research I’ve seen for over 25 years. Researchers get the money to do the research and produce a report, with a big event that shares it with the public, but then don't have the money to continue to share that research and draw people together to use it over the following years.  What I do is aggregate links to that research and try to motivate people to use it to support youth tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

Over the past 30 years I've piloted actions that I share on my website and that anyone can borrow and apply in their own geographic area.

While I do find a few who host lists of youth serving programs, and even plot the list on interactive maps, I don’t find any with multi-year public awareness efforts aimed at drawing volunteers and donors to every youth-serving program within their city.  If you know of any who do this, please share the link and I'll add them to my library.

Furthermore, I don’t find any doing the deeper research asking “what youth programs exist in your area”.

Doing such research and maintaining a list of programs is a big job, especially in cities as large as Chicago. That’s why, for many years, I’ve tried to motivate universities to build a Tutor/Mentor Connection-based strategy on their campus. This is one of several articles where I share this invitation. 

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

Here’s an article where I show 30 years of effort to build strategic alliances with universities. You can see a wide range of interactions with many universities, but no long-term initiative led by, and funded by, any university.

Why wasn’t I successful? Money. Reputation. Clout.

I never had much of any of these so when I met with someone at a university, I’d receive polite nods, with a “I’m already over extended. Find a younger professor.”

 The answer: ultra wealthy donors

Here's one of several articles where I show the potential of strategic investment by one or more wealthy donors.  Here's another. 

How might we find such donors? 

They are all around us. Do you watch NFL football games? How often do you hear players praised for their philanthropic work? I posted this on Twitter in 2024 sharing the idea from this post.

What if a university aggregated this information and then used it to recruit a group of athletes who support the same cause, to support a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy at the university that was building the database of athlete involvement?

What if? What if? What if?

What if you share this article in your networks? Maybe someone will read it and adopt the idea and actually take the next steps.

That’s why I write these articles.

If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Thanks for reading.  There's a lot here, so bookmark the page and return often.  Then, look me up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and let's connect.  If you're writing similar articles, which I hope you will, please share them.

Finally, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

30-year history of reaching out to universities

Last December I posted this article asking "What if students in every city did this?" 

Youth in every part of the world could be writing articles similar to what I've written on this blog since 2005 and in newsletters back to 1993. 

I promised that "In a few weeks" I was going to write an article showing my efforts since 1993 to build strategic alliances with local and global universities, which would lead to students doing the research and writing that I dream of.

Today's the day to share that history.

Open this PDF presentation and stroll through 50 pages of history showing how I connected with universities throughout Chicago, the Midwest, and other countries, starting in the late 1980s when I led the Tutor/Mentor program at Montgomery Ward's corporate headquarters in Chicago.  

You'll see pages like the ones below, that show evidence of those connections and include links to documents on my Google drive.

These are just a few examples that show important work done by interns over the past 30 years, which I've highlighted on other pages in this PDF.

Please spend a little time looking at the slides. On your first visit, just walk quickly through each slide, so you can see the range of universities I've connected to.  Then, pick a university you're interested in, and open the links on those pages.  These show some of the interactions that I had which led to student involvement.

The slides show 30+ years of engagement. Valuable work was done. Yet, they all have one common weakness, which is a lack of ownership at the university, and no integration into a long-term university-led effort to support the growth of well-organized, non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs in all high poverty areas around the university, or the cities where they are located, or places where some of their student live.

Several years ago I created another presentation showing my 30 year outreach to universities. View it here. 

The projects with Illinois Wesleyan from 1993-2004, Columbia College of Chicago in the mid 1990s and with IUPUI from 2002 to 2011 came closest to becoming a formal university based initiative.  But these never took root because I did not have the wealth, or fund raising ability, to fund faculty and student involvement, and no one at the university was willing to take on the fund-raising role.

Below is page 57 of the presentation.  Universities establishing Tutor/Mentor Connection programs and implementing the ideas I've piloted would represent "tipping points", or actions that change every thing else that happens.

At the bottom of the page I asked, "What if a wealthy patron, like MacKenzie Scott, who is giving millions of dollars to nonprofits, or Dr. Ruth Gottesman, who gave a $1 billion dollar donation to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, were to fund a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy on one or more campuses for 10 to 20 consecutive years.

Don't give the money to me. Set up a competition and award it to universities who spend time reading this presentation and digging through my blog archives, then present a plan for engaging students and faculty in long-term learning that continues well past the years they graduate.

What might universities do differently to prepare leaders to lead needed youth, tutor, mentor and learning programs in high poverty areas that help youth to, and through, college and into careers. Or to train other alumni to support them as on-going  volunteers, advocates and donors?

Yesterday was a day of raising money for Illinois Wesleyan. I made a small donation. they raised a lot of money.  What if such a campaign were raising money each year for non-profits led by their alumni?

That was the idea that a University of Chicago Business School student worked on in 2006. 

Creating leaders who are constantly learning from peers and leaders who are consistently providing needed operating and innovation dollars, could be a degree program at any university. The on-going flow of student interns could come to nonprofits with greater preparation to contribute to the work being done, building on work done by previous interns.

Please share this widely.  As this slide shows, neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are spread throughout the USA.

Without a consistent, on-going, comprehensive effort, not much will change over the next 30 years for people living in areas of persistent poverty.  I've proposed a strategy that might make a difference.

I suspect that my presentation could be turned into a book, or could have an audio narration.  I hope some people will be interested in doing that.

Thank you to all of the faculty and students who have helped me since 1993. The work you did was really impressive and of great value.  

I especially want to thank Dr. Minor Myers, Jr., President of Illinois Wesleyan University from 1990 to 2003, for his constant encouragement.  

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