Killed for a Bicycle - The REST of the Story

On Wednesday, June 18th the Chicago SunTimes ran a 3/4 page story titled "That boy died over a bike." This was the first Chicago Public School student killed over the summer and the 27th since January 1.

These stories are creating a public outcry, marches and passionate editorials. But are they leading to the growth of programs in high poverty neighborhoods that provide extra learning, mentoring and safe places during non school hours? Can we do more than march in the streets?

Can our faith leaders launch a learning strategy, in inner city congregations, as well as in suburban congregations consisting of people who pass through these neighborhoods every day as the go to and from their jobs in the Loop? Here's an outline of a learning strategy.

To support these groups, the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) matains an on-line database of volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs serving youth in the Chicago region. You can search this in the Program Locator, and the Chicago Program Links.

From now through the coming year, the T/MC will create at least one map each week, following news with messages of involvement and action that the media do not include when they report tragedies. We'll post these on this blog and at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/.

We'll also create a library of maps that visitors can use even when the media are not featuring negative news.

T/MC maps will show the degree of poverty and locations of poorly performing schools in neighborhoods where the media point their bad news spotlight. The maps also will show locations of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs, if any exist.

For instance in the map above, there are no volunteer based tutor/mentor programs (that we know of) in the neighborhood where the shooting took place, and only a few in the area around the school this boy attended. You can search our zip code map to find names, descriptions and contact information for organizations in these neighborhoods.

If you know of other programs in this area, or if our information is out of date, you can email us and we'll update our list. If you operate a tutor/mentor program you can add and edit your own information to the Program Locator. If you want to make a judgment about which programs are better than others, view the web sites of many different programs. Shop and compare. We're not making that judgment because we think great programs need to be in every neighborhood, and that it takes many years, and consistent support from volunteers and donors for any non profit to grow to be a great program. And once you're great, it takes continued support to continue to innovate ways to motivate and inspire youth and volunteers to reach their potential.

What's our purpose for creating these maps?

Every day thousands of people pass through poverty neighborhoods as the travel from homes in suburbs to work in the downtown area of Chicago. These are people who control jobs, might be mentors, and have tremendous talent that could help tutor/mentor programs prepare young people for careers. As you drive the different expressways of the Chicago region, you pass through poverty neighborhoods.

Using the T/MC maps anyone who wants to make a difference can identify existing tutoring and/or mentoring programs in these areas and become a volunteer, leader, advocate or donor. Or you can help churches, hospitals or businesses in these areas launch new programs to fill voids.

As more people take this role we bridge the gap between rich and poor, city and suburb, and between people of different races and religions. We make the Chicago region a better place for everyone to raise a family.

Tutor/Mentor Dinner Celebrates work of parents, volunteers, students and staff

This map shows the location of the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program, which serve 7th to 12th grade teens living in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago. I encourage you to read Mike's article on the Mapping for Justice blog for a hear-warming recap of the event.

Our Korean student interns have created a flash presention showing the dinner. You can see it here.

As you read the article, or look at the flash presentation, ask yourself "What can I or my company, or church, or college, do to help make programs like this available to more inner city kids, in Chicago, or in another city?"

Or, "What can you do to help Cabrini Connections continue its own program?"

Take a look at the YouTube video created by our interns from Korea. It illustrates how we, connect tutor/mentor programs from many places with each other, in an effort to strengthen programs in multiple locations.

If you tell people in your own network to read this blog, or visit the sites I've pointed to, you take on the leader and network-builder role that is essential for making more and better tutor/mentor programs available in more places.

Each of us has a Civic Responsibility. Marketing Solutions.

For the past week I've provided charts and graphs that illustrate a strategy for mobilizing business talent to support the entire sector of volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in Chicago, and in other cities.

Last night the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program hosted our 15th annual year end dinner. Speakers included students, alumni, parents, volunteers and members of our leadership board. More than 150 people attended.

As I looked at this group one thought went through my mind. "This is not happening in many other places in Chicago."

It could be if more of our volunteers, business, faith and public leaders, adopt the ideas I've been outlining this week.



This chart summarizes what I've been saying. At the bottom of this funnel is a map of the Chicago region. In the Zip Code Map on the T/MC site you can click on a zip code and find contact information for organizations that offer various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring. In some areas there are great programs. In others there are few programs.

They all need a consistent flow of volunteers and dollars, along with a source of well-trained, dedicated staff. They are not all equally good at fund raising and marketing.

This chart illustrates how leaders -- who are not directly involved in a single program -- can serve as an intermediary, connecting the people in their business, church, college, family, with the map, and thus with all of the different tutoring/mentoring programs in the Chicago region.

While I can meet with anyone who contacts me to help explain this idea, we'd make more progress toward this goal if I could recruit teams of consultants who would take on the role of building these teams, as part of their own probono volunteer role.

When a community has leaders in multiple sectors who are evangelizing the need for civic engagement, volunteer involvement, and programs like Cabrini Connections, and pointing the members of their network to tutor/mentor programs in various neighborhoodshttp://www.tutormentorexchange.net/leadership-strategies, we share the responsibility for building great programs with the boards, staff and volunteers of individual programs.

We build a city of great programs. We make it possible that in future years there could be one hundred year-end dinner celebrations in neighborhoods all over the Chicago region.

Help us make this happen.

Conference Presentation created by Korean Interns

I encourage you to take a look at this 3 minute Tutor/Mentor Conference presentation (flash) which was created by two student interns from Korea who have been working at Cabrini Connections for the past few weeks. This illustrates a use of talent to help a non profit tell its story. Talent like this is available in many businesses, colleges and high schools and just needs to be released in support of social sector organization.

Why do we do what we do?

Tonight Cabrini Connections will celebrate the end of it's 15th full school year of providing one-on-one tutoring/mentoring and extra learning to 7th to 12th grade teens living in the Cabrini Green neighborhood of Chicago. Teens will be the speakers, moderators and performers. Awards will be given for leadership, attendance, improvement, etc. You can see a student and volunteer year end survey on the CC web site.



The Cabrini Connections program is where the Tutor/Mentor Connection originated. Our daily efforts to build a single program led us to create a structure that would help all programs be more successful in getting needed resources to constantly innovate ways to inspire kids and volunteers to attend weekly sessions and learn from each other. Cabrini Connections is where we get our passion, and understand the reality of how difficult our work is.

You can view a timeline showing the growth of this organization from 1965 till the present.

While we're constantly seeking donations to fuel our work, our aim is that volunteer-based programs like Cabrini Connections are in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other big cities and that some day in the future there will be hundreds of year end celebrations at this time of the year. That's the goal of this blog, which is part of the Tutor/Mentor Connections year-round strategy.

That will only happen is some of the ideas I've shared for the past few days take root in business, professional, college and high school groups throughout the Chicago region and in other cities.

I'll write more about this tomorrow. Let's go congratulate our teens, volunteers and staff for what they have accomplished this past year.

Expanding the volunteer workforce - capacity building

Yesterday I talked about creating a supply chain to support multiple non profits doing similar work in the same city, or in many different cities. I concluded by saying "While we have a constant challenge of maintaining this information and supporting the technology, the real challenge is increasing the number of potential volunteers and donors who look at this information every day."

While in the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service I heard many corporate leaders talk about how important it is to encourage employee engagement and how worker talent could be used to address important issues in non profits. I saw many examples of university-community engagement.

With this chart I'm suggesting that teams of volunteers in consulting companies like Deloitte, Accenture, Booze Allen, Boston Consulting, etc. or in business schools at high profile universities, could be challenges to define this problem, and could be the volunteers who work with other institutions and corporations to help them implement this strategy.

The current system puts the burden on non profits to be able to create this model, then market it with limited resources to hundreds of potential sources of volunteers and donors. It's a redundant process and only works for a few organizations with brilliant marketing leaders, and high profile causes.

Imagine if responsibility for resource generation moved out of the non profit sector and into intermediary organizations who want to create positive public visibility, offer extra learning and networking opportunities for high potential employees, and will benefit from a resolution to the social issue being addressed.



This chart outlines what I'm suggesting. Instead of recruiting a few more tutors/mentors from big consulting firms, my goal is to recruit some talented people who will become the sales force for tutoring/mentoring and who will use their consulting skills to help business and professional groups throughout the Chicago area(and in other cities) create leadership teams that encourage volunteer involvement by employees and customers, using the Program Locator and Tutor/Mentor Maps, as tools to choose where to get involved and to find contact information for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in these areas.

This is just one way pro bono volunteers from specific industries can leverage there talent to impact the flow of resources, and the supply chain infrastructure, supporting an entire sector of non profit organizations doing work that is important to the community, and the industry.

I'll write more tomorrow.

War on Poverty Requires Sophisticated Battle Plan

I have been in love with history since I was in 8th grade. I remember reading a 2-inch thick book about the Civil War, which was full of battle plans, in great detail. I've often admired the genius of General George Marshall, the supreme commander of US forces in World War Two. Without the aid of a PC he and his team had to visualize a map of the entire world, know where the enemy was, and build a strategy to put US and Allied forces in all of these places so the war could be won.

The chart on this page illustrates the thinking that might have been needed. On the right side we see a map illustrating enemy locations. Working from right to left, we see thinking that creates an analysis of enemy strengths and weaknesses, builds US force strength, provides logistics to move troops around the world, while providing food, clothes, weapons and ammunition to all of these troops, in all of these places. At the far left we see that the war effort needed revenue, and it needed public support.

To me this is a form of supply chain map.

Now look at a map showing the people who came to the May 29 and 30 conference in Chicago. This map shows where poverty concentrations are highest. It also shows locations of organizations who attended the conference. In this example, POVERTY IS THE ENEMY, and tutor/mentor programs are troops on the front lines. Each needs the same types of resources that our troops in Iraq need in order to compete with gangs and negative aspirations and win the hearts and motivation of inner city kids.

We have a copy of the conference map and a list of organizations who attended on the Mapping for Justice blog. To find contact information for organizations that offer various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring in Chicago neighborhoods, click on the map in the T/MC Program Locator.

With this information we can provide needed support to hundreds of organizations offering tutoring and/or mentoring in various parts of Chicago. If other cities duplicate this strategy, it can draw support to programs in their own communities. While we have a constant challenge of maintaining this information and supporting the technology, the real challenge is increasing the number of potential volunteers and donors who look at this information every day.

I'll post a solution to that challenge in my blog tomorrow.

"Our greatest challenge is the gaps between rich and poor." Jimmy Carter

I was inspired to hear former President Jimmy Carter as he addressed the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service last week. He talked about the gaps between rich and poor, and then demonstrated what he is doing to close this gap by providing awards to three university-community engagement projects.

I toured the Carter Center in Atlanta last week and visited the web site. The only thing I did not find was a section showing how maps can be used to support the distribution of volunteers, dollars, technology, etc. to all of the places around the world where this gap persists.

The chart on this page is one that I drew as I attended workshops focused on business and university engagement. I'm trying to reverse the traditional two-way process of how nonprofits obtain resources from people who already have a self interest in wanting these non profits to be successful in their missions. We'll never have great social benefit programs in a majority of the places where they are needed based on the current system of competitive allocation.

Yet, if we can engage the talent of volunteers and leaders to serve in intermediary roles, we can do more to connect people who can help with places where help is needed.

I put these and similar charts on the T/MC web site with a goal that they are used by groups of people in universities, churches, businesses, etc. who want to become more strategic, and more engaged, in the ways they use their talent, time and resources to help end poverty in Chicago, and other cities around the world. I'm also looking for volunteers who will help improve the way these ideas are communicated, visually, via podcasts, animation, and using the tools that many of you know much better than I do.

Read more articles showing this role of intermediaries and uses of map and charts in the Tutor/Mentor Institute section of the T/MC web site.

If you know of places where discussions are taking place online with a goal of connecting networks of volunteers and donors to help distribute needed resources throughout the USA, or the world, please share links to such places via comments on this blog, or links posted on the T/MC discussion board.

Maximizing Value from Civic Engagement

I created this based on my meeting notes.

Last week the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service was held in Atlanta. I attended in my role as a Commissioner for the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, and as President of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

When I attend conferences, seminars and meetings I always have a note pad. I fill several pages quotes and web references. I'm always thinking of how these ideas can be put to work in my own organization. I'm a visual thinker so I scribble diagrams of ideas, which outline ways to put what I'm hearing into actions that help us help kids.

I've been recruiting volunteers from colleges and business to help me convert these ideas into animations and sophisticated forms of understanding. Click here to see a few examples of work that has been done

During the coming week I'm going to share some of the ideas from this conference. I'll try to post one idea each day. Today, I'll talk about the first idea, which I feel sets the stage for all others: How do we maximize the value provided by the millions of hours and billions of dollars that are spent doing volunteer service in America, or the world, every year?

During the conference there were many workshops on this theme. I attended the business track, which focused on unleashing the talent withing the business sector, to support the infrastructure of non profits. Here is a copy of the idea I outlined as I listened to some of the speakers during the first day of the conference.

This was my original meeting note.

Above you can see what this looks like once I converted it to a power point slide.

The main point of this slide is that thousands of people are engaged in National Service each year, and many more are volunteers in tutoring, mentoring and many other forms of service.

If the organizations they support provide good training, good customer service, and help volunteers become bonded to the cause, many of these volunteers should stay involved with the agency or the cause, in the years after they leave direct service.

Thus, if a 20 year old youth does one year as an AmeriCorps volunteer, working with a tutor/mentor program, that youth will be more knowledgeable about the cause, and further along in his/her career ten, 15 and 20 years later. This should lead that person to be proactive in the ways he supports the cause, and in the ways he/she recruits others to also support the cause.

If our service programs grow millions of leaders in industry, universities, politics, etc. such leaders can become a much more sophisticated, and powerful source of support for social benefit organizations than what we have now. For tutoring/mentoring programs, that would mean more kids succeeding in school, in life and in their future work careers.

So, how do we make this happen? I'll show some ideas that I diagrammed this week. If you want to peak ahead, you can view these at in the Tutor/Mentor Institute section of our web site.

National Conference focuses on engaging business volunteers

I attended the National Conference on Volunteerism from Sunday through Tuesday of this week, after hosting the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on Thursday and Friday of last week.

One of the great quotes was from Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who said, "We all came to this company in different ships. We're all in the same boat now."

I'm just beginning to get all of my notes together and to share the information I learned from these events. However, I've started two discussions that focus on business involvement and university engagement. These include links to places like the Jimmy and Rosalynd Carter Partnership Program, and to volunteer and nonprofit impact and involvement research being done by companies like Deloitte and Accenture.

In the next few days I'll post more of my ideas and begin to reach out with email to the people I met over the last week. However, I encourage you to visit these two forums and begin to look at the same research and resources that I have been looking at.

As Congressman Lewis said, "We're all in the same boat." To me this means that from this common based of knowledge we can find more ways to innovate ways to work together to solve problems that we cannot solve by working alone.

While I'm reaching out to you, I hope you'll find time to contact the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Tutor/Mentor Conference Builds Local Global Connections

On Thursday and Friday of this past week the Tutor/Mentor Connection hosted its 29th Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference since May 1994. More than 120 people attended. Some came from California, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania and many came from the Chicago region and Illinois. You can see a partial list of participants here, which is an on-line attendee form which was created as people registered for the conference.

Tomorrow I'm flying to Atlanta where I'll participate in the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service. While I expect more than 1500 people will attend the National Conference, I don't expect to be able to attend more than one workshop in any time frame, nor do I expect to meet any more people than I did at the Chicago conference.

In fact, since I cannot find an attendee list on the National Conference web site, I suspect participants will not be able to connect with as many of the people who they might want to meet as they could from the Chicago conference, which was much smaller.

While I'll be in Atlanta, the National NonProfit Congress meeting will be taking place in Washington, DC. More than 500 people will be attending and an attendee list is available on-line. While this does a great job of showing where a participant comes from, it still does not enable one participant to contact another participant directly. Thus, it's not likely that people attending this event will meet any more people than I'll meet in Atlanta, or that you could have met in Chicago.

Yet, we're all concerned with similar issues of volunteerism and service, which must be funded by philanthropy.

The most a conference can do is inspire us, energize us, and give us a few new ideas. The work of putting these ideas in place takes place after the conference and unless we have the resources, or help from others, it's not likely that many of these ideas will ever be used by the many people who are attending these events.

However, that can change.

If anyone who organizes an event builds in an on-line forum, or an interactive attendee list, they will enable participants to connect with each other. If this connects service providers, resource providers, evaluators, media and public leaders, it can lead to more good ideas taking root in more places.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered time to participate in the Chicago conference. We hope you'll introduce yourself in online forums such as this and this, so we can continue to work to build a stronger infrastructure to support our efforts, which will lead to better supports for kids living in disadvantaged situations.

More shootings in Chicago this weekend. Same as last year.

Last May I wrote an article following some shootings in Chicago.

If this concerns you, why not come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference being held in Chicago this Thursday and Friday (May 29 and 30). Here's the web site.

If you're not in Chicago, join us in on-line forums.

Here's what I wrote a year ago as steps anyone can take to help stop the violence:

If we want to stop this violence, we have to act now, and keep acting to solve this problem for many years. We have to think spatially, that is, look at the entire city and suburban problem, not just one neighborhood. At the same time, we need to act locally, because none of us has the time, or the resources to help each of the kids in the entire Chicago region who live in neighborhoods where poverty is the root cause of the violence.

Here are some ways to remind yourself. Think of ENOUGH, is ENOUGH

E – educate yourself – most of us do not live in high poverty neighborhoods, so we only understand the root causes of senseless shootings from what we read in newspapers. We also only read negative news in the media, so we’re now really well informed on where these events are taking place most frequently. Finally, while there is a perception that there are plenty of youth programs, we really don’t have a good understanding of the distribution of different types of youth programs, to different age groups, in different zip codes. The only way this will change is if each of us pledges to spend one hour a week reading books, articles and web reports, that illustrate the root causes of these shootings, or of poor performance in schools. Through our learning we can draw ideas that we use in our own actions. We can also begin to contribute information that other people use to support their own decision making.

N – engage your network – find ways to draw others who you know into this shared understanding. Recognize people who volunteer time and talent, or who help kids through the programs they operate. If you are a business leader, or a church leader, engage your corporation or your congregation. You can use your web site, advertising, point of purchase materials, etc. to point to web sites that show all of the agencies in the city who do tutoring/mentoring, such as www.tutormentorconnection.org. If you do this weekly, year after year, your friends, coworkers and customers will become involved in solving this problem with you.

O – offer help, don’t wait to be asked. As you build your understanding of where poverty is most concentrated, and what social services are in those areas, choose a neighborhood, and reach out with offers of time, as a volunteer, talent, help build a web site, do the accounting, or offer Public relations services, and dollars, if the web site of an organization shows they do good work, you don’t need to ask for a proposal of h ow they would spend your donation, you need to send them a donation so they can keep doing that good work

U – build a shared understanding. Form groups of peers to share reading and learning assignments, just as you meet every Sunday to read passages of scripture and build the group’s understanding of the Word of God. Use the many different resources of the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org library as the starting point for your search for wisdom, and understanding.

G – give until it feels good – people who generously donate time and dollars to causes they believe in feel good about their giving. If we’re going surround kids living in poverty dominated neighborhoods with extra learning and adult mentoring networks, donors will need to give more than random contributions of time, dollars and talent. On the Bolder Giving web site (http://www.boldergiving.org/) donors are inspired to give to their full potential and those giving 50% or more are given recognition. Can we inspire donors who support youth services to give at this level?

H – form habits of learning, and pass these on to your kids. Imagine how much more successful teachers were if youth came to school every day asking questions about where to find information, or how to understand information they had researched on the Internet the previous day? We can model that habit if we build it into our own activity. Keep a chart, such as the OHATS on the Tutor/mentor connection web site, where you can document actions you take each week to same sure that this time ENOUGH, really means ENOUGH.

If you document actions, you can review what you’ve done at the end of each month, and each year, and begin to see a growing mountain of actions you have taken to solve this problem. Some of these will be actions that got other people involved, so that the good work you do is multiplying because of the good work others are also doing.

Through this process you help build this shared understanding, which will lead to better public policy. Without this habit of learning, and without learning to use the Internet to find good ideas from people in all parts of the world, we won’t be able to problem solve as well as we need to, and we won’t be able to teach this habit to our kids.

If we do this, we’ll not only reduce the root causes of youth on youth violence, we’ll also address one of the growing issues facing America in a global economy. We will begin to create a nation of learners, problem solvers, creative thinkers and innovators, who use learning and information as the basis of creating opportunity and keeping America great.

If you know of a tutor/mentor program operating in your neighborhood, see if it is listed in the Program Links or Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. If not, ask the program to contact the T/MC. Together we can create a shared library of knowledge, that helps us all understand where we have enough services, and where there are neighborhoods without services.

As we remember our heroes this weekend....think of the battles still to be won

Over the next few days people throughout America will honor the memory of men and women who have fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy. We have the right to share ideas on blogs like this only because men and women have died to give us those rights. Never forget.

However, the battles that have been fought are not over. We are still in a shooting war overseas. We're threatened by terror every day. Our global environmental crisis is a growing enemy. And far too many people live in poverty in the US, and around the world. This poverty is a breeding ground for new forms of terror.

How do we stop this? Where are the heroes of tomorrow who will fight on the battlefields of ideas and social justice?

I lead a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in which adults from many different business backgrounds volunteer time each week to serve as tutors, mentors, organizers, activity leaders, fund raisers, etc. to help kids living in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago. To me, these volunteers are heroes. So are the kids who make an effort to be here every week.

However, while I lead a single program in one neighborhood, I know that programs like this are needed in neighborhoods all over the Chicago region, and in other big cities all over the country. I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to try to help mobilize resources to support the growth of such programs.

There have been many volunteers who have helped the T/MC over the past 15 years. There have been a growing number of interns who have also helped. I create a page listing different projects that students and volunteers have been doing to help the T/MC.

To me, these people who devote their talent to helping us mobilize volunteers and raise dollars are also heroes. We need more of them. We need millions of them.

We can reduce the number of men and women who die on future battlefields, if we increase the number who sacrifice time and talent to help end poverty and correct the many social injustices that exist in this world.

As you celebrate and honor our fallen warriors, I encourage you to also look for ways to donate your time and talent to these other battlefields in the coming months and years.

If you'd like to know more, come to the Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago next weekend, May 29 and 30.

Conference Time. Stress Time.

It happens every six months. I'm about two weeks prior to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which I've hosted in Chicago every six months since 1994, and I'm stressing over the attendance, the speaker list, and all sorts of things that event planners always worry about prior to an event.

I want it to go well. I want a good turnout. I want people to leave the conference with new energy, and new ideas. I want this to result in program improvement from now until August, or in new programs starting, so that every program in Chicago will have more success recruiting volunteers at the start of the 2008-09 school year, which is just 3 months away! You can see a partial list of attendees here.

But why should I be stressed? I'm doing this to help other programs in other neighborhoods and other cities. I'm also doing this to help Cabrini Connections, which is the program I lead.

Over the past 35 years I've learned that the time I spend organizing these events, and networking with others, results in many benefits to my own program, and to myself. I find new ideas. I benefit from the public awareness. I find friends who help me stay involved with this work, year after year.

I've also learned that these events help us generate public attention for tutoring/mentoring, and this helps us recruit volunteers. From my experiences working in advertising for the Montgomery Ward corporation, I've learned the importance of keeping your advertising in front of customers on a regular basis. Thus, the conferences, are part of a sequence of events that not only draw programs together, but draw volunteers and donors to our web site, and to different programs throughout the Chicago region.



From this image you can see that what we do in May is intended to influence what happens in August, November and next spring. Thus, the conference not only benefits me, it can benefit everyone else who offers tutoring/mentoring in Chicago, or in other cities.

Thus, I'm stressed. I know how important it is to get the attention of thousands of potential volunteers and donors and I can't do it by myself. This conference, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, only work when others see the conference as an event that supports their own program, and expands their own personal network.

I've learned from many years of experience that what happens next week, is what is intended to happen. No matter how many people attend the conference, those who do attend will find value. Here's what some people have said after past conferences. I'm sure many will offer similar comments after this one.

There's no time to be stressed. As soon as this conference is over we move on to the next event. I hope you'll join us.

Visualizing our goals for tutoring/mentoring, violence prevention, education, etc.

I received an email today from a friend at UCLA. In part it read, "A central concern of school improvement efforts is to enable all
students to have an equal opportunity to succeed at school. A key
facet of this not only involves engaging students but also
re-engaging those who have actively disengaged from learning what
schools are trying to teach them.

And, it should be clear to everyone that schools experiencing the
most problems are the ones most in need of a school improvement
process that not only directly improves instruction, but also
includes strategies for developing a comprehensive system of
student/learning supports.

At this time, every indication is that these matters continue to be
marginalized in discussions of school improvement, in general, and
the reauthorization of the Elementary and Education Act, in particular.

It is clear that the many specific agenda items currently competing
for sparse resources tend to maintain the unsatisfactory status quo
that characterizes the nation's efforts to address major barriers to
learning, development, and teaching.

Thus, for many of us, the critical question at this juncture is how
to coalesce strategically around a unifying concept so that our
combined efforts can break through the policy barrier that is
preventing an appropriate exploration of what must happen so that all
students truly have an equal opportunity to succeed at school. We
know, however, that developing the desired coalition requires setting
aside competing agenda, and this may prove undoable. "




On the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site I've used maps and charts to illustrate how we need to focus on all of the high poverty neighborhoods where kids need extra help in order to succeed in school and live free of poverty.

Today, I listened to a presentation by the rock star BONO, as he called for 1 million activist to get involved in creating social justice for people living in Africa. Imagine if he were using maps like those I'm trying to create, to draw people who could help to all of the places where help is needed, and will be needed for the next 20 or more years.



My friend at UCLA, BONO and the T/MC all have the same challenge. We need to get millions of people to look at our maps, read the information we provide on our web sites, and then act in one way or another, over-and-over, for many years, and in many places at the same time.

Even with all of the power and celebrity that BONO has, he is asking for help. Even with all of the resources at UCLA, my friend is asking for help. I don't have nearly as much power or wealth as either of these leaders, yet I'm asking for the same type of help, and so are the thousand of people working in isolation and obscurity in high poverty neighborhoods around the world.

There are many entry points to getting involved, (such as the May 29 and 30 conference in Chicago), and individual calls to action can each attract some people to some of these places. However, until we connect these entry points, and tie them to maps, we'll never get enough people, looking at all of the places where help is needed, nor staying involved as long as they need to be involved.

Engaging Student Talent to Solve Social Problems

During the spring 2008 school year term, two students from an Information Visualization class at the University of Indiana took on a project for the Tutor/Mentor Connection. The goal was to visualize the call to action that the T/MC is communicating via pdf presentations so that it would resonate with leaders in businesses, universities, churches, who then would apply these ideas to helping draw needed resources to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in all high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago.

Click here to view the project.

This is not a completed project, but it is a step toward what we're trying to communicate. It shows how students in universities can use their talent, and their learning, to do real-world work that helps non profits achive their important social missions. It also shows where poverty and poorly performing schools are located and this is where tutor/mentor programs are most needed. If you're a volunteer, or donor, or potential university or faith partner, you can click on the map in the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, and learn what organizations are in this area, and what forms of tutoring and/or mentoring they do.

Learn more about ways university and high school students might use their time and talent to support the T/MC or other social benefit organizations. Click here and here.

If you'd like to volunteer to work on these projects please email tutormentor2@earthlink.net or call 312-492-9614

Understanding Inner City Violence - article

For most of the people in America, inner city violence is just a sound byte on TV, or a newspaper headline. It's not something they really understand, thus it's not something that offers more than simplistic solutions. It's a complex problem.

A friend of mine works for CEASE Fire, and sent me a link to an article about Cease Fire, and inner city violence, from the New York Times Magazine, written by Alex Kotlowitz. I encourage you to read it.

I've known about Cease Fire for more than 10 years and have had its founder on my newsletter mail lists. We've never found ways to connect our strategies of prevention via tutoring/mentoring, and triage, or street intervention, right at the point of acts of violence.

I think we've got to find ways to apply multiple pressure points to this problem. No single solution is enough. I use maps to try to map this conversion of different strategies, and host the conference in May and November to try to draw people from different solution-channels together, so that relationships, and integrated strategies might develop.

However, until funders become willing to fund these multiple strategies, in the same geography, for many years, we'll each compete with each other for core resources, and this competition will prevent most of us from finding ways to work together.

If you look at the links library on the T/MC web site, they go to many different sites, all with valuable information, and valuable programs. How do we create advertising to draw millions of viewers, like the readers of the New York Times magazine, or an Alex Kotlowitz book, to sites like this where they all spend some time, talent or dollars to support one or more of the different groups listed.

If we can generate enough traffic, and enough consistent funding, we can relieve the negative competitive pressures, and maybe generate some more complex and integrated problem solving.

Open Letter - an Invitation to network

Every day I send one or more letters to people in Chicago and around the country, introducing myself, and inviting these people to visit our web sites, and connect with us in some form of on-going learning and collaboration aimed at helping more and better tutor/mentor programs be in the lives of inner city youth. I'm writing one right now, and I decided I'd share it with those who read my blog. I hope you'll forward it to people in your own network, as this graphic suggests.

This letter is written to Catherine Jordan, project manager for the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in Austin, Texas.

------------------

Hi Catherine,

I'm Dan Bassill, president of a Chicago-based non-school tutoring/mentoring program named Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection (CC, T/MC). I read your quote in the April 2008 Youth Today article, stating "What attracts kids and keeps them coming is an adult who cares about them." My organization, Cabrini Connections was mentioned in the same article, and our entire strategy revolves around this connection between an adult volunteer and an inner city youth. You can see the program strategy in the Success Steps page at http://www.cabriniconnections.net/success/

I'm writing to introduce you to the second part of our organization, the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC). I started my volunteer work with tutor/mentor programs in 1973 at the same time as I was beginning a 17 year advertising career with the Montgomery Ward corporation. We had 400 stores in 40 states, and used advertising to draw customers to these stores every day. We also had another team of people working to make sure we had stores near customers, and that each store had well trained people, and products and services that would appeal to customers.

Between 1975 and 1990 I began to create a network of Chicago area tutor/mentor programs, encouraging the group to meet regularly to share ideas and build supportive relationships. As I did this I recognized a pattern in media and public leadership that I call the "Camel effect". Every so often there would be a surge of public indignation following some tragedy, such as a school shooting, or a report, such as Nation at Risk, that would cause the newspapers and editorial writers to call for some action.

However, when that happened, they only pointed to a few brand name youth organizations as the solutions, and they only pointed to a few of the high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago as the location of the problem. Furthermore, this public attention only lasted a short while, as the media and our leaders would soon be drawn to some other crisis.

This surge in attention is happening right now in Chicago, as the media are focusing on the tragic killings of a growing number of inner city kids.

In our advertising at Wards we knew that we needed to keep our customers focused on our stores and services every day, and we needed to make every store as good as it could be, in order to attract repeat customers to each store.

Thus, I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, with a goal of helping constantly improving, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs be available in every high poverty neighborhood, following the same principles that our company was using to try to make sure high quality stores were available to shoppers all over the country.

In the Program Locator and Chicago Program Links sections of the T/MC web site, shoppers can learn about different tutoring/mentoring programs throughout the region, and choose what area of the city they want to support, and which programs in that region they want to help. In many cases there are few, or no programs, thus a shopper (volunteer or donor) might need to help start new programs, in order to serve the youth in that region.

I believe that a high quality non-school youth organization must have a base of adults committed to the lives of the children they serve, and that extra adults, who don't live in poverty, and who can model a variety of jobs and careers, need to be involved as tutors, mentors, coaches, fiends, advocates, etc. If the youth organization makes a commitment to "do all it can to assure that the children are in jobs and careers by age 25" then it is the adult volunteers who need to stay connected to the organization, and its youth, so that as kids finish high school or college, there are people beyond the poverty neighborhood where these kids live, who can open doors to job opportunities, and provide support to career growth.

This is what a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program is to me, and what we try to do at Cabrini Connections. Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection we work to help other programs get the resources they need to build and sustain similar long-term commitments to the youth they serve.

I hope you'll take a look at the T/MC and see how we're using maps, the internet, conferences and an on-line program locator database to help volunteers and donors find the various programs in the Chicago region. This is a strategy that any city can duplicate in order to assure that good programs, with adults who care, are in more of the places where they are needed.

We'll be doing the next conference on May 29 and 30. If someone from your network can attend, we hope you'll connect with us there. If you cannot attend, then connect with us on line in the T/MC web site, or in places like http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com

I'll look forward to hearing from you. I hope the Youth Today article draws a few more people toward this idea of adult involvement and mentoring as part of a strategy of "no child left behind".

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron
Chicago, Il. 60622

Cabrini-Green Kids Talk about Violence

Today's Chicago Tribune has a feature story titled, Hidden Wounds of Violence, which shows how the "exposure to violence is linked to childhood depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, learning problems, sleep difficulties, poor academic performance and a host of other problems."

With inner city neighborhoods serving as a war zone, no wonder school performance is low and drop-out rates are high. A few years ago I attended a funeral for one of our students, where I met others who had also been part of the tutoring program started at Montgomery Ward in Chicago. One told me "we don't expect to be alive at age 25".

At the end of this article, the parent of the student featured in the story said, "she has enrolled him in tutoring, mentoring and other programs to give him an outlet for his energy in a safe, indoor environment."

Tutoring/mentoring programs that operate in the non-school hours can be one way to surround youth with a network of caring adults and a variety of positive learning reinforcements...but only if they are available.

You can learn about tutor/mentor programs serving Chicago by searching the Program Links, or the Program Locator database on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

As Cabrini Green is being redeveloped, many potential donors think there no longer is a need for such programs, making it difficult for Cabrini Connections and others serving youth in this area to find donors.

However, Cabrini Green is fortunate. For too many kids there are no tutor/mentor programs in their neighborhoods, or the ones that exist are too small, or not well developed.

We're trying to change this but we need your help. While the Mayor and others are holding their own meetings, we're hosting a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 29 and 30. It's at Northwestern University School of Law. I hope you'll spread the word and encourage potential donors, sponsors, business partners, and faith leaders to attend so they can connect with existing programs, and learn how to create new programs in areas with high violence, but few programs.

Make Peace, Not War!

There is an alternative to hanging out on streets, getting involved with gangs, and senseless acts of violence. This Peace Mural was created by students and volunteers who are part of an art club at Cabrini Connections, a non-school volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring program serving 70-80 7th to 12th grade teens living in the Cabrini Connections neighborhood.

This "College Bound, No Doubt About That" music Video was created by another group of teens and volunteers at Cabrini Connections.

This program offers teens an alternative choice of ways to spend their non school time, and connects teens with a wide range of adult volunteers who serve as mentors, tutors, coaches, friends.

There are many similar programs in the city. They all are constantly looking for private sector donations to fund their operations. If you want to stop the violence, invest in these programs. Make a donation today.

However, the problem we face is that there are not enough of these programs, especially in the South and West part of Chicago and South Suburbs. Good programs don't grow overnight. They take years to grow. Cabrini Connections started in 1993 with just five teens and 7 volunteers. You can search the zip codes in the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program locator to learn about existing organizations offering various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring. When you look for more comprehensive tutor/mentor programs, or programs serving high school youth, there are very few in many areas.



If the city wants to really make a difference, it needs to encourage businesses, churches, hospitals and universities to build long term, adopt a neighborhood strategies that make more and better tutoring/mentoring programs available in more places.

This is not a short term strategy. It is an investment in peace. It will pay dividends the longer donors and leaders stay involved.

Want to know more? Come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 29 and 30 and meet some of the people who lead these programs.

Mapping Drop Out and Public Health Issues

I'm a fan of maps. If you search "maps" on this blog you'll see many ways I use them to draw attention to inner city poverty, and to draw resources to tutor/mentor programs in all parts of the city.

I found two new reports this week that use maps to illustrate social justice issues, such as the concentration of large high school drop out populations in big city neighborhoods, or lack of public health resources for prisoner re-entry support in inner city neighborhoods.

What is important, is that the neighborhoods in both reports are the same neighborhoods. Thus, why can't we find ways to align our programs, and our resource providers?

These reports are PDFs and the links are posted on the T/MC web site.

Find Cities in Crisis here and find NYC Mapping Health Care as the latest addition here.

Role of Leaders In an Internet World

A while back I wrote about a CEO Summit that was held in New York in February. It's goal was to encourage corporate volunteers to use their talent to help build non profit infrastructure.

Today I had a conversation with a representative from Verizon who pointed me to the Verizon Foundation web site. I've been here in the past, and have links to the site on the T/MC web site, but the foundation has done a great deal to update the information and presentation since I was there last.

One thing that is new is the addition of Thinkfinity which provides free resources to teachers. Sites like this are great resources for tutors/mentors and parents, too. One of the workshops at the May 29 and 30 Conference will be presented by Thinkfinity, which can help local programs learn more about how they might use this resource.

Another section on the web site was a Resource Center providing information non profit leaders could learn, and use, to build more effective organizations.

I think these resources and the information on the Verizon Foundation web site are great. However, for small and medium non profits, who are struggling with survival and everyday issues of doing business, this represents a wealth of learning, but not the manpower to put this learning to work in the organization.

The idea of the CEO Summit was to draw talent from business who could do needed work in the non profit sector. Some people have interpreted this as "project based work" such as "build your employee handbook" or "build your web site". However, as a non profit leader, I know that once I have the handbook, or the web site, I need manpower to manage the use of these resources in my organization on an on-going basis.

Thus, my goal is that corporations begin to encourage people in their companies who have the skills shown on the Verizon Foundation Resource Page, to offer their talent on an on-going basis, in causes that require on-going application of time and talent to get a result. I have created a PDF that illustrates this intermediary role that leaders in business, churches, colleges, etc. can take to connect people who can help, with places and organizations where help is needed on an on-going basis.

I'm going to be reaching out to Verizon to ask for their help in communicating this message, just as I've been reaching out to churches, colleges, lawyers and leaders of other tutor/mentor programs. If you're already connecting your corporate talent with non profits on an on-going basis, why not come to the conference in Chicago on May 29 and 30 and do a workshop to share your story. Or, add the link to your corporate resource page to the T/MC links library.

Answers to Youth Violence - It Won't Be First Time

Today an article on page 12 of the Chicago SunTimes talked about a "new study being commissioned by the Mayor of Chicago to find way to attack roots of crime".

In the article the writer said, "It won't be the first time" such a study was commissioned. She then wrote about the Daily-appointed Youth Development Task Force which released a "Chicago for Youth Blueprints for Change" report 15 years ago.

So, she said, "Why conduct yet another study?"

I have a copy of that first study. It's a powerful call to action, with one statement saying "If we expect young people to meet their needs in a positive manner, we must see to it that positive opportunities are in their lives."



What frustrates me about this is that one of the programs referenced in the index of the 1994 report was the Montgomery Ward Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program, hosted at the Montgomery Ward Corporate headquarters in Chicago.

While the researchers thought enough of the Wards program to include it in the report, the did not even bother to interview me, who had been the leader of that program for the previous 17 years!

We were starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection at the same time the 1994 study was being created. We operated in donated space at the Montgomery Ward headquarters, so it would not have been too difficult to invite us to share our ideas of what it takes to build and sustain a comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor program.

However, nobody bothered to ask.



If they had we would have told them what we had learned, and what we believed would be a way for the city to make more and better non school tutoring/mentoring and learning resources available in high poverty neighborhoods. We would have shown them the T/MC strategy, and the way we were building a database of existing programs so that new support from the Mayor, business community and philanthropic partners could support the growth of existing programs instead of creating new ones. We would have shown how we were using maps to illustrate where these programs were needed, so that new programs could have been formed in areas where their are voids.

However, no one asked.

Part of our problem is that we're working in silos, with business people talking to each other, foundation people talking to each other, university people talking to each other, and none of us are crossing these groups to interact and learn from others who are focused on same issues. There are ways to change this, using the Internet as a collaboration portal.



We've met with people from the Mayor's office, the universities, local businesses, the United Way, and shared all of this information freely on the T/MC web site. While more than 100,000 people visited the web sites in 2007, we don't know if any were decision makers who were looking for a strategy that would not only end violence, but would make more and better learning and mentoring networks available to help kids through school and into careers.

Maybe what we write does not make sense. Thus, we've created graphics to try to communicate these ideas. You can see a couple on this blog. Search "maps" and you'll find more. Visit the Tutor/Mentor site at ning.com and you'll see more. Read the essays on the Tutor/Mentor Institute page and you'll find more.

While we can't change what happened 15 years ago. My hope is that the next round of researchers will try to learn from the experiences of people who have been in the field working to connect kids, volunteers and learning experiences for many years.

One way to do this is to come to the conference in May. (2015 update: I've taken out old phone number. Connect with me on social media.)

Creating Networks of Purpose

Every day I'm contacted by people from Chicago and other cities who are asking for information related to tutoring/mentoring. This happens because I also spend part of each day in many forums where I share information and invite people to get connected to the information I host on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

Here's a collaboration presentation I'm sharing today.

My aim is to draw more people to the web library, and to the conference we're hosting on May 29 and 30 in Chicago. By doing so we help program learn ways to improve their programs over the summer, so in August when school starts they can recruit more volunteers, serve more kids, and have a bigger impact on aspirations and learning.

By drawing more people to the conference, we create greater public visibility, and hopefully draw more dollars, and talented volunteers, from business, universities and churches so that each program has the resources do put the good ideas to work in their own programs this summer.

If you click into the links on the left you can find many places where I network and share ideas. These are places where you might also find valuable ideas or share your own knowledge and experience. I hope to meet you in one or more of these virtual communities, or at the May conference.

eChicago networking event - today

I'm sitting in a workshop at Dominican University where speakers are sharing ways libraries and Community Technology Centers can use technology to serve their communities. Great ideas.

I just listened to Frances Roehm http://skokietalk.info and now I'm listing to George Reece, http://squeakcmi.org . Learn more about George's work at http://www.mste.uiuc.edu

I've set up a discussion which I hope speakers and participants will use to keep talking to each other after today.

I'll write more later.

Just finished listing to Jenny Levine talk about gaming and how libraries can adopt gaming in positive ways. Visit her site to see the full presentation.

These are inspiring ideas. How to spread them through tutor/mentor programs or to other communities is the next step.

Hospitals Bleeding Red Ink

A feature in today's Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes was the closing of St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, as South Suburb of Chicago. SSM Health Care, the owner of this hospital said "the hospital is racking up huge losses" and that "other hospitals that serve large populations of uninsured or under insured patients could follow St. Francis' path.

This reminds me of a Chicago Tribune article of July 10, 2002, with the headline of "Financial hemorage", and a subhead saying "Hospitals serving the poor are bleeding red ink as the uninsured ranks grow, health-care costs climb, and more government cutbacks loom."

I've had a strategy to prevent this on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site since 2002. It's a Hospital T/MC Leadership Strategy. You can view it here.

My belief is that hospital leaders who support the growth of comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the geographic area of the hospital, and use those programs to deliver preventative health messages to youth and families, can not only reduce the number of visits to the emergency room, but can also address another cost of operations by encouraging young people to consider careers in health care.

Read the pdf and look at some of the links posted on the T/MC web site. If you're a board member, doctor, leader of an inner city hospital, or a community leader in a neighborhood that may lose its hospital, I encourage you to bring some of your peers to the May Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago and begin investigating ways you can take this leadership role in your community.

The costs to be a leader are low because you're mobilizing others who are doing business, operating churches or universities in the region to share the costs of having tutor/mentor programs in the neighborhood. Your role, as the major business in many of these communities is a leader, a mobilizer, and an advocate, using your facility as a meeting place, and encouraging your medical personnel to be mentors.

If you'd like help understanding this, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net and let us help you.

Map Strategy for Saving Kids from Violence, Poverty

Today the feature editorial in the Chicago Sun Times is Come out and rally for kids slain by guns. As this was being written, another youth was slain last night.

I'm all for marches, and the intent of this is to get the state legislature to enact gun control laws.

However, I'd like to see community leaders spend some time thinking through a strategy that would create more places in neighborhoods where kids could connect with a diverse range of adults and learning experiences, with a long term goal of helping kids to careers instead of jail, or graves.

I've attached a map to illustrate this thinking. The map was created a few years ago by the Tutor/Mentor Connection and shows the West side neighborhood surrounding St. Agnas church. The area North of the church has poverty levels of 20% or higher. There are 8 under-performing public schools in this area. However, there are no organizations doing any form of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring(that we know of) other than two shown on the East side of this neighborhood.

Thus, most of the kids in this neighborhood have few resources to help keep them focused on positive activities during non school hours. That's a contributing factor to poor schools, high drop out rates, high gang violence, and a high level of juvenile and adult incarceration.

This map only shows the Catholic churches in the area. Instead of marching in downtown Chicago, someone ought to be asking the Cardinal how these churches are supporting a tutor/mentor strategy. Are they hosting programs? Are they hosting neighborhood meetings? Are they partnering with Catholic churches in Oak Park or further West, to draw volunteers and donors to support existing or new tutor/mentor programs?

Until the neighborhood has more and better non-school learning supports, and builds connections between the youth in the neighborhood, and the adult and business resources beyond the poverty areas of the city, it's likely we'll continue to see youth making bad decisions, and youth high school drop out rates continuing at a high level.

Here are three pdf essays that illustrate this strategy, and uses of maps:

a) No General Goes to War without a Map
b) Role of LEADERS
c) Faith based leadership strategy

You can find more articles like this in the Tutor/Mentor Institute web site. You can also find links to existing Chicago programs and a searchable database of Chicago area tutor/mentor programs.

If the purpose of editorials and marches is to mobilize volunteers, and donors, and support the growth of comprehensive, long-term learning and mentoring programs in high poverty neighborhoods, we can begin to predict future change in the tragedies that are taking place in Chicago and other big cities.

Without a map-based strategy it's likely there will be too many marches, too much talk, and too little action.

If you'd like help thinking through this strategy and adopting it to your own faith network, business, or community, email the Tutor/Mentor Connection at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

If you're interested in building tutor/mentor programs, or supporting them, come to the Tutor/Mentor Conference on May 29 and 30 in Chicago.

Want to be happy? Give your money away!

Scientists at the University of British Columbia have proved that acts of philanthropy can be a short-cut to achieving happiness. Really!! Read the full article.

Donate to a tutor/mentor program from the programs listed in the Chicago Programs Links Library and you can help a child, and help yourself.

New T/MC Maps Show Where Violence Happening in Chicago

Since late January we've been rebuilding the map capacity on the T/MC web site, so we can follow negative news with map-stories that show where the incident took place, while pointing to neighborhood youth organizations that can grow to be comprehensive tutor/mentor programs, if the local businesses, hospitals, churches in the same area provide the resources for this to happen. Use the Program Locator's Map Gallery to find contact information for programs in the area shown on this map. Just click the map on zip code 60617.

Read the Mapping for Justice blog to follow our progress as we start creating new maps like the one shown on this page.

Easter is about HOPE. Here's what this means to me.

Every faith has high holidays where people come together and celebrate. This is Easter weekend for the millions of people who share the Christian Faith. It's a time for reflection for all of us, not just Christians. What do these religions, and these celebrations mean to us.

I think it's all about HOPE.

We live in a savage world where there is much suffering. To think that the human animal is superior to other creatures who fight to survive everyday, may be one of the follies that make us different from these other life forms. Some of us have been more blessed by where we were born, who our parents are, and what genes we have. But we all live in the same world, and are affected by the struggles of those who are far different, or far distant, from us.

I was raised in the Christian faith and every day I say The Lord's Prayer as a way of giving myself hope and energy to face my day. I think that the middle stanzas of this prayer offer universal hope.

Give us this day, our daily bread.
To me this request is not a "home run" pitch. I'm not expecting my God to make me rich, or cure my son of a disease, or end hunger or warfare. I'm asking for the ability to deal with these struggles. I'm asking for more energy, more wisdom, a better able to communicate, and just enough money to pay the bills, at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, and in my own home and family life.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
I think this is one of the most important parts of this prayer. I can't tell you the number of times I've criticized myself for a mistake I've made, or something I did not do as well as I wanted to. I think in this part of the prayer God is giving us the power to forgive ourselves. In the movie "The Lion King" there is a scene when the monkey hits the lion over the head and says "It's in the past. Forget it."

We need to learn from our mistakes, but not dwell on them, which leads to the second part of this stanza. If we spend time getting revenge, or being angry about what someone else did to offend us, or hurt us, what good does that do? There are too few hours in each day to spend them in this way. If I don't spend time agonizing over my own faults, or the faults of others, I have much more time to work on solving the problems that I can solve with the "daily bread" that I'm given each day.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
To me this reflects the daily urge to yield to all sorts of things that might get me into trouble. This may be eating the wrong food, spending time on something that is not going to benefit my work, or my family, or doing something that hurts someone else or breaks one of the laws of our land. We all need a little help to avoid the things we do to ourselves.

We also need some good fortune to avoid the accidents of life we cannot control. I could walk out of this building today and slip on the ice and be injured or killed. I could live in a part of the world where crazy people are shooting guns and killing each other. Just yesterday a 12-year old Chicago girl was shot in the back by a 15-year old that was aiming at someone else....and missed. Each day I pray to my God that such an accident does not claim me, or someone I love.

So how are these prayers answered?
As the leader of a small non profit, and parent of a 10-year old and 17-year old, I'm constantly asking God for three things. Give me more time, give me more talent, knowledge and wisdom and help me live longer. With these I can be a better parent, and a better leader. I can do more to help make this a world where God answers the prayers of all who ask for help.

I realized recently that my God has been answering me for the past 30 years.

I get more time by involving volunteers who use their own time to help me with the work of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Each year more than 100 volunteers are directly involved, and countless others are indirectly involved. I get more time when my neighbors help me raise my own kids. More than 2000 people have sent contributions to support CC, T/MC since 1993.

I get more talent, knowledge and wisdom from the same resources. By unleashing the talent of other people, and the Internet, I expand the wisdom and abilities needed to build the type of programs and non profit support infrastructure that I'm trying to create. We have volunteers helping us in all sorts of ways, from building web sites, creating maps and databases, to hosting workshops at our conferences, or leading sessions at our tutor/mentor program. We have the potential of being joined by millions of others as we focus attention through our web sites and our maps on all of the places in Chicago and other cities where people were born into poverty or have fallen into distressed situations.

I live longer by sharing my ideas with others who adopt them in their own work. I use a variety of web sites (see links at left) to share my thinking with thousands of people who visit my sites every month. I can live forever through these ideas and the way people keep them alive in their own actions and in places throughout the world. Maybe this is one reason so many people are sharing their own ideas on the Internet. With so much information, I think what gets used, and what gets remembered will be that which helps those who are disadvantaged, and that which helps solve some of the complex problems that face our planet.

I have not become rich through the work I do, and Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection has been short of money many times over the past 15 years. Yet, when everything has seemed hopeless, there has always been some company, foundation and/or donor who have stepped forward with just enough money to help us weather that storm and continue our work.

To me this is the HOPE that keeps me going everyday. It's what I'll be thinking about as we move through this holiday weekend. I hope you can unleash this HOPE in your own lives and community services.