Volunteer Recruitment - Helping Others

In 1995 the Tutor/Mentor Connection began to organize an annual Chicagowide Volunteer Recruitment Campaign intending to help all programs in the city and listed in the Tutor/Mentor Directory get volunteers and donors. This photo shows how the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Program of Metropolitan Chicago was part of that effort.

Between 1998 and 2002 we received a $26,000 per year grant that enabled us to hire a part time Recruitment Campaign Coordinator. Through his effort the campaign grew to include Mrs. George Ryan as honorary chair, and leaders like Paul Vallas, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as speaker at campaign press conferences.
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This link shows the Campaign Manifesto from one of those years.

We don't do a printed Directory any longer but have created a map-based Program Locator that can be searched by type of program, age group served and zip code.

We've tried to enlist financial support from foundations, businesses, the Mayor and other leaders for this strategy but with inconsistent success. Even when we've found a major donor the terrible economy of the past decade has caused many to cease giving after one, two or a few years.

Yet the violence has not gone away, schools are still not able to change the aspirations and motivations of too many kids who come to school unprepared to learn and there are too few well-organized volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in most Chicago or suburban neighborhoods.

Too few leaders have this strategy in mind when they talk of improving schools and improving the workforce.

Due to a lack of funding the Tutor/Mentor Connection no longer exists as a non profit structure. I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to continue to support the T/MC services in Chicago. My hope is that big and small investors will see what we're trying to do and see how this strategy can also apply to other cities and will support us with time, talent and dollars.

Yet, while we seek support, all tutor/mentor programs throughout the region are now searching for volunteers and donors to support their efforts, too. While each program has limited funds for advertising, business, media, sports celebrities and elected leaders can adopt these leadership ideas and help create the advertising needed to attract and motivate volunteers and donors to browse the Program Locator and get to know the various tutoring and/or mentoring programs operating in the region.

They are all different. Some are better than others. They call can grow from good to great if enough people make the commitment to help them.

Help Ignite Social Impact

Today there's a report of a pregnant teen being shot and killed in Chicago. Does that make you mad? This picture is the front page of the Chicago SunTimes from October 1992. I've used it often to remind me and others of why the Tutor/Mentor Institute and Tutor/Mentor Connection exists.

In July 2011 I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. It's not a non profit. It is aimed at making a difference in the world. It needs your help.

Social Investing is a new concept. Here are some excerpts from two sites which are trying to raise money to support social innovators all over the world.

33 Needs.com. FAQ page
"I'm confused. Why do you call this an investment? Because it's important to distinguish this from charity. This is impact investing. Investors are being asked, and offered, the chance to make a personal and emotional connection -- an investment -- with a company. A social entrepreneur is being asked to make a reciprocal promise to its investors -- that it will use the investment to create greater value. It's an ongoing relationship, they're in this deal together."


Start Some Good FAQ page
"Q: Is my financial support tax deductible? A: Unless otherwise stated, your support is not tax deductible. However you will get some awesome rewards, and the even more awesome feeling of helping someone start good!"

Here are two other sites where donors are contributing to organizations and/or causes that do not have non-profit status.

GiveForward - "empowers friends and family to send love and financial support to patients as they navigate a medical crisis"
Social Actions - donate page

At some point I may describe the different projects of the Tutor/Mentor Institute and Tutor/Mentor Connection on one of these portals. But for now I've created this page and I invite you to invest in the vision I've outlined in these blog articles and my newsletters for the past 18 years.

If you've contributed to the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the past I hope you'll continue to invest in the Tutor/Mentor Institute so I can continue to support the T/MC in Chicago. But I hope you'll also invest so I can help similar structures grow in other cities.

We need volunteers to help in many areas, or the money to hire staff. The talent map below illustrates the range of skills needed to implement the vision I've outlined on our web sites. With your help we can fill this map with names of people, organizations and businesses who share ownership of this vision and work responsibly and creatively to achieve its goals.

See actual map.

Help Build Understanding of Tutor/Mentor Programs in Chicago Area

Since 1993 I've been trying to build a master DIRECTORY of all of the non-school volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region. I've been plotting this information on maps, and have created an Interactive Map-Based Program Locator that anyone can use to see the distribution of existing programs and to find contact information for specific programs.

This information needs to be updated each year and we need to build a much deeper understanding of what each program does and the differences between different programs. With this we also need to create communications and public education programs that draw volunteers, donors and other types of support directly to each program the way corporate advertising draws customers to retail stores every day.

I've never had the money to do this. Instead, my goal is to create shared ownership and a network of volunteers and partners who each have knowledge of the entire system, but expertise in local areas.

For the past two years a class at DePaul University has divided the city into sections and worked to build and share an understanding of what tutor/mentor programs are in different sections and where they are most needed.

In our Tutor/Mentor Connection forum we've created a list of "things to look for" when visiting, or building, a tutor/mentor program web site. In you can read how interns working with us are trying to communicate what they are learning about the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Building this type of knowledge and understanding could be the role of a service-learning team in a high school or college. It could be the volunteer project of a corporate or faith based team. It could be the role of a local intermediary organization.

If you want to take this role I can add you to one of our network maps, showing who is taking ownership of the DIRECTORY in different parts of the Chicago region. If we can build ownership in different sections the quality of information will be greater and it will be used by more people to help make tutor/mentor programs available to youth in different sections of the Chicago region.


No one can do all of this on their own. Yet the value of what a few of us create can benefit everyone in the entire Chicago region.

Using Emergence to Innovate Solutions

My network-building takes me into many forums. I participate in forums like this on the Linked-In Stanford Social Innovation group

As a result I expand my network and my understanding of what I'm doing, by hearing it described in new ways by new people I'm introduced to.

Today a post on this forum included this message: "The theory of change: personally I like the Margaret Wheatley theory of emergence that we find in Daniel approach (even if he don't know it. The writer pointed to this PDF by The Berkana Institute, titled Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale.

As the writer said, I did not know of this. I do now. As you read this take a look at the Tutor/Mentor Institute's "Four_Part Strategy" and see how much what I have been building since the mid 1970s fits with this idea.

This is not acceptable.

Today's bad news headline is " 6-year old girl shot to death.". I did a Google search to see what articles I could find about the "cycle of poverty and violence" to add to my own library of information on this topic.

I found this video. It could be Chicago. It's Hartford, Connecticut.



"How can people not care." What must we do to engage more people in ways that they become personally involved, and stay involved with time, talent and dollars for many years and in many cities?

Welcome to Monday. This is how I start my Tutor/Mentor Institute week. Hope you'll join me in looking for answers.

Civic Engagement - a focus on learning

This week I received a White Paper titled Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication

I was surprised when on page 18 I saw Cabrini Connections listed as a model. I was pleased because this on-going learning has been part of the elearning and technology strategy that I had championed in this organization for many years. This is pretty much on hold right now due to loss of our major donor due to economic reasons.

However, the reason I'm really excited to be in this White Paper was its emphasis on creating community information and stimulating on-going learning as a result of volunteering and service involvement. One group that was profiled in this White Paper was the Bonner Foundation, which "promotes the use of social media tools, such as wikis and videos, by all of its scholars.

I started putting my planning documents on wikis and on web site presentations more than a dozen years ago. However, the challenge I've found is helping people find the time and motivation to read these and become personally involved by editing and contributing ideas.

I was invited to be a contributor on the ACT NOW Drop Out Prevention wiki many years ago. I wonder how many other people use this?

I'm also part of many on-line forums where ideas are shared and networks built.

One of the five strategies of the White Paper is to "Generate Public Relational Knowledge." I've been piloting ways of doing this with maps, graphics, and network analysis tools, yet have never found enough people who really understood the value of this who were willing to invest the resources needed to build this.

In the White Paper Carmen Siranni's book, "Investing in Democracy" is quoted saying "you cannot get community summits and other forms of excellent engagement on the cheap. They take a long-term effort and resources that are normally a mixture of money, policies, and people's volunteered and paid time."

Amen.

I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to expand the ways I attract revenue and build partnerships so that I can do more to continue to develop the tools and resources we've been working on for more than a decade and make them available to more cities than just Chicago.

This talent map shows the skills I need and some of the people I'm learning from. If you want to be part of this map and an investor/sponsor of this process, please introduce yourself here or on the Tutor/Mentor Forum.

Looking for tutor/mentor volunteers?

School starts in a few weeks and every volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago, New York, Dallas, LA, etc. is ramping up efforts to recruit volunteers and other support needed to operate.

However, very few of the mentoring programs in America have the power and influence of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, who can run professionally made radio ads and recruit volunteers for their programs. Most of the small programs don't have the resources to do this.

So what do we do. I presented the information in this PDF to an advertising class at Loyola University Chicago in April and at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in May. It shows how each of us has personal power that we can unleash through social media and one-on-one network-building.

What if volunteers, staff, students and leaders in neighborhoods across the country mounted a social media campaign aimed at enlisting 1% of the richest people in America to become deeply involved in helping tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods.

This Chicago Tribune report, shows the "wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels since the U.S began tracking more than 25 years ago."

This link points to charts that demonstrate the growing gap between rich and poor.

What would it take to recruit volunteers from affluent backgrounds and keep them involved for dozens of years so some become as committed to this cause as I have become in my own 35 years of involvement?

The graphic at the top of this page illustrates the role thousands of people could take to expand the number of people who become involved in tutor/mentor programs.

This graphic is from this video. It shows how people who stay involved longer become more personally engaged, and do more to help a youth succeed in life. Some of these people could do much more to make tutor/mentor programs available if they were from the 1% of the wealthiest people in the country.

Read more of the ideas we share via this blog. Help us share these with an ever-expanding network of people. Take ownership of these in your own community, company, faith groups and social network.

Together we can connect those who can help with those who need help and through this we can build bridges from poverty for those who are now isolated on islands of inner city poverty.

Networked Learning via MOOC

Vance Stephens who is one of the creators of the Webheads network is one of the people who constantly inspires me with his thinking and writing. Today I read this article and this article.

The first article introduced me to the concept of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)

It pointed me to this blog where a short video video gives a quick over view of what MOOC is.

Follow the other articles in this blog from one written May 28, 2011 to the most recent and you can see how a MOOC has been developing around an "e portfolio" course. You may be interested in the topic, or like me, you may be interested in the networked learning process.

The second article makes the connection between Josh Grobin, volunteerism, mentoring, and the innovative thinking of Sir. Ken Robinson, which you can see in the video below.



In sharing these links I'm trying to inspire people in Chicago and throughout the world to see that volunteer-based non-school tutor/mentor programs reaching youth in inner-city neighborhoods could provide the type of learning sparks and opportunities Robinson envisions, even when they are not provided by the local public or private school.

Since I can only reach a few people with my own articles, and there is so much information to learn if we want high-quality tutor/mentor programs to be available in most of the high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago, the ideas of a MOOC really appeals to me. It's a way to organize the information I've collected in the Tutor/Mentor Institute and share it with thousands of other learners, collaborators and experts who have their own ideas to contribute to this process.

Learn more about MOOCs. Learn more about what motivates volunteers to give more time and talent to a cause than paid workers often do on a job. Think about how these ideas intersect in a long-term process of learning, innovating and actions.

UPDATE: 8/22/2011 - This slide share by Vance Stevens provide a great deal of additional information about MOOCs and self-directed learning.

- http://www.slideshare.net/vances/meportfoliosputting-the-me-in-melearning

Imagine a MOOC timed to coincide with the November 2011 and May 2012 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, or with the National Mentoring Month event in January.

Network Building - Who Is Helping?

This was the front cover of the Chicago SunTimes in October 1992 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection. The editorial writer says ending this violence is "everyone's responsibility". For 18 years I've been reaching out to build a team out of "everyone" who would work collectively to make more and better non-school, volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning centers available in all high poverty areas.

Due to recent changes I am creating a new organizational structure to continue this mission. It's called Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and is based on the ideas I've been sharing on this site and this blog for over a dozen years.

This is not a non-profit structure so the challenges I face in building a team of people to help me are different than when the Tutor/Mentor Connection has a non-profit status with the Cabrini Connections program. I intend to build a new leadership team and re-establish the T/MC as a Chicago non profit, but that will take up to a year. By creating the Tutor/Mentor Institute I can continue to support the T/MC web sites and can offer my expertise to help similar networks grow in other cities.

So "who is helping?" That's a question people have asked me for many years. I'm connected to so many people, and the way people help is often in short term bursts, that it's always been difficult to describe the range of help offered. So I've created visualizations to demonstrate this and I continue to look for volunteers who can convert these into interactive Social Network Analysis maps.

This graphic shows the range of talent needed in the Tutor/Mentor Institute and in almost any innovative social enterprise. You can see the live version here.

If you click on the nodes at the bottom of the different units on this map it will take you to groups on the T/MC Ning site where you can see people who are "members" of that group. You can also see links to Twitter, Facebook and Linked-in pages that point to groups of people, or individuals who are working more closely with me. Ultimately a visitor should be able to click on any of these boxes and find names, profiles, discussion groups filled with people who are working in various ways to help the Tutor/Mentor Institute achieve its mission. Right now few of the boxes are filled and updating this map is a time-consuming process.

While my maps are built using power point and a free c-map application, this video shows how networks can be visualized using emerging free applications. I'm trying to apply this technology to show the growth of the T/MC and the different constellations and networks of people within the network. I just need to find the talent, time and/or investment to build this.

Introducing Gephi 0.7 from gephi on Vimeo.

However, if you are already working with the T/MC or want to help me help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach more inner-city youth in Chicago and other cities, you can show your involvement just by joining one of the Ning groups. As you take an active role, it will be demonstrated by the work you do in each group. For those who want to go to another level, you can even join the OHATS group on Ning and become a recorder to document your actions.

"Rome was not built in a day" is a saying that implies the long term effort to build anything that is great and stands the test of time. This map will not fill in in a few months and might take years. However, as it does fill in with partners, volunteers, investors and leaders who share the same vision what we do to change the path from birth to career for youth living in poverty will dramatically change.

Indianapolis Mentoring Summit - Aug. 11

This page shows how the Mentoring Summit in Indianapolis is borrowing from ideas of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago.

Join the Tutor/Mentor Conference planning and follow up group on the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum.

I'm trying to organize a November Conference in Chicago, but need to find at least $10k in sponsor dollars and/or donated space. We'll offer this under the Tutor/Mentor Institute LLC structure which I've created in July to support the continued growth and operations of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago.

Contact me on Skype, Linked In, Twitter or Facebook, to offer your ideas and support. Sign up for the Indianapolis Summit via their web site.

Embracing visualization

This video is a demonstration of Gephi 0.7 which is an open source network analysis tool. If you read some of the network building articles I've written, perhaps you can envision how the different groups I've connected with over the past 20 years could seem like constellations and could be visualized using a tool like Gephi 0.7.

Introducing Gephi 0.7 from gephi on Vimeo.

My goal is to demonstrate that network building has a value, and must be supported consistently over many years if the size, composition and impact of the network is to have meaning. If we can demonstrate this then we can also teach network-building practices at universities and high schools and coach it in businesses and civic organizations.

Growth of the Network

This graphic illustrates the growth of my network since October 1992. At that time there just seven volunteers created Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. However, as this timeline shows, I had been building a network since 1973.

What I've not been able to do is show the growth of this network, nor show what people and organizations have helped in the past, or are helping now. This article is a list of people and organizations who help in the 1990s.

Now I'm preparing to launch the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, using the ideas we've been sharing on this site for over 12 years. Through the Tutor/Mentor Institute I'll continue to fund the web sites that support the Tutor/Mentor Connection and I'll continue to host conferences, one-on-one consultations, and on-line meetings and forums. My goal is to attract revenue from more than philanthropy so that the tools and services we build can have greater impact on the growth of tutor/mentor programs than we have been able to provide in the past due to lack of revenue and leadership support.

While many people have offered encouragement and some are more involved in helping me with this transition, I don't have a good way to visualize this, or to connect the people who are helping to each other.


I've been using concept maps to illustrate the range of people and organizations who need to take ownership of the ideas I've been sharing and how I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to support the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago as well as similar groups in other cities.

This map is my first effort at showing the goals of the Tutor/Mentor Institute.

Today I'm working with a new concept map that illustrates the range of talents I need, and points to groups where I'm connected to people with that talent, as well as to some people who have stepped forward a bit to help me recently.

If you've been helping me already your name may show up in one of the nodes on this chart. If it's not there and you want to add it, just join one of the groups on the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum and take an active role, or join the Tutor/Mentor Institute Facebook group.

There is much to do and too many holes not yet filled on the talent chart. If you share the vision and want to take some ownership, please connect with me.

Obama Urges Business Support for Education

July 18th article in Washington Post talks about an "unusual education roundtable" hosted by President Obama. It's considered unusual because business leaders and not educators are the main attendees. 

 I posted this comment: It would be great if these leaders were using their visibility, communications and influence to do on-going advertising that draws employees and customers to schools and non-school youth tutoring/mentoring programs in high poverty neighborhoods and if teams of employees were volunteering time to help high-quality tutor/mentor programs grow and operate in the same manner that corporate offices help hundreds or thousands of branch locations operate throughout the country.

Such a strategy needs to go beyond supporting the brand name and well known organizations that only serve a small fraction of the kids in neighborhoods with poverty and poor schools. Cities need to create on-line program locator/map-based directories such as the one we host in Chicago. See http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net .

With platforms like this volunteers can choose from programs in many neighborhoods. They can help small and under funded programs constantly improve, while helping well funded programs draw from ideas of local, national and international programs to also constantly innovate new ways to keep youth and volunteers connected. 

Several cities do have program locators, but don't use these as platforms to attract volunteers and donors directly to the programs they list. It's hard to know if they use them to assess the distribution and availability of needed programs in areas with highest concentration of need based on poverty and locations of poorly performing schools, or high drop out rate schools. 

The service we host in Chicago is a pilot and has room for much improvement. Yet, I've found few map-based marketing strategies used by business to encourage volunteer involvement in programs designed to provide long-term mentoring, tutoring and career-education resources. 

President Obama was a speaker at a conference we hosted in 1999. Arne Duncan attended our first conferences in 1994. I hope they'll come back and take another look and apply some of these ideas in their efforts to expand the networks of support for kids living in high concentrations of poverty. and use them to attract volunteers and donors directly to

Life is a Jouney. Detours happen.

Today is my last day on the payroll of Cabrini Connections, the Chicago tutor/mentor program that I and six other volunteers created in the fall of 1992. I've been the president CEO for the past 18 years.

While we operate a single tutor/mentor program serving a small group of youth, my 35 years leading a tutor/mentor program, and my advertising background with the Montgomery Ward Corporation, led me to create the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 at the same time as we were creating Cabrini Connections.

Our goal was to build a system of supports that would help more children in Chicago be able to participate in high quality tutor/mentor programs by increasing the way those programs are supported by volunteers, donors, media, etc.

The video below illustrates some of the ideas I've developed over the past two decades.

Unfortunately we've not been able to attract the high profile leadership, celebrity or political support that is essential to raising the philanthropic capital needed to do what we're trying to do. In the end, the struggle to find money to operate the Cabrini Connections part caused the volunteer Board of Directors to decide they can no longer support the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Thus, I'm leaving the organization I started and have led for so many years and re-launching the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Initially I'm creating Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, which will enable me to move forward in organizing a November Conference, and see financial support from investors and others who believe in what we're trying to do.

I'll be working from my basement in Park Ridge and from donated space at HIGHSIGHT, located at 315 W. Walton in Chicago, which is one of the many Chicago tutor/mentor programs I've been connected to for more than 15 years.

The change from being part of Cabrini Connections to being a separate entity has happened quite quickly so many of the important details -- like how to generate income to support what we do and pay me and others to provide our time and talent -- have not been worked out.

Yet, in February 1990 when I left my job at Montgomery Ward, I did not know where the money was going to come from, yet I was committed to continuing my leadership of the tutoring program at Wards which I had led as a volunteer since 1975.

When I left the my role as Executive Directory and founder of the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program in October 1992 I did not know where the money and help was going to come from to start Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Yet we've raised more than $6 million and involved more than 580 teens and 800 volunteers in the Cabrini Connections program since 1993. We've created a Tutor/Mentor Connection that connects the web sites and ideas of most of the tutor/mentor programs in Chicago to each other, and connects Chicago programs to the ideas of others around the world.

We still don't have a leadership system in Chicago or any other city that applies the ideas of the Tutor/Mentor Connection or draws consistent financial support to tutor/mentor programs in every neighborhood on a consistent and on-going basis. Thus we have an uneven distribution of programs, uneven quality, and inconsistent growth caused by constant changes of personnel.

So by leaving the CEO role at Cabrini Connections I will have much more time to devote to building tools that support collective efforts, collaboration, innovation and the on-going general operations of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and in other big cities of the world.

I hope you'll follow my progress, join the journey, and help put some financial gas in the engine so we can do this better then we've been able to in the past.

Thank you all for your support and thank you to the youth, parents, volunteers and friends of Cabrini Connections who have let me be part of your lives for so many years.

To those who give, much is given in return. I have given over 35 years to Cabrini Green youth and I believe I have been well rewarded through the love and friendship of the people I've met.

RIP Latino Education Alliance

I received this message in today's email: "Latino Education Alliance (LEA) is closing its doors after 10 years as a nonprofit serving Latino high school students and families in Chicago. The decision to close Latino Education Alliance follows a year-long effort to reduce costs, the exploration of an affiliation with other agencies and conversations with our historic funding partners."

If you've been following my blog you know that Tutor/Mentor Connection also faces an uncertain future. Funding challenges have led the Directors of the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection to decide to no longer support the T/MC strategy. Friday, July 15, 2011 is my last day as President, CEO of the combined organization.

However, it's not yet the final act. I've decided to create Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to continue to innovate new products and services that can help cities support the growth of high quality, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that reach a growing number of k-12 kids living in high poverty areas.

For me to succeed I need to attract volunteers and leaders with the skills shown in this graphic and/or I need to attract investors and donors who will provide the funds for me to hire people with these skills.

This is not starting over, or even starting new. I'm continuing on the same road, just changing from one mode of transportation to another. For a while that might seem like a move from a used 2005 Ford to a used 1999 Chevy. But as long as I'm able to steer and stay on the road, I think I can find a newer vehicle to carry the T/MC forward in the future.

If you're interested in helping join in at the T/MC forum on Ning or lets connect on Skype. My handle is "dbassill".

Another shooting in Roseland

Today's Chicago SunTimes includes a half-page story about a nine-year old boy being shot in his back yard.

According to the SunTimes story there have been 114 weapons-related crimes committed in the last year within a half block radius of where this shooting took place.

What is going to change this?

I've written about the violence in Roseland and in Chicago many times in the past six years. The maps I include are from the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which hosts a directory of non-school tutor/mentor programs operating in different parts of the city.

My intention is to follow up "bad news" media with a much more consistent call to action that recruits volunteers, leaders, donors from the suburbs and the city to help a wider range of volunteer-based, k-12, tutor/mentor programs become available in more parts of Roseland and other areas where poverty reduces the range of opportunities and activities available to youth in the area and gives a wide open path for gangs and negative influences to expand.

My stories alone will not raise the type of visibility needed to change the flow of resources and the availability of high-quality non-school learning and mentoring centers. However, anyone can use the Program Locator to create their own map-stories. This guide shows how.

When students and volunteers from high schools, colleges, businesses and faith groups begin to use these maps and create their own stories we will create an orchestra of voices that will have the collective weight of a U2 Concert, and a collective impact on the growth of programs in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities with similar problems.

The Program Locator is available to everyone but it is currently funded by no one. If your company or philanthropy want to help us keep this resource available for Chicago and share it with other cities we need your financial investment. Email Dan Bassill at tutormentor2@earthlink.net if you want to offer your help.

Inviting University Partnerships

This spring we've hosted interns from the Adler School of Professional Psychology and from Illinois Institute of Technology. You can see examples of the work these interns have done by reading the blog articles on the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum. You can see more intern work on this blog.

Joseph Kruel served a five month internship. He's a first year graduate student at the Adler School of Professional Psychology. His goal was to learn about the Tutor/Mentor Connection and communicate that to his network and his university.

In this article Joseph writes "Throughout my internship at T/MC, I have been struggling with the idea of how universities can become actively involved in the nonprofit sector and with tutor/mentor programs, and even provide a source of constant revenue."

He concludes with a "call for partnerships between universities and nonprofits such as T/MC, much in a similar design that the partnerships in the report were designed as."

I've written several articles showing ways universities and their alumni could become strategic leaders of Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies in their own communities.

This PDF is a strategic plan developed by grad students at DePaul, intended to kick-start the planning a university might go through to adopt the T/MC.

With the Tutor/Mentor Connection going through a restructuring now would be a great time for an alumni of one of the hundreds of universities located in urban areas of the US to decide that his $35-$50 million gift ought to go to establishing a Tutor/Mentor Connection Institute on his own campus.

Freedom is not FREE

Last night I watched a documentary showing how African Americans have fought and died in every major conflict from the mid 1700s through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They fought for freedom, despite the fact they they enjoyed so little of the rights of freedom in America.

 In the past six years I've written about the price of freedom and the sacrifices citizens need to make tohave the future we want. You can read all of these under the HERO tag. Here are a few headlines.

Feb. 8, 2006 - "the difficulty of success does not relieve one of the obligation to try" 

May 29, 2006 - "Where does the courage come from to fight the un-winnable fight?" 

Sept 11, 2006 - "Remembering 9/11 - How much sacrifice is enough?" 

Oct 8, 2008 - "What sacrifice will our next President ask from Americans?" 

Aug 5, 2009 - "Our promise: Do all we can to assure inner-city youth are in jobs and starting by age 25" 

March 4, 2010 - "What Level of Commitment?" 

March 14, 2011 - "Hero. George C. Marshall" 

All of these articles have a common theme. The freedom and future we all want comes with a huge price. We need to innovate ways to involve more people in the work that needs to be done and the sacrifices that need to be made--not just the men and women in our Armed Forces. 

I'm re-starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the next few months. I have no board of directors, no source of funding, a huge mountain of decisions that need to be made. The main T/MC web library is not working. The maps need to be updated with 2010 census info but I've no money, or source of income, to do this. It's a huge challenge. 

Yet in the 35 years since I began leading a tutor/mentor program I've touched the lives of thousands of youth and adults in Chicago and around the world. Charles Cameron is one. He's hosting forums on Social Edge to help me rebuild the T/MC. 

If I can just find a way to reconnect with the people I've touched or reached out to over all these years I can find the talent, manpower, dollars and other resources needed to not only create a new organizational structure for the T/MC, but to make it much stronger than in the past. 

Here's an article I wrote in October 2009 titled "Nobel Prize. Earn it." 

We can do this if we can find a way to create this BIG REUNION over the next few months. Email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net if you want to help.

Photos from 1973-2011 Tutor/Mentor Journey

Here's a slide show with photos of me and people I've met through Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Changing Education Paradigms

This RSA Animate titled "Changing Education Paradigms" is challenges our thinking about education. As I look at it I have two thoughts:

1) It will take eons to change the dinosaurs that are the existing public education system, so why not create other ways to reach kids with these ideas in other time frames and in non-school settings?

2) Gosh I wish I could communicate my ideas this well.

Distroying the Network

I'm going through a really painful process right now. Since 1993 I've been reaching out to build a network connecting all sorts of people who are involved in some way, or should be involved, in helping kids in high poverty neighborhoods have mentor-rich, non-school support systems that well-organized, and well-funded, tutor/mentor programs might provide.

Since the Board of Directors at Cabrini Connections voted in April 2011 to discontinue support for the Tutor/Mentor Connection, effective June 30, I'm not only trying to figure out a new way to generate revenue to keep the T/MC going, I'm moving all of the T/MC history from the 4200 sq ft at our 800 W. Huron Office to much smaller space in my basement, a rented storage locker and donated office space.

I've been keeping files showing every contact I've made over the past 18 years. My goal has been that I would find a researcher/writer who would use these files to show how myself and a few supporters have helped the T/MC network grow from year-to-year. Such information could inspire others who have no particular social standing or wealth to take on a similar role in other cities and other causes.

I have donated network analysis software that could be used to map this network. Here's an article that illustrates how this software can map changes in a network. This article only shows a small group as a result of one event. Imagine mapping the growth of the T/MC network, which formally started in 1992 with seven volunteers and a huge vision.

However, with the impending move, I've had to start going through my files and library to choose between what I keep and put into storage and what I toss into the trash.

I've already gone through the folders that I've aggregated about organizations in Chicago and tossed out about 8 boxes of files that don't directly relate to tutor/mentor programs in the region. Once in the trash I can never re-build that history or show those connections.

Here's an example. I'm looking at a file with correspondence related to arts mentoring and an Art Festival we started at Cabrini Connections in 2000.

One handout shows a program called FluidArts. Board members included Deborah Phelan and Bonnie Bracey. I'm still connected to Bonnie in other email. However the web site on the handouts does not work. This information show a goal of creating a global alliance. It's good stuff. People could still learn from this. Do I toss it?

In another file I have copies of email correspondence from 1998 to 2002

Caroline Kim at i Mentor (June 2001) - she wrote "I've been reading the messages you posted on various listserves, and I'm always impressed by your dedication and energy." Caroline and I are now connecting on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Richard Civille, Center for Civic Networking, June 2001 - he wrote about The Creating Community Connections (C3) System saying "can you imagine how C3 can be further designed for community networks, community technology centers and other community based organizations to help them achieve their mission?"

Robert Goetch, June 2001 - Robert was leading Students in Business, Inc at that time. he wrote "I am impressed with your web site. It seems to be a great resource for those implementing mentor projects." Robert and I are now connected in a LinkedIn group under his current Be A Mentor organization.

Kevin McCann, Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation, Kansas State University, June 2001. Kevin wrote "Yes, we should share ideas, perhaps we could collaborate."

Cynthia White, Think Detroit.org, June 2001. Steve Roussos, a volunteer working with the T/MC wrote "I want to share some information with you about a project that Dan Bassill (from the Tutor/Mentor Connection) and I have been working on and may also be of interest to you and ThinkDetroit."

These are just the first few pages of a thick folder!

Over the years as I've met people on the Internet or in face-to-face meetings I've added them to our print newsletter mail list and to our email list. Unfortunately, we've not had money to send the print newsletter since 2004 and the growth of spammers has made it much, much, more difficult to build a connection via email.

Yet, if I toss these records in the trash there will be no way in the future for me, or anyone else, to go back to these people to find out if the ideas we share are still being used or if there are now ways and/or reasons for us to be doing more to help each other.

I have nearly 10 file cabinets of contact information, but need to cut this to half that size within two weeks.

If someone has two-three rooms of office space to donate or if someone wants to move these records to a research institution who could partner with T/MC in building and sustaining this network, please call me at 312-492-9614.

If someone wants to become the sponsor or benefactor of the Tutor/Mentor Connection that would be even better. You don't need to be from Chicago because these ideas apply to every major city in the world.

The network I've been building for 30 years can be your network. Or it can go in the trash and be lost to all of us for ever.

Wealth and Income Inequality in America

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for this post titled 'The Best Resources About Wealth and Income Inequality in America'.

T/MC Added Value - We Free Up Time

By leaving the Cabrini Connections program this summer I free up time to innovate new ways to help programs like this grow. I'm reading "A Brief History of the Corporation."

This is one quote from the article: "Ideas fueled by energy can free up time which can then partly be used to create more ideas to free up more time."

This week on the Social Edge Forum, Charles Cameron is leading a discussion about the changes taking place in organizations like Tutor/Mentor Connection. Join in and add your ideas.

Students say "Step up to the Challenge"

This video PSA was created this spring by teens at the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in Chicago.

Stepping Up To The Challenge from Cabrini Connections on Vimeo.

Students have been creating videos at Cabrini Connections since 1995.

This could be happening in volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout Chicago and other cities. Maybe alumni will become film makers like Leo Hall, who produced Count It all Joy, a movie that has won two awards from Christian Film Festivals this year. Leo was my first student in 1973-74.

Or maybe they will become actors like Tramaine Montell Ford, who was one of the first video group members in 1995.

This won't happen unless a greater number of benefactors step forward as producers to provide the funds that programs like Cabrini Connections need to keep students and volunteers connected and involved in these types of experiences.

It also won't happen unless sponsors support events like the Tutor/Mentor Conference where we can bring programs together to share ideas like these while also creating a spotlight that draws benefactors to multiple locations, not just a few visible ones.

Where Else in Chicago?

The map below shows the location where Cabrini Connections will be holding its 18th annual year-end dinner tonight. More than 250 guest are expected, including parents, volunteers, students, donors, alumni, etc.



This slideshare shows images from the 2010 dinner. Visit the video section on the Cabrini Connections web site to see more like this.

Where else will events like this be taking place this month, connecting people who don't live in poverty with kids and families who do?

I've been leading this effort for 18 years and I'm leaving the organization next month because we've not been able to convey the benefits of tutor/mentor programs to enough philanthropic investors who will provide the on-going resources for programs to retain leaders for 10 and 20 years and build organizational knowledge that supports the growth of these programs.

I'll not be leaving this mission even though Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Connection are separating into two different organizational structures. Through the T/MC I will continue to use this blog, networking, and the ideas and resources shared on the T/MC web site to help leaders in business, religion, politics, sports and media build a collective understanding of a tutor/mentor program as a place connecting a wide range of people and ideas in a long term effort to help kids move through school and into jobs and careers.

I have not yet determined a structure for the future Tutor/Mentor Connection. I could become an institute within a university. I could become an independent think tank. I could become a consultant and charge fees for the ideas I've been giving away for free. Or I could create a non profit and try to compete for donor attention with the same frustration I've had for the past 18 years.

I hope you'll help me make the right decision and support me in this effort for the next decade. I also hope some of you will become partners and owners so you carry these ideas forward when I'm no longer able.

It's been an honor and an ever-day reward to be part of Cabrini Connections and the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program that came before it. I hope we can help millions of others get involved with this journey so they can share the same rewards.

Better Address Barriers to Learning

I've been a fan of the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools for several years. This PDF is a policy brief I received via email today.

It's title is: Expanding School Improvement Policy to Better Address Barriers to Learning

Under the title is the quote: "It is not enough to say that all children can learn or that no child will be left behind; the work involves achieving the vision of an American education system that enables all children to succeed in school, work, and life."
From the 2002 mission statement of CCSSO - the Council for Chief State School Officers

If you're from UCLA and live in the Chicago region why not become a sponsor of the Tutor/Mentor Connection's May and November Conference or Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and help us increase the number of volunteers working with inner-city youth so more people begin to have a personal stake in helping remove barriers to learning around the schools operating in the highest poverty neighborhoods.

Turn Blog into a Book?

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Now this Hot to Profit from Your Blog article showed up on Facebook. I'm posting it here to share with others and so I can come back and dig deeper into how this gets done.

Wouldn't he rather talk about something else?

After a bad game wouldn't it be great if LeBron had something else to talk to reporters about? This video was created by one of our interns. It suggests athletes could be advocates for tutor/mentor programs in different parts of the city where they play. This second video shows that they could be doing this strategically, and talking about how they support tutor/mentor programs when the microphone is in their face, rather than talking about the "bad game" that just ended. This pdf and this series of blog articles were the original material used to inspire the creation of these videos.These videos illustrate ways students in high school and colleges throughout the country could be creating training/motivational entertainment that might get the attention of athletes like LeBron and recruit them to take this role.

The result might be that athletes from every sport in a city were adopting different neighborhoods, and talking about ALL of the tutor/mentor programs in these neighborhoods and the way fans can support them as volunteers and donors.

Wouldn't that be more fun that talking about a bad game? All we need to make this a reality is for a few athletes to come forward as sponsors and partners, so new videos could be made with them as spokespersons.

Infographics - new way to understand data

I came across "info-graphics" in some Twitter searches today. These are visualizations of information.

If you do this search you can skim the posts and go to various graphics about different topics.

This one show how Internet is Changing Way we learn

This one is a visualization of the "opportunity gap" between rich and poor in America.

I'd like to harness this to illustrate Tutor/Mentor Connection concepts. Anyone able to help?

Equal Opportunity. Let’s Talk about it.

Earlier today I posted an article titled YouthMobs: Let's Talk About it. The headline was borrowed from a column by Richard Roeper from today's Chicago SunTimes. Below is a media map showing other articles in the SunTimes related to this story.

Since 1993 I've been creating map-stories following negative news, with the goal of enlarging the number of people who were doing serious thinking about ways to build a better distribution of non-school tutoring, mentoring, learning, career-development and enrichment activities for k-12 youth living in high poverty areas.

The articles I post are the result of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program since 1975. That's over 35 years! Few people in the country have had to think of ways to connect youth and volunteers...and find donors and other support resources...for this many years!

During my first 17 years I held retail advertising jobs with the Montgomery Ward Corporation. From 1980-1990 I held different roles responsible for creative development of all print retail ads, or for building the annual advertising calendar that we used to draw customers to over 400 stores in 40 states.

I learned the power of central office planning and mass communications. By 1980 our tutor/mentor program at Wards had 200 pairs of youth and volunteers with no paid staff. I and others were the manpower leading this program. With a demanding job I had to find innovative ways to support our volunteers. Thus I borrowed from the mass communications strategies of Wards and other retailers to send print newsletters to our volunteers each week, pointing to information they could use to help them with their weekly tutoring/mentoring.

While my technology was a typewriter and duplicating machine in 1975-80 it became a Mac and PC in the 1980s along with a copy-machine. By the 1990s it became email and a web site.

The goal has not changed. As people are looking for information to show them what they can do we were collecting and hosting information that any of our volunteers and leaders could use to support their own involvement.

When we started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 we expanded on this. We built a database of more than 200 youth serving organizations in Chicago and thousands of potential supporters in Chicago and around the country. We began hosting this on the internet.

At Wards I had a $250 million budget to draw customers to our stores. In the T/MC I've never had an ad budget. We had a pro bono Public Relations firm help us for several years. However PR and media stories are not advertising. They don't have the reach and frequency to get customer attention and convert them to shoppers.

Thus we begin to follow negative news stories, such as the Youth Mob stories that are getting top media attention this week. When people are reading these stories the media are not pointing them to places where they can learn more about what they can do to build systems of support that might give youth better options.

We are. Browse the articles on this blog and the related links. Form a learning circle in your church, mosque, synagogue, college, business or political circle. Start learning from this information and begin to take on some of the leadership roles describe in this section of our web site.

As you know more, and do more, share your own strategies and work with us to get even more people involved. When the Mayor says "Chicago won’t move forward unless we all work to move forward together." we need to respond by learning where and how we can be involved, then acting every day in one way or another until the problems are solved.

This is not a short term solution, but if it has been supported since 1993 when we first began suggesting this way of working together to help inner city youth have more opportunities, we might be a lot further along now than we are.

Youth Mobs - It's News. Talk about it.

Richard Roeper's 6/9/2011 Chicago SunTimes column is titled "Yes, it’s news when mobs beat the innocent" He wrote, "The dominant conversation in Chicago these days isn’t about a New York congressman sending pictures of his maleness to women. It’s people telling each other to be alert and to be careful, even when in they’re in the nicest neighborhoods in the light of day."

So, if we're talking about it, how about talking about solutions?

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service was held this week. I attended in 2008 and wrote a series of blog articles following, that call on leaders to be more strategic in using volunteer resources to help solve community problems. This week Sam Lee, a student intern from Korea, created a summary of my articles. This graphic is from the first page. View the her presentation here.

Since this is NEWS, I encourage you to set up a discussion group in your church, business, college and political network. How can the ideas we share here become part of the Mayor's Chicago2011 Plan? What might be different today if Mayor Daley had began to adopt these ideas 20 years ago when I first began to share them with him and his staff?

Chicago2011 Transformation - Visualization

I've been writing about Mayor Emanuel's Transformation plan in a series of articles.

Throughout the plan are statements like:

Chicago can only succeed as a city if every part of Chicago succeeds.

Chicago won’t move forward unless we all work to move forward together. Success will be measured by asking whether all of our communities are thriving.

These plans are highly interdependent. For how can we even begin to think about the way our government should be structured and run without deep consideration of the supports that communities need and the best way to deliver those services? How can we grow without strong communities? How can we ponder what is best for our communities without thinking hard about the challenges our children face?

I've written about complex problems and visualization often in the past and I feel this plan needs some visualization to help people understand it.

So I've created this graphic to illustrate how the four parts of the Transformation plan are interconnected.
I've spent over 30 years thinking about some of the issues the new Mayor seeks to address. Thus, I'd like to be able to contribute to the planning. The graphic below illustrates some of the ideas we offer. All of the articles on this blog and in the Tutor/Mentor Institute represent ideas and strategies that need to be further developed and funded. If you can help us find investors or connect with people in government who might fund us as a consultant we can continue to develop and share these concepts.

Call 312-492-9614 or email tutormentor 2 at earthlink dot net to set up a meeting where we can begin to show you what these graphics mean and how you can apply them to your own learning, planning and leadership.

Students entrepreneurs recognized

I was one of the judges in the SAGE USA Tournament held at UIC on May 27 and 28. This competition encourages young people to develop business ideas that earn sustainable revenue and contribute to social well-being. Fellow judge Rieva Lesonsky wrote this account of the event.

We've been encouraging young people to innovate new ways to share T/MC ideas and attract a more consistent flow of volunteers and donors to social benefit organizations helping inner city kids. See the work they do on this Intern blog.

This cartoon graphic is from a new project posted on YouTube yesterday. It's goal is to coach athletes on roles they can take on a consistent basis to draw attention and resources to tutor/mentor programs throughout the city where they are famous.

I hope SAGE Judges will connect with each other and support this type of innovation among youth and adults as we move into more difficult economic times that face the US and the world. Connect with SAGE on Twitter at #SAGETournament

Chicago 2011 - my ideas

On May 15 I posted my first article about Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Chicago2011 strategy. Since then I've posted 11 more articles that can be used by the Mayor's team -- or any other leader -- to help make volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs more available in high poverty areas of Chicago and the suburbs.

While I'm trying to keep up with my writing, I'm also trying to figure out a new business strategy for the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), since the the T/MC will no longer be supported as part of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection after June 30, 2011.

In the Mayor's Chicago2011 plan his goal for Children says "The path that leads a child through a post-secondary credential and into a career should be guided by a seamless education system that helps children access opportunities and find lifelong careers."

I would love to see the Mayor borrow this graphic to illustrate that idea. I'd love to see him using this concept map as a "blueprint" to illustrate the supports needed at each grade level for more kids to reach adults with a network of support that assure they have positive life-long careers rather than lives in the prison system and under-employment.

As I read Chicago2011 I just did not see a vision for "talent involvement" meaning the engagement of people from the workplace, colleges, the city and the suburbs in on-going efforts to build a system of supports that might send kids from high poverty neighborhoods to school better prepared to learn, and help them leave school with a broader network of people who can help them find jobs and succeed in careers.

I'd be happy to be a consultant to the Mayor and his planning team to help them integrate the ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute into his strategy. I'd love to have him "make a few phone calls" so I have the money needed to support the maps and conferences and other strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection so we can do more to help him achieve his own goals for Chicago youth.

Mayor Daley attended one or two Tutor/Mentor Conferences in the 1990s and signed a Tutor/Mentor Week proclamation each year from 1994-1999, but his support for the T/MC did not go beyond that. I hope Mayor Emanuel will see the potential and look for ways to incorporate our ideas into his strategies.

Update: I can now be reached at 847-220-2151 (cell phone). Give me a call.

Student Intern says "Enough" in video

This graphic is from this video, created by Tutor/Mentor Connection intern Sam Lee. She created this after reading this blog article written in April 2010.

Our goal is to recruit students from high school and college to covert articles we write into new interpretations, with a goal of attracting more adult readers who will become informed and motivated to provide the time, talent and dollars needed to support mentor-rich learning organizations in all high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.