Raising Funds for Tutor/Mentor Programs

This photo was taken almost 12 years ago during a November 1997 event hosted by the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program. It's purpose was to raise visibility within the legal community that would help raise money directly for individual tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and for the Lend-A-Hand Program's pool of funds which it drew from each spring to award small grants to 15-20 tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.



At the right is an article from the Daily Law Bulletin of the Chicago Bar Association, telling about a collaborative effort of the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, intending to raise visibility for tutor/mentor programs in November that would lead to more contributions in the December holiday period.

This was all part of a strategy developed in 1994 where the Tutor/Mentor Connection would host a conference in November, the CBF would host a fund raising event, and we would create a "Tutor/Mentor Week" to generate greater visibility for all tutor/mentor programs in Chicago that would help recruit volunteers and donors at that time of the school year.


We're approaching the Holiday Season again and volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs still need operating dollars to do their work. From 1994 to 2001 the Tutor/Mentor Connection published a printed directory that people could use to search for different tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.
We never had much money so we were only able to send 300 to 400 copies of this to foundations, media, libraries and the programs listed in the Directory. Thus, it was a big deal when we found a way to put this directory on line in a searchable program locator back in 2004. Then in 2009 we launched a new interactive map version where you could look at a map of Chicago and see where tutor/mentor programs were most needed, based on poverty or poorly performing schools, and you could see icons on the map representing existing tutor/mentor programs in our directory. In both of these versions you could sort by age group and type of program and zip code to narrow your search to find contact information on specific types of programs.

This service consistently has recorded 500-600 visitors a month for over eight years. The chart below shows funding available to the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the past decade to do everything it does, including creating and hosting this map based program locator. You can see that we've had less than $150,000 a year which is less than what it would cost to purchase one full page ad in the Chicago Tribune on a single day!

The T/MC operated as part of a combined Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection non profit since formed in 1993. We split money each year between the site based tutor/mentor program and the T/MC, yet the time spent on the T/MC always was secondary to the time needed to support the 70-80 pairs of students and volunteers in the Cabrini Connections program. Due to the financial challenges of the past decade the Board of Directors finally decided that they could no longer support this dual strategy from a single small program, thus voted to discontinue the T/MC in April 2011.

I "retired" from my role of President, CEO in July and created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in an effort to find new ways to generate revenue and partnership to continue to offer the T/MC to Chicago and to help programs like Cabrini Connections get the volunteers, donors and ideas each program needs to thrive. I did this without any financial commitment other than my own meager savings account.

The Lend A Hand Program received a $2 million award in 2006 and has made grants totaling nearly $240,000 per year since 2007. If we can encourage other businesses and professions to launch similar programs it can generate money and volunteer talent from every industry to support tutor/mentor programs in different parts of Chicago. It's a strategy that can duplicate in other cities if an intermediary group like the Tutor/Mentor Connection is available.

I want to help make that happen but I need your help to do this. I've never been successful obtaining sponsorships for the conferences from a charitable standpoint and I have no experience approaching venture capital people for the type of investment we need to build out the features and services of the T/MC or to fund an aggressive advertising campaign to raise money for tutor/mentor programs in the Directory. Thus, my first request is for volunteers to step forward and fill the different roles visualized on this talent chart. You can see this live at this link.

At the same time I need to raise money for monthly expenses such as hosting the web sites, organizing the next conference, etc. I'm not asking for a charitable donation and I don't have a 501-c-3 structure to offer you a tax deduction for a gift. Instead I'm asking your to help me offer hope and opportunity to inner city youth, and an opportunity for volunteers and donors to be enriched by being part of the lives of these kids.

When Jonathan Kozal talked about his book "Amazing Grace" he said the "Amazing Grace is not what we do for them, but what they do for us."

You can help me by contributing dollars to help me continue to build the Tutor/Mentor Connection and by helping me find sponsors and investors who might want to put the "name" on the Program Locator or on the Conferences or on our Links Library, just like US Cellular puts their name on a baseball field or rich alumni put their name on college buildings, hospitals and sports stadiums.

Associate your name with a vision of helping more kids from poverty move through school and into jobs and careers and you'll have a legacy that can last many years into the future.

Email me at tutormentor 2 at earthlink dot net or send your contribution to:

Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Merchandise Mart PO Box 3303
Chicago, Il. 60654

Achievement gap: Black Students Still Behind

Today's Chicago Tribune includes a feature article titled: CPS fails to close performance gap: Black students still losing academic ground despite reforms, study finds

It leads off saying:

Twenty years of reform efforts and programs targeting low-income families in Chicago Public Schools has only widened the performance gap between white and African-American students, a troubling trend at odds with what has occurred nationally.

Across the city, and spanning three eras of CPS leadership, black elementary school students have lost ground to their white, Latino and Asian classmates in testing proficiency in math and reading, according to a recent analysis by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

It includes a statement saying:

"If school closings destabilized certain neighborhoods, other efforts were ineffective — millions of dollars pumped into countless after-school initiatives and tutoring and mentoring programs geared toward African-American students, only to see math and reading scores languish and many students fall further behind."

I challenge this statement of "countless after-school initiatives and tutoring and mentoring programs".

I've been hosting a database of non-school volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring program serving Chicago and have been using maps to show where these programs are needed, where existing programs are located, and where more dollars are needed to help programs constantly innovate ways to have a greater impact.

I tried to find census maps on the internet today to support this article. Here's one set of maps showing demographic concentrations in the Chicago region. This is from a U.S. Census Grids web site.



Here's a maps showing African American population concentrations in Chicago, created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the mid 2000s. On this map we've overlaid locations of poorly performing schools from the 2007 ISBE watch list. From both sets of maps you can see high concentrations of African Americans living in high poverty areas. You can also see a huge number of failing schools.

On this next map you can see locations of different non-school tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago area. You just don't see a large number of programs in many parts of this map. I encourage you to use the Interactive Program Locator and create your own map. Sort by type of program and age group served.
When trying to understand this information you need to think in layers. What is the distribution of tutor/mentor programs serving elementary school kids? Middle school? High school? In each neighborhood programs serving all three groups need to be equally available?

If "millions of dollars had been spent on countless non-school tutor/mentor programs" targeted at African American youth, the map should show many more programs in these neighborhoods than we show.

There may be more. This mapping project has never received funding from the city, the schools or major philanthropy. Thus, there may be programs we don't know about and some of our information is out-of-date. Furthermore, there needs to be many more questions asked, to know more about what these programs have in common, how they differ, what they need to find and retain quality staff and financial support, ways they can constantly improve.

The Tribune story offers a generalization that makes one think that millions of dollars were spent on a comprehensive tutoring/mentoring strategy. Millions may have been spent, but there is no evidence that any strategy has been used to assure that Chicago has a broad distribution of well-organized and constantly improving non-school tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods.

This could change if the Mayor, a foundation or an investor were to become a partner and provide financial support to the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC so we can update the maps and launch an aggressive advertising campaign to help existing programs get the funding and talent they need to operate in more places and to constantly improve their impact over the next 10-20 years.

Using Maps in Social Benefit Efforts

This photo was taken more than 15 years ago, illustrating my long-term commitment to using maps and to supporting the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in all parts of the Chicago region.

Thanks to donations of software and talent along with a major gift of $50,000 in 2007 you can now use an interactive Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator to find out if there are volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in different poverty areas of Chicago and you can click on their web site (if they have one) to learn what they do and how to help them.

While this use of maps has been featured in various media and publications, I've not been able to find investors/sponsors/benefactors to provide the money needed to keep the maps updated and working properly nor to launch an on-going advertising campaign in Chicago intended to draw more attention to the maps and teach more people to use them.

You can view a PDF of the map story printed in the USRISA News.

You can also see how our use of mapping idea was recognized by being nominated for a 2004 Award by the Institute for Social Inventions of the Global Ideas Bank.

Yet, due to economic factors, lack of leaders and plain bad luck, we're operating at a minimal level of support to keep this service alive. If you want to help support this work please send a contribution. Read more.

If you'd want to become a partner to help develop this capacity, or want to have "naming rights" to the Program Locator, the Tutor/Mentor Conference or the Tutor/Mentor Institute library, email me at tutormentor 2 @ earthlink dot net.

Veteran's War on Poverty Continues

This is me, in the fall of 1968 during basic training at Ft. Polk, LA which was the home of infantry being trained to go to Viet Nam.

Lucky for me, I joined the Army in the summer of 1968 after getting a degree in history from Illinois Wesleyan University. I enlisted with a guarantee to be trained to be a SPY! Instead of the infantry I went into Army Intelligence.

I spent a year in Baltimore and Washington, DC and then a year in Korea. It expanded my vision of the world and set the groundwork for what I've been doing in the 40 years since then. I was one of the fortunate ones who did not get wounded or killed by the conflict in Viet Nam.

In 2001 I was given an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan, in recognition of the work I had been doing to help inner-city youth connect with tutors/mentors and experiences beyond the high poverty neighborhoods they were living in.

This work has continued to develop over the past 10 years even as the resources to do it has continued to shrink. I've combined my passion for history and my experiences in Army Intelligence and 17 years of Retail Advertising with the Montgomery Ward Corporation into a market-based strategy aimed at helping mentor-rich non-school organizations reach youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

This is one of the graphics I've created to illustrate the ideas I'm sharing. In the military every General knows that the troops in the field are only as strong as the supply chain that makes sure they are well trained, well armed and well fed...and in the right location. See the story I wrote about this in June 2008.

In business leaders use this thinking all the time to put stores in places where customers can easily reach them. They make sure stores have well-trained staff, merchandise that people want, and they use massive advertising to prompt people to shop on a regular basis.

No such system exists in the tutor/mentor world or in most of the social sector. The "intelligence" needed to gather and analyze data about what programs exist and where they are needed is not funded in any consistent way. The work needed to train young people to be leaders of tutor/mentor programs is not being done at any major college (that I know of). The millions of dollars of advertising needed to draw volunteers and donors to individual programs on a regular basis does not exist.

Thus, the battle-plan needed to win the "war on poverty" is still needed in cities throughout the world.

I would like to encourage Veterans and those who support our men and women in service to spend time today reflecting on what I've just written. Do you have a "battle plan" to reach youth in your community with long-term, mentor-rich programs that assure that more of them will be in jobs and careers and capable of adult responsibilities by the time they are in their mid to late 20s?

Who is doing the "intelligence" gathering for you? Who is doing the advertising? Who is paying for this?

If we keep doing the same thing the same way...

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Attributed to Albert Einstein.

I've been writing this blog since 2005 and I've been trying to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in the Chicago region since 1993 when I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Over the years I've developed a strong belief that traditional "beg for gift" philanthropy is an ineffective way to generate the continuous flow of resources and the high levels of talent needed to operate a single tutor/mentor program, let alone enough to reach 20-30% of the kids living in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago.

When we launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection our goals were

a) create information about existing programs, where they were needed, what they do, how they differ, who funds them, etc.

b) dramatically increase the number of people looking at that information

c) activities that help people understand the information

d) efforts that lead people to become volunteers, donors, leaders, etc. in each of the different tutor/mentor programs operating in Chicago

While I've had many people give positive feedback I've not found philanthropic investors to provide the capital needed to build organizational strength that would make what I was doing as effective as it needs to be. Part of that was because of an inability to keep donors involved for multiple years. Part of that was due to not having volunteers with enough civic reach involved in this effort. Part of it was not having the resources for advertising and public awareness.

I started following the blog articles written by Dan Pallotta a few years ago. I have a link to them on this web site. I saw references to a book he wrote titled "Uncharitable" but I never had time to read it until I picked it up at the library a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not completely through but in reading it I can see many reasons why I've not been able to find the financial and leadership support I've needed for the past 18 years.

If you have read my blog articles you see I point to the ideas of other people via web links and blog exchanges. The first commitment of the T/MC was to "collect ideas created by other people and to try to get greater circulation of those ideas so more people understood them".

I don't need to originate an idea. If it's good, I just need to find ways more people will look at the idea and try to understand it.

I think Dan Pallotta has some good ideas. Some are so controversial that they can keep you from thinking through some of the other ideas. That's why I've created a map of the chapters of the book. While you're having difficulty getting past some of the first ideas you need to be thinking of some of the other ideas.

So as I'm still moving through the last chapters of Uncharitable I'm saying "How can I help more people begin to read and reflect on this book" so that over a period of years we might build a sub-culture of people who think differently and act differently.

We don't need to change everyone. We need to change a small percent of everyone.

I've not dug into this deeply so if you know of people who are doing what I'm describing, please post a comment and share a link. In his book Pallotta sort of bashes religion for some of their practices regarding charity.

Yet, I think that if someone were to take the various sound bytes out of Dan's book and create a 52 week lesson plan, it could be connected to the 52-week lesson plan of any faith group and included in weekly discussion groups just like people read a passage of scripture then sit and discuss it with small groups of other people.

I created a concept map outlining chapters in Uncharitable and put links to some of Dan Palotta's blog articles, as well as to some written by others. I'd like to find a group who would take ownership of this and put it in a format like Debategraph.org where others could add new links whenever they want.

Obviously I have a self interest in this. I'm trying to find capital that I can invest in the ideas I've generated over 20 years which I think would help an entire industry of volunteer-based, mentor-rich organizations become available in high poverty neighborhoods. I need to find investors who share the vision and are willing to invest in long-term solutions that start with the building of information libraries and interactive technology portals. I've outlined many of the ideas I'm trying to develop in this wiki.

Thus, my goal in bring attention to "Untouchable" is to build a sub-set of leaders and volunteers and investors who will apply these ideas to support my own efforts and those of leaders in hundreds of youth serving organizations throughout the world.

I look forward to connecting with others who have been thinking of ways to change the insanity of what we've been doing now to support our efforts.

NOTE: in the comments I've added updates to this post, reflecting additional thinking on this topic.

Follow up from Tutor/Mentor Conference

I've been sending the following message to volunteers who hosted workshops last Friday at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago.

Thank you again for presenting a workshop last Friday at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference and for helping me promote the event. About 85 people participated from 45 different organizations. Since 1994 when we launched the conferences more than 1,000 different organizations have been represented.

At http://femioutreach.blogspot.com/2011/11/tutor-mentor-conference.html you can see how one participant has written about her experience at the conference. The photo above is of me and Tramaine Montel Ford, who was a keynote speaker at the conference. Tramaine and I have been connected since the mid 1990s when he was a student at the Cabrini Connections program.

If we can encourage this type of blogging and information-sharing from every participant we can attract more attention to the challenges and opportunities of tutoring/mentoring and do more to build the resources needed for programs to constantly innovate ways to improve.

Attached are the evaluations that were turned in for your workshop. (each presenter was sent PDF copies of their evaluations). Each speaker was also encouraged to join in the online forum at http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com and http://debategraph.org/mentoring_kids_to_careers with the goal that we connect to each other and many other people in more depth during the months between conferences and that this motivates more people to come together every six months when we do host future conferences.

I’ll be sending out a conference survey via email to gather feedback. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to respond.

There is much to do and not enough time and money to do it all. I hope you’ll continue to support this effort.

While we connected a small group of people last week this group can become an army for making good things happen if we can connect in on-line communities and add others to this effort.

Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC

Where are the Good Shepherds?

I encourage you to read today's John Fountain column in the Chicago SunTimes. It is titled "In time of crisis, where are the good shepherds?"

It starts out with "I hear you, man. . . . But the people perish. And yet, the clergy flourish." It concludes with "I pray, dear pastor, that you will be part of the promised wind of change and restoration. For the people perish."

Between Jan 2008 and March 2011 I was able to create a set of maps showing the location of faith groups in the city and suburbs. I have maps for each different denomination. This one shows them all. Staggering how many there are and we only mapped some of the major denominations.

Our purpose was to provide a tool that faith leaders might use to support the growth of mentor-rich non-school tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods. I created this PDF guide for Faith Leaders with the goal that one or more would adopt it and set an example that others would follow.

Here's an article I wrote several years ago for the Ecumenical Child Care Network.

We have a conference in Chicago tomorrow, Nov. 4. at the Metcalfe Federal Building. If you're interested in becoming an apostle who helps carry this message to the faith leaders, please attend. You can find details at http://www.tutormentorconfernce.org

The faith community has one of the most powerful communications networks in existence. If we can encourage and nurture the growth of learning circles and study groups at different churches, synagogues and mosques those groups can take ownership of the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy and carry it to new levels of impact in future years.

I would love to enlist Mr. Fountain to help me evangelize this message so leaders in different faith groups adopt it. Perhaps in future Tutor/Mentor Conferences he could give awards and recognition to faith leaders who begin to adopt this strategy. I'd also love to enlist the Cardinal and other faith leaders.

There is a 'promised land' and with the help of a few prophets we can show others a path to get there.

Chronic Truancy Jumps in area schools

Today's Chicago Tribune has a feature showing that truancy is rising in Chicago area schools, which contributes to poor performance, high drop out rates, and a high cost to society and to the young people involved.

One school shown with 56.9% of students chronically truant was Robeson High School, located at South Normal Boulevard on the South Side. I used the http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifChicago Program Locator's Interactive map to zoom into this neighborhood and created this map.



This map shows that there are three organizations trying to reverse this trend in the area around Robeson. One is the Yancy Boys & Girls Club which has developed a partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago. A second is the By the Hand Club for Kids, who on their web site show some impressive statistics.

I did a second map showing the area of Belmont-Cragin Elementary School, located in the Central part of Chicago. This map required a little more effort to make because this school was not included on the 2007 or 2008 list of low performing public schools, thus it's not included in the map on the Program Locator. Since the Tutor/Mentor Connection has had no public or private funding to support this mapping project since a $50,000 gift from an anonymous donor in late 2007 we've not been able to keep updating the mapping and now we have no staff at all to support this resource.



Thus I placed an X on the map to show where Belmont-Cragin is located. You can see that while there is a medium rate of poverty in the area (based on 2000 census info) there are no tutor/mentor programs in the area around the school. If you use the Asset Map feature on the Program locator you could determine if any churches, hospitals, banks or colleges are in the area, who could be helping start such programs.

I have been collecting information about tutor/mentor programs and using maps to show where they are needed and where existing programs are operating since 1993. My goal is to help existing programs connect and learn from each other while creating public attention that would draw more donors and volunteers to support the existing programs or to help new ones form where they are needed.

I have hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every year since 1994 to encourage programs to network and share ideas. Obviously the Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brothers Big Sisters and By the Hand Club have some expertise they could share with others....if they were to make time to participate in the conferences.

There are many organizations in Chicago who have much to share, and much to learn. We all need more resources to support the work we do and constantly improve based on what we learn from our own efforts and the efforts of peers. Yet if we can't find time to connect and share ideas and work together to build the pool of resources available to do this work, it's unlikely that we'll ever have more than a few good tutor/mentor programs working to help more youth succeed in school and in life.

There's still time to register for Friday's conference. The web site is www.tutormentorconference.org

Email to friend - from conference speaker

Here's an email sent by one of the workshop presenters who will be sharing information at this Friday's Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago. Ithttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif's an example of how others can take a role in bringing people together at the May and November conferences.

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

Hi Jerry and all, I share some news from Chicago about my workshop and
related interests. Perhaps we'll have ideas... Andrius
-----------------------

I'm leading a workshop at the Tutor / Mentor Leadership Conference this Friday, November 4, 2011, 9:40-10:45 am, at the Metcalf Federal Building,
77 W Jackson Boulevard in Chicago, Illinois.
http://tutormentorconference.org/agenda.asp
http://tutormentorconference.org/descriptions.asp

I ask us to spread the word and to think, What do we truly want to learn?

The conference is organized by Daniel Bassill. At this time, it costs $80. The goal is to connect leaders and supporters of volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and education-to-career programs, especially in the Chicago area. I got involved because of my interest to make a living from a Learning Club.

Currently, I'm working part-time after school as a chess instructor for Chess Scholars http://www.chessscholars.com I'm also working online for
http://www.brainfuse.com to help students with their homework through a system of chat, white board and lessons. The advantage of that work is that I can likely do it from anywhere, including Lithuania.

However, I'd like to find a more meaningful way to make a living. I like the idea of a Learning Club where I would meet on an ongoing basis with twenty or more families to help them learn. They might pay $50 per month. I believe that we can develop an education system based on what people truly want to learn. I can also apply my creative skills to create learning materials in the Public Domain for Math, English and other subjects. If I could make a Learning Club work, then potentially there could be thousands or millions of people making a living from them and transforming our education system and even our economy.

I currently have one student, an adult learning math, and she's happy. The major obstacle is finding a place where such a Learning Club would be welcome, given that I wish to make a living from it.

I entitled my workshop, "Nurturing the Art of Self-Learning", but I think more to the point is the question, "What do we truly want to learn?"

Daniel Bassill's goal is to open up career opportunities for disadvantaged youth and young adults. I don't believe in careers, in the traditional sense, and I don't look to them as solutions for our society. Instead, I wish that we could learn what we truly want to learn, and learn alongside each other.

Likewise, I do think that we exhibit different levels of maturity as self-learners. Yet instead of formalizing roles of "tutor/mentor" and "student", I prefer to learn alongside each other, as much as possible, and work towards a culture where we are all learning and helping each other learn. One thing that I'm discovering as a chess instructor is that I can keep attentive 10 or more youngster of different grade levels (1st through 5th, say, or 3rd through 7th) by teaching as deeply, profoundly as possible, so that not everybody understands everything all the time, but their not bored, and the deep ideas grow in their minds like seeds, springing to life later on.

I think, therefore, that it's important for our own credibility that we ourselves be great learners. I will start with the 12 questions that I've asked independent thinkers in my years of organizing them (see below). I'll ask us to share our answers especially to two of them:

* What is your deepest value in life, which includes all of your other values?
* What is a question that you don't know the answer to, but wish to answer? and also a few more:

* What is your dream in life?
* What do you wish to achieve?
* What lessons can you share?

I'm making a poncho on which I'm painting a backdrop based on my diagram of some 40 questions asked by participants of Occupy Chicago. http://www.occupyme.net/chicago/wiki/Ask/Everybody I'll be able to include (with velcro) our "questions that we don't know the answer to, but wish to answer".

We'll discuss synergies that suggest themselves, including those that might relate younger and older people.

We'll also discuss obstacles that keep us from enjoying these synergies,
notably:

* We don't believe that we can ever answer the big questions. I'll argue otherwise, noting my directory of "ways of figuring things out". http://www.selflearners.net/ways/
* We don't believe that others could care about what we do. This is a big problem!

We'll discuss how art projects can help us engage each other.
* We can't make a living from such activity. And if we could, then others would refuse to help us be "profitable".

I hope to learn from our discussion, both online and at my workshop!

Thank you,

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
ms@ms.lt
(773) 306-3807
http://www.selflearners.net
http://www.occupyme.net

Big Conferences in Chicago this week

Sunday through Tuesday in Chicago will feature two huge conferences. One is the Independent Sector Conference The other is the Social Enterprise Alliance Conference.

At the end of the week, on Friday, Nov. 4, is the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

The schedule for the Independent Sector Conference show many topics related to the challenges and opportunities of philanthropy.

Look at the schedule of breakout sessions for the Social Enterprise Alliance Conference. Seems like some of the same themes are being discussed, with different tax structure and strategies for generating revenue being the main difference.

If you registered early you could have attended the Independent Sector Conference for only $1,050 (not including hotel and travel). If you register this week the fee is $1,600. The price for the Social Enterprise Summit was a bit lower, but still more than I could afford.

If you look at the range of workshops in both events I don't see any that focus on ways to make non-school volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available in high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago, or ways to help each program learn from others doing similar work. I don't see anything focused on building the talent in these programs or helping volunteers and young people become leaders.

Look at the agenda for the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which is being held on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago. We don't have as many workshops, but since you can only go to one in each time frame, what difference does it matter if we have five workshops, or 15 in a time frame? We do focus all of our attention on helping tutor/mentor programs become the best they can be.

Thus, I hope some of the people who were able to attend the big conferences at the start of the week will go to the small conference at the end and that the ideas from all three conferences will connect in ways that generate resources, talent and structure that supports the growth of an entire universe of birth-to-work volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.

Technology in the Classroom. What's the Impact?

I'm a big fan of using computers and the internet to work smarter, faster and to expand my network of people and ideas. I feel that if young people learn some of these skills the problems that they face in the future have a better chance of being solved.

However, this is not necessarily how technology in the classroom is being evaluated. Here is a link to a Sept. 3 2011 article from the New York Times titled In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores

It's worth reading. What are your thoughts?

Who Mentored You? How Can you Repay?

Tramane Montel Ford (in yellow shirt in this photo) got his first taste of acting in 1995 when he became part of the video group at Cabrini Connections. On August 7th he performed his new show, The Tramaine Experience: A One Man Show, and raised money so we can help other kids have similar experiences.

Isaiah Brooms became part of the tutoring/mentoring program in the late 1980s while it was at Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters. A couple of year ago he was a Keynote Speaker at the November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, where he told how his life has taken a positive direction because of the support he received from his mentor, and the tutoring/programs he was part of. Here's the full transcript of his presentation.

Tangela Smith Marlow is another alumni from the Cabrini Connections program. She was the speaker at the June 2010 year end dinner.

Year-End Dinner 2010: Tangela Marlowe from Cabrini Connections on Vimeo.

Tramaine will be one of the speakers during the noon hour next Friday, November 4th as we host the 36th Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference since May 1994.

If you've hosted this many conferences and led a tutor/mentor program for over 35 years you must have learned a lot. You also must be getting old!

Both are true. That's why I'm trying to invite youth who have been part of tutor/mentor programs to come together at these conferences and on our social media pages. I want to pass on what I and others have learned to a new generation of leaders who know from their own experiences how important a tutor/mentor program can be in their lives.

If you know of someone who has been mentored, or who has been a volunteer, ask them what they are doing now to make sure this experience is available to others. Encourage them to visit the conference web site and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site and begin to learn ways they can pick up this baton of leadership and carry it for a few more laps.

Tipping Points, Influence and more

I created this graphic over the weekend as another attempt to communicate visually what I have been trying to do for the past 18 years, in fact all the way back to 1975 when I first started leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program.

I firmly believe that connecting a youth with a non-family adult in a structured, on-going tutor/mentor program is a good thing. It has an influence on both the youth and the adult but in so many different ways that it is difficult to quantify. I'm not trying to recruit those who don't believe. I'm trying to connect with the thousands of people who have already been part of tutor/mentor programs at some point in their lives and already know how they have been enriched in big or small ways as a result.

In order for these programs to reach youth in high poverty areas of big cities like Chicago and to involve volunteers who work full-time jobs in many different industries the programs need to operate in non-school hours and in places where youth and volunteers feel safe participating. In such places the program/organization itself becomes part of the mentoring process. It sets a tradition that connects past, current and future participants of that program.

In a city like Chicago with close to 200,000 youth living in high poverty neighborhoods there needs to be hundreds of small tutor/mentor programs serving k-12 youth. For such programs to grow in more places teams of leaders need to step forward who act as a 'virtual corporate office'. They do things that people in the corporate offices at WalMart, Sears, McDonalds and other big companies do everyday to support multiple stores in many locations.

If we know who the existing programs are then we can lower their costs of operating and we can enhance the quality of their work if we can influence the flow of operating dollars directly to each program and if we can influence the flow of manpower and talent to each program. If programs have access to capital for innovation and if they have talented people learning ways to get better by learning from what other programs are already doing, then we can also enhance the quality of every program by collecting and sharing ideas that can be used by any program at any time.

Every big city in the world has areas with high poverty where the gaps between rich and poor are growing wider every year. That means there could be teams and leaders in every city trying to collect information about existing organizations and trying to influence the flow of dollars, talent and ideas to all of the programs in their cities.

I have hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every six months since 1994 to help stimulate the sharing of ideas among leaders of programs and to build greater visibility for tutoring/mentoring that would drive more donors and volunteers to each of the programs in the city. The next conference is Friday, November 4 and because of my own lack of dollars and the few leaders in Chicago who embrace this strategy, I'm still trying to build attendance for next week's event.

The map below (find at Debategraph site) shows the goals of the conference.

If you can't join me in Chicago why not join me in this forum?

If you are someone who already believes in this logic and sees that you could take a role in influencing the flow of resources to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago or your own community, let's find a way to connect.

Business Case for Supporting Mentoring

This PDF report titled "Building critical social infrastructure: The business case for expanding support for school based mentoring in Australia" is focused on school-based mentoring in Australia yet could be used by any city in the US to build support for school-based and non-school mentoring strategies.

The National Youth Mentoring Benchmarks, starting on page 30 of the report, can be used by any mentoring organization as standards of excellence to shoot for.

During the Nov. 4 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago, Dr. Clara Carter, former Director of Training for the Maryland Mentoring Partnership, will host a workshop focusing on "The Elements of Effective Practice" shared by MENTOR, the National Mentoring Partnership.

If you're building or trying to sustain a mentoring strategy you are encouraged to attend the conference and this workshop.

Million Mentors Mobilization

This video is part of a campaign to mobilize mentors for youth in cities across America. As you view this and are motivated to get involved, browse the articles on this web site to expand your thinking on what mentoring can do to impact the lives of youth and what business, churches, celebrities and others can do to make sure resources are consistently available to help these programs grow.
Come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on Friday, Nov. 4 to network and learn strategies to support the growth of constantly improving mentoring programs.

Turn words into actions to help reduce drop out rate

On Wednesday I posted my first summary of the National Dropout Prevention Conference in this article.

Here are some quotes from people I heard.

"Shame of American Education is the drop-out problem." Dr. Daniel Domenech

"1600 high schools in America responsible for majority of droputs in US." (see this info on Locating the Dropout Crisis)Dr. Daniel Domenech

"You don't have a right to leave this earth till you give something back." Dr. Debbie Silver

"African American children comprise 17% of the youth population, but 34% of all school based suspensions and 45% of all juvenile arrests."

You can find more statistics like this on many different web sites. However, where can you find maps and marketing strategies intended to increase the number of people looking at this information and increase the distribution of operating dollars to schools and non-school mentoring and learning centers in all of the high dropout school areas?

I've been inviting people in Chicago to look at this information and connect via the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference for over 15 years. I've attended events hosted by others and encouraged them to connect their conferences and forums with me and each other via the Internet.

For the most part this has been like spreading seed on rocks and deserts. Yet, after just meeting for a brief while on Skype, David Prince helped me set up this "mentoring kids to careers" discussion on the Debategraph portal that he hosts in the UK. David posted this introduction to the Tutor/Mentor Institute blog article earlier this week.



Anyone in the world, or in Chicago, can use this forum to innovate ways to increase the number of people and donors who support dropout area schools and non-school learning centers. Anyone can log in and add new information to this map, or create their own set of maps showing their own ideas of how to end the dropout crisis.

When I say "anyone" I mean that billionaires, sports stars, rock musicians, high school clubs, politicians, etc. can use this. If some do, perhaps they will begin to apply the ideas using their own time and talent to help more kids to careers.

Interested? Come to the November 4 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference in Chicago. Join us on-line in the Debategraph forum, or in the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum.

Building Community. Focusing on Drop Out Crisis

I attended the National Dropout Prevention Conference this week along with about 700 other people from around the country. I was a workshop presenter at 8am Monday morning and spent the rest of the time networking with a wide range of people. I want to thank Ed Bates of the Lake County Regional Office of Education for encouraging me to participate. Ed was a co-chair of the conference organizing committee.

I created this concept map to introduce you to the people and organizations I met through workshops, sitting at lunch together and attending a dinner event on Monday. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post some quotes from some of the presentations and I'll reach out to the people I met and invite them to share their workshop presentations so you can learn more about what they talked about.

In this map I also pointed to other information I'd already aggregated about the Drop-out Crisis which is posted in the Tutor/Mentor Library. The real challenge is not finding more ideas, but finding ways to draw more people together to understand and apply these ideas in more places.

A couple of weeks ago I was part of an "Improving the Education System" panel hosted by Becoming We the People and held at The First Unitarian Church in Hyde Park. While the attendance was around a dozen people this was recorded and posted on YouTube so it is available to many more people than the number at this week's conference.

In three week's (Friday, November 4) I'll host the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference and the goal will be the same as these other events. We need to find ways to surround youth in poverty areas where the dropout rate is the highest with mentors, tutors and extra learning and enrichment opportunities so we help build aspirations and prepare more youth to come to school every day better prepared to learn.

If you're concerned with the dropout crisis and see mentoring as part of the solution I encourage you to help me build attendance for the Nov. 4 conference. One of the panel discussions will be recorded by Becoming We the People and available on YouTube in the weeks following the conference.

Tribute to Steve Jobs.

The Web is full of tributes to Steve Jobs, who died this week. I've used Apple computers since the early 1980s so everything I do and write about has been influenced in some way by his work.

In today's paper I read one quote saying "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."

This is very similar to a quote from Merri Dee of WGN TV that I've borrowed and used for over 18 years. "If it is to be, it is up to me."

In another article I read about "Apple U.: A degree in Jobs". In this article the writer talks about how Jobs created a training program within Apple to teach new leaders to think and act like he did. Wow.

Last January I wrote an article titled The Problem is not Schools, It's Poverty. I wrote a similar article earlier this week.

In the January article I pointed to the Broad Foundation who has set up The Broad Center to educate principles, superintendents and others and place them in school districts all over the country.

If you've read many of my articles you can see how I'm looking for a benefactor who would combine the thinking of Apple U with that of the Broad Foundation and create a Tutor/Mentor Institute that would educate leaders from all sectors to use the ideas available via the Internet to design and implement long-term strategies that help kids in poor neighborhoods get the extra supports needed to move through school and into 21st century careers.

In this Tipping Points essay which I wrote more than five years ago I point out the need for new strategies to provide leadership for the thousands of non-school organizations that need to be available in cities across the world.

The only way to make this happen is to find visionary leaders with single-minded determination and unlimited energy who say "We'll Build It. They Will Come."

Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem

Today in the Chicago Tribune is a commentary titled: Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem This was written by economists from Harvard and the University of California at Berkley.

The authors write, "Our findings show that the root of the problems facing urban schools can be found in gradual but extremely powerful changes in the nation's economy — not the least of which is the increasingly unequal distribution of family incomes."

I've been using maps since 1993 to try to show this income inequality and the connection between high poverty concentrations and poorly performing schools. We include maps in many of the articles we've written on this blog and in the MappingforJustice blog. Our interactive Program Locator can be used to create your own map story for your own communications.


Every time I've hosted a leadership conference in Chicago (the next is November 4) I've put maps on easels to help others see the power of these as a tool to focus attention and resources to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in all high poverty neighborhoods.

I've tried to get attention of leaders who've attended the conferences so they would incorporate maps and our strategy of volunteer-based tutor/mentor program growth into their own leadership.

Today there was another editorial in the Tribune, challenging the way TIFF money seemed to go to charities favored by the Mayor and his wife.

If the Mayor had incorporated T/MC maps into his efforts to help kids in poverty perhaps the aldermen, state legislators and others would do the same. Were that happening there would now be a much stronger distribution of high-quality tutor/mentor programs in all of the poverty areas of the city and suburbs and perhaps there would be a different future for some of the youth who have grown up in neighborhoods of high poverty and under-performing schools.

That's the past. We have a new Mayor and we have another presidential election. We have new research. Now can we interest some of the leaders and people who are concerned with poverty and its impact on the economy and quality of life for all of the people in the region to participate in the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building?

Can someone step forward to become the Steve Jobs who bring vision and financing to the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to help build tutor/mentor program support infrastructure in Chicago and other cities?

Tutor/Mentor Conference, Nov. 4, 2011

I've been building a Directory of Chicago area tutor/mentor programs since 1993 and have hosted a networking conference every six months since May 1994.

The article below is one of many that have been written as a result of this strategy. This one was from the Daily Southtown. It includes a message (see pdf) that I've been delivering consistently for 18 years of mobilizing resources to support high quality tutor/mentor programs in all poverty neighborhoods of Chicago, not just one or two high quality programs in a few places. In 1995 I was optimistic that I could find enough philanthropic investment to build and sustain the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Due to economic factors, the 9/11 tragedy, wars on terrorism, etc. we've not been able to raise consistent funding for operations and innovation. This past summer I had to create the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC as a new strategy to find the revenue, partners and investment to do what I've not been able to do as well as needs be for the past 18 years.

Yet, we're still here. If you search for "tutor mentor" on Google or Bing our web sites come up on the first page and are a resource to people all over the world.

The Nov. 4 conference has a great agenda. If we can attract 75-100 paying participants (we keep fees low, give group rates and offer scholarships at $20....and all speakers attend at no cost), we can cover our expenses and provide some money to support the data collection, web sites and other costs of hosting the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Yet we won't thrive until we find an investor willing to put his/her name on the conference, or the mapping site, or the Tutor/Mentor Institute itself. That would take a multi-year commitment of several million dollars. Yet it would do more to help inner city kids to careers than much of the billions that have spent so far over the past 20 years.

Get Seniors OnLine

This image is what I first saw when I visited Don Samuelson's Get Seniors Online blog today. I've known Don for more than 12 years but it wasn't until we had lunch today that I learned of this blog. It's quite interesting. And it gets regular feedback which I'd like to see more of on my own blog.

The focus of Don's blog is to help seniors learn the basic skills of navigating the internet high way, so that with their "Drivers License" they can take of on life-long learning road trips of their own choosing.

My interest is to provide a road map so that some of the seniors who already are online, or will get online because of what Don is doing will find the Tutor/Mentor Institute blog and web site and will begin to use the information posted to expand the role they take in making mentor rich, technology rich, non-school learning programs available to youth in high poverty neighborhoods all over the country.

In one blog post Don wrote he asked "What is the potential $$ value to seniors themselves?" from being an online senior? How might this affect healthcare costs, costs of entitlement programs, economic well-being, mental health? One respondent to Don's post said "It's Priceless" and went on to say "And what is the value to the resident who was closeted in her apartment and now she has come out for awareness raising and training, and is engaged in learning, saying hello to fellow residents, and is starting on her road back to "being connected?"

I'd go a step further and as "How much more value might be gained by connecting the talent, wisdom, love and involvement of a growing number of seniors in helping youth who need extra adults in their lives have places to connect with adults from 18 to 100?

I look forward to connecting Don's world of Seniors OnLine with my world of Tutor/Mentor Institute. I hope you'll join in.

Innocent teen killed in Maywood. What Can Be Done?

Today the Chicago SunTimes and the Chicago Tribune both included stories about a 14 year old teen killed while she slept in her home by a car that crashed into the house as a result of the driver being shot.

This story is tragic, but it also is personal. The teen was part of the Maywood Youth Mentoring Program that has been led by Barbara Cole for many years. Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection I've tried to help Barbara build the program she leads so it can help more teens. This program has also been aided by Michael Romain, who also volunteers time to write about the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Below is a map showing the 7th Congressional District that was created last year during the campaign to elect a new Chicago Mayor. This map was created several years ago to illustrate ways that leaders in different political districts should be working with business, faith groups, and other elected bodies to help build and sustain a wide range or mentor-rich youth programs in the high poverty parts of the district.



While the SunTimes devoted a half page to the tragedy in Maywood, they devoted two pages on Tuesday and another two-pages today to talk about the tragedy taking place in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. They've focused on Murray Park as a symbol of the lack of safe places for kids to play and build skills during the non-school hours. I've created maps of Englewood in the past. The one below is from the Interactive Map on the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

In the Interactive Program Locator each green star represents the name of an organization that offers some form of tutoring and/or mentoring. Some have web sites and you can learn more what they do. Some don't.

We intend the Program Locator and our maps as a tool for leaders. Anyone can look at the map of the 7th District and see that there are very few programs and they are not in every part of the district. Same for Englewood.

I've been hosting a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference every six months. My goal is to bring people together to talk about where tutor/mentor programs are needed and to share ideas and strategies that can help existing programs grow. However, the goal is also to create reasons for newspaper reporters to write stories about tutoring/mentoring and to help us draw more people to the conferences and to the list or programs we host so more people learn to become volunteers and donors helping each tutoring and/or mentoring program constantly improve in an effort to be 'world class' in what they do. The story below was written in November 1996 by Ray Coffey of the Chicago SunTimes.



The next conference is Friday, November 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago. You can see more stories written as a result of the conferences and other actions of the Tutor/Mentor Connection at this link.

I hope some of you will forward this information to bloggers and media writers so new stories will be created. I hope you'll also encourage people in business, media, philanthropy and who lead tutor/mentor programs to register and attend so more people will be working to change what is happening in Maywood, Englewood and many other neighborhoods of this country.

Conference November 4 - Media Stories

As I'm reaching out to invite people to participate in the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which will be held on November 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago, I've been pulling media stories from past conferences. Here are a few. Click on the image to enlarge.

Chicago Tribune story from the first conference in May 1994.



This was from the second conference held in November 1994 at the Shedd Acquarium



This was a Chicago Defender story in May 1995

In recent years most of our communications have been through blogs and email and we've not had as many stories in local papers. Yet the issues of education, poverty, wealth-gaps, workforce readiness and diversity continue to grow more critical. It's time for more people to help with telling the story and pulling people together to learn ways to build and sustain high quality volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in more places.

There is a 'master plan' - for saving youth

Below is an article written in 1995 by John McCarron and published in the Chicago Tribune. The headline says ""Just as we spectators settle back to enjoy the annual blame game, safe in the knowledge that it's all about somebody else's kids, along comes a Chicago businessman named Daniel Bassill with a very unsettling proposition."

In this article McCarron wrote about the May 1995 Tutor/Mentor Conference, which was only the third that I had hosted since we launched the T/MC in 1993 -- and which I've hosted every six months since then. He wrote "For companies, "Bassill said, "tutoring can be a staff development tool. It's a way to broaden an employee's scope within the organization. And to develop leadership skills."

Below is another article, this time that was in Crain's Chicago Business in 1998. The headline was "A 'trade group' that distributes knowledge to kids"

This article included a quote saying, "In Chicago, there are just 12,000 kids in after-school tutoring programs. That's out of 500,000 school-aged kids." That information was drawn from a 1997 survey conducted by Human Capital Research Corporation, Associated Colleges of Illinois and the Tutor/Mentor Connection and focused on "structured volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs".

The number of kids in Chicago Public Schools has lowered to around 400,000 now, but the problem has not changed. There still is no intermediary organization and business leadership working to build a distribution of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs operating in high poverty neighborhoods and connecting business ideas, technology, volunteers and jobs with kids as early as in elementary school.

While these are two of many articles that have been written about my efforts, I've never been able to build the philanthropic or business investment to do all of what we've wanted to do to support this effort. I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in an effort to expand the ways I find partners and revenue and I'm hosting the next Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago on Nov. 4 at the Metcalfe Federal Building.

If you want to inject new energy and needed capital into this effort, or adopt it in your own city, then become a sponsor, or participate and learn ways you can become involved in the future.

9-13-2018 update - I'm still trying to find sponsors, partners and contributors to help me do this work. Here's a page where you can help FUND Me.

How do we connect with this talent?

If you've followed what I write you see my passion for visualization. However, my work is crude compared to what you see in this video. How can we connect with this talent and focus some of their effort on our goals?

How did Edison do it?

Imagine yourself 100 years ago listening to Thomas Edison talking about the need for an electricity industry and infrastructure to enable light bulbs to be in every home, street corner and business of the country.

Most people at that time did not know what a light bulb was. How many were thinking of transformers and power plants and all the thousands of little details that add up to today's giant electricity industry.



I face the same challenge. Maybe you can help me communicate this better. To me the "light bulb" is a tutor/mentor program. We still don't have a 100% proven method of connecting youth and volunteers in non-school neighborhood tutor/mentor programs of high poverty neighborhoods in ways that result transforming the life and future of the youth, and the volunteer. We probably have a hundred different definitions of what we mean when we say "transforming the life".

Yet, these programs won't be in most of the places they need to be and they won't have the resources to hire and retain quality staff to support tutors/mentors and student, or to support the operations of the organization, unless we create an industry dedicated to this purpose.

Is this something you're thinking about? Now, how can if earn some revenue to pay my own bills, and cover the costs of the ideas we generate and the tools we've developed at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net while helping you apply this thinking to your own industry-development effort?

If you were Edison, how would you describe what you're doing and what you want others to do to help you?

New School Year. New Role. Same Goals.

This is the first time in 37 years that I've not led a tutor/mentor program and been organizing student and volunteer orientations this week. As I've written in these articles I'm no longer directly involved in leading the Cabrini Connections program. Yet this week and next week they and almost every other tutor/mentor program in the country will be going through the annual ritual of interviewing and screening students and volunteers, organizing orientations, and doing the initial matches and start up activities that launch the new school year.

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which was formed in 1993, I've tried to help these programs get volunteers and operating dollars. I've tried to help them find and use information they can use for training and supporting volunteers. I've aggregated information the students and volunteers can use in their own weekly activities.

I've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to provide some structure to continue this work. Read the blog articles I've written in the past month and in past years and you'll see that my commitment to helping inner city youth from birth to work has not changed, just my financial resources and ability to support this effort.

If you're reading this article please keep this visual image in mind. Every tutor/mentor program in your community needs the same resources. Not everyone can be a one-on-one or group tutor or mentor. However there are many ways everyone in the entire metropolitan area can help build visibility for these programs, provide infrastructure support, and provide the operating dollars each program needs to build and sustain strong on-going programs.

Visit the Program Locator and use the maps or search screen to find information about tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the Chicago region. Research the programs. Learn what they do. Make a commitment to help one or many.

If you find out of date information or if you know of programs not in the directory email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net to help me keep the information updated. If you're a tech person/company become my partner and help me develop and maintain these tools. If you want recognition become a sponsor and help me hire staff to do this work.

I'm not leading a single tutor/mentor program as we start this new year. I am continuing to lead a strategy intended to help high-quality and constantly improving tutor/mentor programs reach youth in more high poverty areas.

I need your help. So do each tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and in other cities.

Good luck to all of you as you launch this new school year.

How can one person change the future?

I created this graphic a few weeks ago to illustrate an idea. This is an image of the universe showing thousands of stars. Think of these as the people we pass as we journey from birth do death in our lifetimes. How many are influenced by our ideas and actions?

I've been reading a series of Wheel of Time Books written by Robert Jordan. The term Ta'veren (pronounced: tah-VEER-ehn) describes "people around whom the Wheel of Time specifically weaves the Pattern with all surrounding life-threads."

Imagine if more of us were "Ta'veren" and as we went through life our actions influenced what others do. This graphic illustrates that concept.

As we enter the new school year there are countless numbers of people in the US and around the country writing about poverty, education, workforce development, urban violence, social justice. Many are highly visible leaders and celebrities. Many have huge amounts of wealth.

I am just me. I'm a grain of sand on the ocean floor -- and likely just as invisible and Un-noticed. Even if I had wealth, power and influence I could never be engaged in all of the discussions that are taking place. No one can.

Yet, I believe I and others acting like me can help shape the future. I've written about network building in articles like this and many others that you can find in the archives of this blog.

In addition I've constantly looked for ways to add my ideas into places hosted by others. This Debategraph form is the most recent example.


If enough of us put our ideas and work-plans on web sites and connect with each others in on-line portals we can expand our network. When we do connect in face-to-face events these can serve as "sparks" to ignite our imagination and as reinforcement to help us continue in our work.

I've done this for 35 years and via the Internet for the past 13 years. I know many who are following these ideas and have found many to help me in various ways. I hope more will connect with me in the Nov. 4 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago or through one of these on-line communities.

We can all help shape the future.

June 2017 update - Buckminster Fuller used the idea of a "trim tab" to show how one person can change the world.  See article.