During CPS strike stay focused on long-term goals

The Chicago Public School school strike started yesterday. During a Sunday evening press conference I heard the head of Chicago Board of Education say how proud he was that faith groups, non profits and others in Chicago are rallying to provide safe places for kids to go during the school day.

As a crisis response, this if great. However, it does not address the long-term issues of helping young people overcome high poverty and move through school into 21st century jobs. So I’m not writing about the strike. I want to cut through the clutter and keep attention focused on the bigger picture.

Today on page 2 of the Chicago Tribune was a story about the execution death of 11 year old ‘Yummy” Sandifer in 1994. The writer reports “Since Yummy’s death, other child victims have fallen within walking distance of where he was killed.” He goes on to say “Neither I nor anyone else has an easy solution to the city’s gunfire.”

I have a suggestion if anyone cares to listen.

Since starting this blog in 2005 I’ve posted a growing number of stories showing acts of violence, acts of violent nature and acts of overwhelming greed and self-interest. Prior to that I posted such information in a printed newsletter that I was sending to as many as 12,000 people between 1997 and 2001. Then I ran out of money to keep doing that.

This is the front page from the Chicago SunTimes of October 15, 1992 following the shooting of 7 year old Dantrel Davis in Cabrini Green. This was two years prior to the killing of ‘Yummy”.

As I read about senseless shootings I find it hard to shout out “Be a tutor/mentor!” It can stop this violence!” I find it difficult to say “this is the solution”.

I feel my response is inadequate to the magnitude of the problem. Someone who has grown so cold-hearted that he/she can point a gun at another person and pump dozens of bullets into a body has far too many problems for a volunteer mentor to overcome by taking him/her to a movie or a library a few times.

Yet, had Chicago’s civic, political, philanthropic and political leaders provided the leadership and funding I’ve asked for every year since 1995 when I sent this Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Directory to many of them, perhaps the Program Locator map that is now on my web site would show more “world class” programs in high poverty neighborhoods where kids could be connected with people, ideas and facilities that were inspiring them to learn and make the most of their lives.

If Mayor Daley and Mrs. Daley had provided their support to growing the Tutor/Mentor Connection with a fraction of the effort given to supporting Afterschool Matters perhaps we’d have a city full of high quality, mentor-rich non-school programs rather and many neighborhoods with high poverty and too few programs. Maybe we'd have better tools to collect and share this information, draw people together, and draw needed funding to ALL of the youth tutoring, mentoring, arts, learing and technology programs in the city.

Or perhaps if the Montgomery Ward Corporation had not gone into bankruptcy during the 1990s and out of business in 1999, we’d would have maintained the support of executives like Bernie Brennan, and had the civic reach needed to build philanthropic capital needed to support the vision shared in this blog and on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site. This picture is from a 1990 visit by Mayor Daley to the Montgomery Ward Chicago Headquarters where I was leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program that was started by Ward’s employees in 1965.

Last night at the Chicago Public Library I heard Paul Tough and Alex Kotlowitz talk about their own experiences researching stories of young people living in high poverty neighborhoods. Tough’s new book, titled "How Children Succeed", suggest that teaching “character, grit and resilience” is a way to help young people be better prepared to overcome challenges in life. In the book he profiles the Youth Advocate Mentoring Program launched by CPS CEO Ron Huberman a few years ago. He also profiles a new effort called One Goal, that is supporting youth as the move from their Junior year in high school through the first year in college.

The question asked was “How do we pay for these programs?”

In Sunday’s blog I included this video of a presentation by Pastor Wayne Gordon of Lawndale Community Church, titled “Who is my Neighbor”. Pastor Gordon clearly points to racism as one reason resources are not consistently available to support poverty reduction efforts. He challenges members of faith communities to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

I’ve tried reaching out to media, sports stars, faith leaders, and many others over the past 20 years because I see part of our problem to be one of marketing and communications. Too few people will read the books by Kotlowitz and Tough. Too few people will view the video by Pastor Gordon. Too few people will read my blog articles or look at the maps and other information shared on my web sites.

Too few people will become personally involved in building mentor-rich support systems in high poverty neighborhoods and then growing those into more extensive community development efforts such as Pastor Gordon has done in Lawndale and Bill Strickland has done in Pittsburgh.

One of the reasons I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 was that no one had a master database of Chicago tutor/mentor programs and no one was trying to understand how they differ from each other. When media were giving attention to tragedies, such as after the 1992 killing of Dantrel Davis in Cabrini Green, they were only pointing to a few of the well known youth programs in Chicago. From my work in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward company I knew that our weekly advertising was intended to draw customers to all 400 of our stores, not just to one or two high profile locations.

I created the Directory and the Tutor/Mentor Connection Library so that when people write books and news columnist write stories they could point people to the Directory and a common base of information and say “use this to determine where your neighbor lives and where you want to give your time, talent, dollars and/or technology to help kids move through school and into jobs”.

While I'm sure One Goal is a great program, so are HighSight, Chicago Tutoring, Youth Guidance, UCan and dozens of other youth organizations working in different Chicago neighborhoods. They all need constant attention and support in order to retain talent, learn from each other, and constantly improve.

I have a clip file of dozens of editorials and newspaper columns written since 1990. I link to hundreds of blogs, research papers and other reports where people who are far more talented than I are sharing their ideas.

My goal is that some of these writers look at my blogs and pdf essays and rewrite them using their own talents, but with a shared purpose of increasing the number of people who become involved and stay involved in this effort to help kids who need extra help for a long time.

Once you’ve had your passion stirred, look at some of the leadership ideas I’ve posted in this section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Look at the essay’s I’ve posted on Scrib.com. Form a learning circle within your faith group, alumni network, business, etc. and begin to use the maps and other resources in the Tutor/Mentor Library to determine who your neighbor is and what you can do to help them.

Look at these graphics. What do they mean to you? Can you do an new version that communicates this idea better? Try it!

To me this says if leaders keep pointing to tutor/mentor program directories and databases when they talk about education and poverty they can help build public attention and increase the flow of private sector volunteers and dollars to programs in all parts of the city, not just the high profile programs or neighborhoods.

If leaders from many sectors adopt these ideas and apply consistent support to the growth of non-school and internet based learning centers throughout the high poverty areas of the Chicago region, or any other urban area of the country, there can be a growth of resources, a better distribution of resources and talent, and a growth of high quality tutor/mentor programs in more place.

In 20 years the map of programs will show far better distribution of programs in places where they are needed and the websites of programs will show more stories of young people who have moved through school with the help of extra adults and non-school programs that were available in their neighborhood.

Do you want to discuss this further? Are you already doing this? Contact me. Connect on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in or the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum.

Expanding social capital. Library as network.

This Thursday, September 13, I’m participating in an event at the Groupon Headquarters in Chicago organized by the Social Enterprise Alliance – Chicago Chapter(SEA/Chicago).

This event will connect social entrepreneurs in Chicago with others from around the world by linking live with the Social Capital World Forum 2012.

I’ve written many articles in the past talking about strategies that connect people from different organizations, different places, and different ideas with myself and each other. My participation in this Thursday’s event is just one more part of this on-going network building.

So, you might ask, who are you trying to connect?

In the Introduction page on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site I show that there are a wide range of potential users of the information on the web site. This graphic illustrates an intent to connect “people who can help” with “places where people need help”. This is one of many graphics I've created to illustrate this.

I attend conferences and meetings all the time. Last Thursday I attended the 25th Anniversary of the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation as the guest of Brian Banks. I heard Bill Strckland, president-CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, talk about making the impossible possible. I met “coach” Wayne L. Gordon, Head Pastor of Lawndale Christian Church, and the founder of LCDC.

Who is My Neighbor? from Park Community Church on Vimeo.

I point to people like these in my library because they are inspirational leaders who have built institutions for community change over many years of persistent effort, overcoming many obstacles in the process.

I don't yet know these people. Attending an event does not build a relationship I was just one person in the crowd. I may have visited their web sites, and added them to the Tutor/Mentor Connection library. That does not mean they responded by visiting the T/MC web site. Thus, the question I focus on is "How do we connect in on-going informal relationship building, idea sharing, and brainstorming" that might lead to partnerships and collective actions?

When I attend the SEA/Chicago event on Thursday I’ve been asked to introduce the World Social Capital Forum because I’ve been in conversation with some of its leaders on Facebook for nearly a year. We’ve been forming relationships and sharing information. I’ve been adding new ideas to my library, such as this collection of articles.


Have you ever considered a “library” to be a network? Think of it. There are thousands of books organized by category in every public and college library. Each is full of ideas. Each was written by someone who spent extensive time researching these ideas.

On Monday I’m attending an event at the Chicago Public Library where I’ll listen to Paul Tough and Alex Kotlowitz. These would be two authors found in any library. They both are represented among the 2000 links I host in the Tutor/Mentor Connection Library. The map below is one way of showing information we collect and share. If you follow the links in this concept map you go on a journey that constantly can expand the ideas and people who might help you in your own efforts.

The difference from a public library and the T/MC library is that the public library has information on a broad range of topics, but does not have anyone trying to mobilize people around any segment of that information in order to improve social problem solving. If you review the Tutor/Mentor Connection's four-part strategy, the information is just one part of an organizing and problem solving process aimed at helping build volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs that help kids through school and into jobs and careers.

I encourage you to read some of the articles on social capital and knowledge management that I’ve collected. These talk of expanding networks and show tools for analyzing social networks so you can use them more effectively.

Getting the people associated with each of the links in the library connected and talking to each other, in Internet space where others can also participate, is a goal I think many of us share. It would expand the social capital and knowledge for everyone participating the network.

So, what would it take to draw representatives from each of these links into Facebook, Linked in or other forums where we talk together, share ideas, and look for ways to work collectively to solve problems?

I think one solution would be to invite people attending events to add their name to Google Maps, attendee lists, etc. Another would be to host on-line forums along with the events. Many are already beginning to do this with Twitter hashtags. The hash tag for Thursday’s event is #NextSocEnt

I hope that the events I attend this week will result in new connections for everyone who participates. I hope they also result in a few new connections that help me build and sustain the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC problem solving platform and network of support for youth in high poverty areas of Chicago.

Applying Action Research to Process Improvement

A while back I wrote this article and included a link to a paper titled the Cyclical Process of Action Research.

I found this video on my Linkedin site today.

How action research can help to deliver better services from iriss on Vimeo.

To me this is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM) that I learned when I was working at Montgomery Ward in the 1970s. If we can learn from what we do, what our customers tell us and what our competitors do we can apply what we learn in constant process improvement.

That works well when you have the resources to do the research, facilitate the learning, and invest in the suggested process improvements.

I'd like to find someone who would do videos like this focusing on the challenges non profits face in attracting consistent, flexible operating revenue and a wide range of talent needed to build quality organizations. If we can get more people into this discussion perhaps we can do much more to help high quality programs reach young people in more of the poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.

I've been looking for volunteers, partners and/or sponsors/benefactors to help me apply this thinking in the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC for many years.

Can you help?

Collective Impact - What Leads Up to this?

In the August 31 Huffington Post Emmett D. Carson, CEO, Silicon Valley Community Foundation offers a critique of Collective Impact.

In the September 5 FSG blog Emily Gorin Malenfant offers a response.

I've written a number of articles focusing on collaboration and collective impact and I've posted comments on FSG blogs in the past.

In the FSG response Ms. Malenfant writes that it is essential that "nonprofit organizations, funders, businesses and government agencies actively work together from a common base of facts and a shared set of goals."

In my comments on FSG blogs I've asked for more information showing how these different stakeholders were brought together to the point where they had trust in each other and shared a common vision. This is a form of community organizing that is extremely difficult, but perhaps made easier if the person/organization doing the convening were also someone with a bucket of gold.

My faith in the Internet is that anyone, regardless of your status, wealth, etc. could post a good idea and reach out through free media to build a following. However, I recognize how difficult this is.

I encourage you to read both of the commentaries and more of the articles about collective impact. I don't think we can help millions of kids living in high poverty move through school and into jobs without a lot of people sharing the same vision and a long-term commitment to making this result a reality.

Creating Learning Communities - Test Your Motivation

I learned more than 30 years ago that one person could not provide all the information that 100 volunteers who grew up in neighborhoods outside of Chicago's Cabrini-Green area needed to know to understand the challenges kids living in such neighborhoods face nor all that they needed to know to become effective tutors/mentors.

At least not in the traditional teacher-to-learner role.

Thus, I began to try to create a learning community, where volunteer, students, parents and other stakeholders would spend their own time reading, reflecting and learning from information I was collecting and sharing with them on a weekly basis. To understand what I mean by a "learning community" read some of the blog articles I share in this link.

This was in the mid 1970s, far earlier than when I began to learn about the power of the Internet.

For the past 30 years I've attempted to engage volunteers, board members, donors, youth, etc. in the Chicago tutor/mentor programs I've led in an on-going learning process. The information I now share on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, this blog and other web sites I host all originated from my efforts to support the youth and volunteers who were meeting weekly at a small tutor/mentor program in Chicago.

What I've learned from this process is how difficult it is to engage busy volunteers and under-motivated young people in this effort. Thus, I'm constantly spending time in my own learning, looking for experts who seem to have mastered this process better than I.

On Sunday I spent an hour in an on-line forum with Vance Stevens who is an ESL educator based in Abu Dhabi. I've gotten to know Vance since we were first connected back in 2004. In Sunday's presentation Vance showed a process of student engagement that I think could be duplicated in schools, non-school organizations, faith groups,etc. in many places. You can view the slides and the presentation here.

I'm writing as the Democratic Presidential Convention is taking place. During last week's Republican Convention and again this week as the Democrats meet, there will be all sorts of claims made that fact-checkers will be testing to determine how far the truth has been stretched. In reading some of the commentary about the campaign fact-distortion one of the fears I sense is that too few people will actually care enough to go to the fact-checking sites to see what is being posted and too few will spend time learning about the issues and building their own personal involvement in providing solutions that government really can't provide very well, not matter how much money is spent.

That brings me back to tutoring/mentoring. Below is a map created using the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that I launched in 2008. It's intended to support leaders from business, religion, education, politics who want to reduce violence by helping young people have more positive learning, mentoring and job development opportunities during the non-school hours and through the public schools in the neighborhood.

This map is of little use if no one looks at it, or if no one spends time reading other articles I've posted, and in reflecting, discussing, then building strategies that support existing programs already in this neighborhood while creating new ones where they are needed. I wrote about this same neighborhood in 2010 - see article.

Here's the test. Are you still reading? Did you visit Vance Stephens' site and review his presentation. If so, you are an active learner. We need more people taking this role, including young people.

Here's a PDF I created showing how young people could be involved in community information collection. Here's one showing how they can become journalists, telling stories the media do not tell. Here's one showing how young people can be leaders drawing people together to look at this information.

This presentation (click here) was done in just a few days by an intern from Illinois Institute of Technology, who is a college student from Korea.

Are you still following me? Volunteers, educators and/or staff in youth programs could be applying the concepts Vance Stevens has shared to teach young people in many neighborhoods to do research, reflect on what they read, then communicate their ideas in many formats. Read some of the articles about knowledge management, creativity and innovation posted at this link.

If this type of engaged learning becomes part of the on-going curriculum in many schools and non-school programs, we can grow a generation of young people who are more motivated to be active learners and who will use this process to engage others in community problem solving.

Visit the Chicago Program Links library and browse the list of youth organizations in the region. Find one that is convenient for you to join and reach out to offer your time and talent to organize a learning process like this. As volunteers teach young people to engage in on-going learning they are also teaching themselves.

That's the best thing about being a volunteer in a tutor/mentor program. Your life can be transformed as you work to transform the life of a young person.

If you don't have anyone collecting and sharing ideas like this in your own community I'd be happy to help you. You don't need to start from scratch. Most of the information that I share can already be applied to your own circumstances.

Digger Phelps coaching the game of life

There's a great article in the sports section of today's Chicago Tribune talking about Digger Phelps' involvement in a mentoring program in South Bend. Looks like the famous Notre Dame former basketball coach is trying to recruit 500 new mentors.

I think it's great that this story was given so much space in the sports section. I think it's great that the Coach is doing what he's doing. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find a link to the article on the Tribune web site.

I just wish there were a consistent effort of coaches all over the country to not only recruit volunteers to tutor/mentor, but to build the infrastructure and team of community leaders needed to support mentor involvement in the lives of youth for multiple years and in all the places such programs are needed.

I've posted articles showing roles athletes could be taking.

I've pointed to sports concept articles written between 2008 and 2011 while I was President of Cabrini Connections, showing how a tutor/mentor program is like a sports team. The team on the field is only as good as the infrastructure supporting the team.

In this wiki page I further describe this coaching strategy.

Here's a video created by one of my interns to communicate this concept.

I hope writers will keep drawing attention to coaches and athletes who are directly involved with youth. However, I also hope they will begin to point to the coaching and team building that needs to be done so great tutor/mentor teams are operating in thousands of neighborhoods throughout the country.

Imagine what types of videos might be created if high profile coaches and athletes were creating them instead of college interns with only two or three weeks of time to work on the project?

Perhaps in a future Olympics or Super Bowl coaches could be given recognition for this work?

Whole World is Watching Chicago - even if Chicagoans are not

In yesterday's Chicago SunTimes Neil Steinberg wrote a column under the headline "The whole world is watching -- even if we aren't." His point was that media throughout the world were looking at the violence in Chicago with "horrified fascination".

The point of his column was that too few people in the Chicago region living in neighborhoods beyond high poverty where most of the shootings are happening don't seem to care enough to get personally and emotionally involved in solving the problem. He concluded by writing "If blood on our streets doesn't bother us, maybe blood on our reputation will."

I've spent the past 20 years trying to increase the number of people who would become strategically and personally involved in this issue. I believe in volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs because they can expand the network of adults and learning supporting kids in high poverty areas AND because many of the adults who become involved build a deeper empathy that causes them to grow into greater involvement.

I know. That's how I grew from a once a week volunteer tutor in 1973 to someone who writes articles like this every few days. It did not happen over night. It's a process of constant engagement that transformed me over nearly 40 years.

On September 13 I'm going to be participating in a SEA-Alliance event in Chicago titled Next Generation in Social Enterprise. It will be connected via a live video conferencing format with the Social Capital World Forum taking place in Sweden. I created this graphic yesterday to illustrate how the goals of this event are to connect people from around the world with each other in an effort that leads to new ways to solve social problems.

I was contacted by one of the Chicago organizers a few weeks ago who did not know I existed until my name was found on the registration list for the Sept. 13 event. When it was recognized that I've been connecting on Facebook and Skype with the organizers of the Social Capital World Forum I was invited to give an introduction during the Sept. 13 event.

When Neil Steinberg writes that 'Chicagoans are not paying attention' I can attest to that from my personal experiences. If you browse articles I've written showing work I've done in the past Decade you can see that I'm focused on bringing people together and connecting them to information that can be used to build youth support systems in every high poverty neighborhood.

I've been trying to build support of business, philanthropic and political leaders in Chicago for the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy for nearly 20 years. While I've connected with thousands of people and raised more than $6 million over 20 years to operate the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program (1990-1992) and Cabrini Connections (1993-2011) and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-2011) this has never been consistent money or more than pocket change in the third largest city in the country. Traffic to my network of web sites averages about 8500 visitors a month, but the number of leaders in Chicago who contact me each year to discuss ideas or provide their own support can be counted on one hand.

If you search the words "tutor mentor" or "Chicago poverty map" at least one of my web sites can be found on the first page. Thus, if leaders were encouraging followers to research roles of tutor/mentor programs, this information would be available to them. That does not seem to be happening often enough.

In my frustration I have been reminded of this section of writings from the Bible, under the topic of A Prophet Hath No Honour in His Own Country.

Thus, I decided long ago that if I can't find enough support in Chicago perhaps I can find leaders in other cities and states who might want to dig deeper into the ideas shared on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site. Through the Internet I've stretched this outreach to the entire world. As a result I've had volunteers from India, Korea, Canada, Wisconsin, Kansas, Indiana and many other places take key roles in building the web platforms that I use to share ideas of how many leaders can work collectively to build expanded networks of support for youth living in poverty.

My efforts are intended to fill the nodes on this talent map, and this village map, with names of people and organizations who share the same commitment that I share in this strategy map.

Perhaps the attention Chicago violence is generating will increase the number of people in different parts of the world who look at the ideas I share and help me develop the Tutor/Mentor Institute Problem Solving Platform further. Or perhaps it will draw attention from leaders and partners in Chicago who are deeply concerned about our reputation in the world and the problems in Chicago.

Social Innovation 3.0 - Who does the inviting?

I found this video through one of my Linkedin Groups. It shares many ideas that resonate with me. I hope you'll take a look.



In this video one example was the STRIVE Partnership in Cincinnati in which the President of the local university was a major force for bringing business, educators and philanthropists to the table.

In other articles I've read it seems that "those with the money" are the ones most effective in drawing groups together for common purpose.

I think that misses one of the major strengths of the Internet. Anyone with a good idea should be able to share it and invite others to view it. If the idea is good enough it should become a magnet that attracts support from many places.

I'm not sure it's yet working this way except in rare cases.

Learning2Gether: Recruiting Volunteers Podcast

With this comment, Vance Stevens of the Webheads group announced that the Podcast from the August 26 discussion on volunteer recruitment is now available for others to listen.

Dan Bassill does some remarkable work bringing his past business experience and present passion for improving the lives of disadvantaged kids in Chicago through his tutor mentor programs, and the mechanisms he sets up for that are interesting, instructive, and relevant to communities of practice which rely on the cognitive surplus of like-minded volunteers.

Find the link at http://learning2gether.net/2012/08/27/dan-bassill-discusses-ways-educators-and-non/

Future of Education and Learning

I received an email this morning from Tess Pajaron, who has been reading the articles I post. Thank you Tess! She sent me the infographic posted below.

Learning Analytics: Leveraging Education Data – An infographic by the team at Open Colleges

Last week I listened to one of the sessions from the Learning 2.0 Conference. The speaker was Audrey Watters, who shares her ideas at Hack Education.com . In her presentation she talked about the growing use of robotics in education. The Blackboard Collaborate Recording is: https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-08-21.0647.M.D4D806A15860351B259A585F17EC47.vcr&sid=2008350


Through the combination of data, information technology, the internet and financial interests big changes are coming to how and where learning is provided and supported.

This is a graphic I created in the 1990s to illustrate a need for many leaders to be drawing people from their own influence networks into learning circles which use information like these infographics and recorded sessions to build strategies that reach youth in high poverty areas with all of the learning opportunities that keep expanding for kids who live beyond such neighborhoods.

It would be great to see students and volunteers creating infographics to describe the process that might make this happen. At this blog you can see work interns have been doing working with me in Chicago. If you're interested in joining this work please introduce yourself.

Volunteer Recruitment Discussion, Sunday 8/26

I led an informal discussion about volunteer recruitment on Sunday, Aug. 26 in the Webheads Elluminate forum. The recording can be seen here. See description of this discussion on the Learning2Gether site.

This discussion was focused on learning ways educators and non profits are recruiting and utilizing volunteers as tutors and/or mentors in school and non-school programs throughout the world. Dan would like to draw information from participants. Below is a list of questions that I intended to ask:
* Where do your find volunteers?

* What are your expectations for your volunteers? Where do you share this information?

* Describe your volunteers. Are they business people, college students, community residents?

* How long do your volunteers stay involved with you? Less than a year? One or two years? More than two years?

* How do you tell your story to show volunteers how and why they should join you? If you use a web site, blog or video, please share links.

* How do you screen volunteers? What is your interview process?

* Once you have volunteers how do you train and support them?

Unfortunately, only two other people joined me in the discussion. One was Vance Stevens, who has led the Webheads network's growth since the early 1990s and who is located in Abu Dhabi. Vance and I first connected in 2004 when the Webheads group co-sponsord a tutor/mentor on-line conference while I was hosting a place-based conference in Chicago.

The second was John Hibbs, who has been hosting a Global Learn day since the late 1990s. Here's an introduction from John in the 2004 event. Here's some photos from Global Learn Day VI which I participated in from Chicago. John is now focusing on Coursera, which is a new platform for massive on-line learning that is partnering with "the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free".

Since we did not have any tutor/mentor program leaders in the discussion to give feedback on their volunteer recruiting practices we used the time to talk about ways on-line networks like Webheads or Coursera could incorporate questions like this into their own efforts, reaching thousands more potential participants than the few I'm able to bring to the conferences in Chicago or gather in my social networking spaces.

I encourage you to listen in to the one hour recording. Follow the text chat box to find questions and ideas that are being shared while I was pushing out information through the Elluminate screen. If these topics interest you, join the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum on Ning to expand your ideas of where, why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed and how people in all sectors of society can help them grow.

Bill Strickland TED talk - Inspirational

If you've time, this video will inspire you to expand your vision of what's possible.

Making Sense of How America Gives

Through my Twitter feed I was introduced to the Chronicle of Philanthropy's special section on How America Gives. The graphic below shows the home page of this innovative site.

There is a wealth of data on this site that can be used to help volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and similar birth-to-work programs grow, if we can find people who will make time to dig through the data and figure a way to use it to educate and motivate donors.

This image is one showing the Chicago area. It's an example of the powerful interactive mapping capacity of the site and shows how people can create their own maps, then export them to photoshop and create JPG images that can be inserted into blog articles or other communications.

In this Rest of the Story article and this "How to use Tutor/Mentor Program Locator article I've been sharing ideas that student and volunteer writers, journalists and advocates could use to help build on-going support for volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs helping young people move through school and into jobs and careers.

Making sense of the information is only the first challenge. Communicating these ideas on an on-going basis so that busy people in business, philanthropy, politics, etc. spend time reading, reflecting and integrating the understanding into their own commitment and actions is a much more difficult challenge. We have a short term problem solving mentality and want to simplify complex problems into five-minute elevator speeches.

That only works if the person we're talking to has a deep understanding of the problem and can intuitively understand the proposed solutions. That does not happen without many hours of reading, reflection and experience.

Sharing this information and increasing the number of people who use it is as difficult as pushing a boulder up a mountain, especially if you're doing it by yourself. Finding others who share the same vision, purpose and goals and who will share the work is what my daily goal is in writing these articles.

If you'd like to help, or if you know others who already are doing this same work, please connect with me.

Getting from HERE to THERE in NonProfit Sector

In an article I wrote in December 2011 I talked about how non profits become good at what they do, then great, and how they need to stay great for many years to have an impact on young people and communities.

In this part of the Links Library I point to articles that illustrate challenges non profits have in growing from good to great.

I've created a number of graphics to illustrate this thinking which I hope are used in leadership circles throughout the country to engage others in thinking of what actions they need to take on an on-going basis to help all of the youth serving organizations in their community become world class at what they do to help kids become thriving adults.

Here's one I'd like to share:

In my own efforts I've been trying to help constantly-improving non-school tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty areas of Chicago. I use maps like this one to show where poverty is concentrated which I feel is where resources need to focus in order for a wide range or mentor-rich youth programs to form.

I've never had more than $150,000 a year to do this work which is far too few dollars to collect all of the information needed to support decisions that need to be made in many leadership sectors. Nor have I had money for advertising, training and promotions that would draw volunteers and donors to this information on a consistent basis, and at key times of the year, such as now when school is starting and all tutor/mentor programs are looking for volunteers. For the past year I've had almost not money to support this effort.

Thus, I keep looking for others who are doing some of the intelligence gathering that needs to be taking place. Here are some questions that I hope someone is asking:

* What is the "combat readiness" of each of the organizations working with youth in the Chicago region?

* What is their financial health? Do they have a consistent flow of resources to carry them through this year and into next year and beyond?

* What is their leadership strategy? Do they have experienced people devekioubg abd leading the organization's strategies?

* Who do they want to emulate? When you look at the web site (if they have one) of each youth organization do they post a list of 4-6 other youth organizations that they feel are "best in class" and that they are trying to emulate?

* What is their mission? Where would the organization's strategies fit on this graphic? How do they compare to others who do this work?

Is anyone doing the market research needed to understand how well youth organizations in the Chicago region (or in other cities) are prepared to help youth move through school and into adult lives?

I'm not looking for "generalizations" or "aggregations" of information. We should be able to put icons on maps showing the different readiness of each organization shown on the map. And leaders should be able to use this information in resource-mobilization effort that help strengthen existing organizations and fill in voids with new organizations where more are needed.

Is anyone interested in putting their name on a Think Tank or Research Institute focused on collecting and sharing this information?

Share the links in the comment section if you can answer these questions.

Tutor/Mentor Connection - Knowledge Network

This is one of several videos I created a year ago to outline the strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection.



There are more than 2000 links in the Library I've been building for the past 20 years. I have used this information personally to build and lead volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs since 1975. I've been sharing this information for over 20 years to help others build and sustain programs with similar goals in many different places.

No one can read this in a short time. However, if learning is extended over many years this information can become a foundation of ideas that support actions of leaders from many sectors, intended to help high poverty neighborhoods have a wide range of youth and family supports that lead more young people through school and into adult jobs and careers.

I'm now supporting the Tutor/Mentor Connection through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. I've posted a library of essays showing how this information might be used and encourage you to view these along with the videos.

I hope you'll budget time each week or month to read and reflect on some of this information. I also invite you to become a financial supporter, partner or investor to help me build and sustain this platform. Read more.

Chicago's Murder Problem - article

Here's a blog article from Chicago Magazine that offers additional perspective about Chicago's Murder Problem.

What I'm looking for are efforts by traditional and nontraditional media to increase the number of people reading these articles then working to build solutions and make the available in every neighborhood where poverty and segregation contribute to the problem.

This is one article I share at Scribd.com showing the goal of "growing the network".

I'd like to find a place on Facebook or Linked in where media, journalists, advertisers, etc. who area already writing about the problems of poverty would share ideas for building and sustaining a growing network of people who will volunteer time, talent and dollars to support information aggregation, better understanding, and solutions in many places.

Such efforts should be supported by documentation systems where people show what they do daily to build the network (see OHATS introduction as example) and by network analysis maps that show the growth and diversity of the network and connect members to each other. View this network analysis report showing work done by a May-June 2012 intern.

Using data to solve problems - STRIVE example

I encourage you to view this video where Jeff Edmonds, CEO of the STRIVE project in Cincinnati talks about how data can be used to support "every child, every step of the way, from cradle to career".



I've been talking about supporting youth from "birth to work" for more than 18 years and have been using maps and graphics to illustrate these ideas. Yet while STRIVE has an annual budget of more than $1.5 million to do its work in Cincinnati, a much smaller urban area than Chicago, I've never had more than $150,000 to support the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I encourage you to read this Stanford Social Innovative Review article which describes the STRIVE partnership and shows its own funding challenges.

While I'd like to find a benefactor and partner to turn the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC into a Think Tank that could support collective efforts focused on mentoring kids to careers in every city in the country, I'd also like to find a way to become a consultant/adviser to any group who is already doing this....in Chicago....or in any other city.

Place Matters - Where You Live Affects Your Life

I've used maps to show where poor schools are located and where acts of violence take place in an effort to mobilize more people to support mentor-rich non-school tutor/mentor programs in these places.

From time to time I point to research done by others that reinforce these points, as well as to news stories that bring attention, but not solutions.

Here's a new report titled: Place Matters for Health in Cook County: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All. A Report on Health Inequities in Cook County, Illinois

Prepared by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute and the Cook County, Il, Place Matters Team

In the introduction the first paragraph says "Where one lives may be the most important factor in determining health outcomes. And because of our history of racial oppression and the legacy of that oppression in residential patterns today, the intersection of place and race in the persistence of health disparities looms large."

The Executive Summary provides this motivation for citizens throughout the Chicago region to be concerned and involved.  "Clearly, there is a strong moral imperative to enact policies to redress the inequities of the past, as well as current inequities, in ways that will improve health for all. But, there also is a powerful economic incentive. A study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 2009 found that direct medical costs associated with health inequities among African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans approached $230 billion between 2003 and 2006. When indirect costs, such as lowered productivity and lost tax revenue resulting from illness and premature death, were included, the total cost of health inequities exceeded $1.24 trillion.7 Thus, for both moral and economic reasons, we must address health inequities and their root causes now."

In today's Chicago Tribune is an article titled "Violence takes a toll on child's play." which also draws attention to "place" and the challenges that face parents, schools and children in these neighborhoods. 

I hope that one of these articles will make some of your concerned enough to launch a "learning group" in your company, family, faith group, alumni group, etc. Only when more people are engaged with the information and actively involved in building youth support programs in all of the poverty neighborhoods will we ever have enough people involved to change these conditions.

If you do have a group of people focusing on this issue why not participate in the November 19 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference where you can share your own understanding and help more people get involved? 

Follow the tags below to see more articles related to this topic.

Can't Drain the Swamp? Up to your Neck in Alligators?

If you skim through articles I've written since 2005 you'll see a growing use of visualizations to communicate ideas. Many of these start as scratches on a tablet as an idea comes to me, then are converted to power point.  I've been lucky to have interns from IIT and other universities work with me for a few weeks every year who have used their own talent to convert some of my essays into new graphics. This page shows work that has been done.

However, these interns are only with me a few weeks in the winter and spring. I come up with ideas all the time but don't have the talent to communicate these as effectively as I'd like.  Here's an example.

I've used maps to show where poverty is concentrated in Chicago and to show where existing tutor/mentor programs are located. You can see many like this in this map gallery.  In addition, I use maps in many of my blog articles I've written about how poverty affects  health, student aspirations, education performance, etc.

In other articles and in this section of my library I show challenges that non profit tutor/mentor programs face in finding the talent and operating resources to build and sustain constantly improving long-term programs.

Since I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 my goal has been to help all of the non-school tutor/mentor programs in the region get the operating resources they need while helping new programs focus in areas where more are needed. While many of my peers have said "I like what you do." most have said "When I'm able to get my own program stabilized, I'll help you do this".

I've always said to myself, "They will never help because by themselves they can't solve the funding and resource flow problems facing non profit organizations."

So this week I was thinking about this and I thought of the saying "can't drain the swamp because I'm up to my neck in alligators".   How could I visualize this?  Well I started scratching out some ideas. 


So here's the first image I thought of. I'm in a boat in the middle of a swamp. The boat is leaking water and I'm surrounded by alligators.  

Operating a small non profit feels like this. I'm surrounded by challenges and don't have the manpower to solve all of the problems facing my kids, volunteers and the organization. In this analogy, the swamp represents the high poverty neighborhoods where our kids live and where we operate. Parents, schools, kids and non profits are surrounded by all sorts of problems. Violence is just one of these (see articles)

Through the actions of the Tutor/Mentor Connection I've been trying to "drain the swamp". This graphic illustrates this.

This next graphic shows how many of the 170-plus tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the Chicago region face the same challenges every day.

So what if many non profits were working together to overcome the challenges we each face. What if leaders in business, faith groups, politics, sports, entertainment, etc. were working with us?

We could be building greater daily attention for ways to help build student aspirations and learning habits while also building support systems that expand the network of adults and learning opportunities available to kids in every high poverty neighborhood.

Through the collective efforts of many people we could be helping more volunteers connect with kids in tutor/mentor programs as school starts each year. We could be encouraging more workplace donors to support these programs during workplace fund raising campaigns in the fall. We could be bringing more people together to share ideas and give recognition to programs in November. And we could be using this November attention to encourage more year-end donors to seek out tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods.

So now that I've laid out my thinking. Who is willing to volunteer their talent to turn this into a new graphic, animation, video or some form of communication that will draw thousands of people to read it, reflect on what the meaning is, and find ways to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs this year in Chicago or any other city in the country? 

I've been coaching my interns in the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum. I encourage you to introduce yourself there if you'd like to offer your talent.

Learning from others

Every day I spend time connecting with a wide range of people and ideas from around the world. As I find ideas that I think leaders can use to support "birth to work" activities in Chicago and other cities I add these to the Library on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site. That way they are there for me to read in the future and also available to anyone who visits that site.

Today I found a few interesting articles in my Facebook groups.

Human Development Framework -  this site includes a concept map which is "A visual representation of the roles of ICT in the Human Development process".

Understanding Content Curation - This is a really significant article because it talks about the value of aggregating information and what makes this valuable. In one paragraph the writer says, "In considering the advantage of collecting vs. curating, it seems that collecting serves primarily the needs or interests of the collector. With curating, a larger goal is to benefit not only the collector, but other potential learners as well. It is meant to be shared. And, both the process and the product of curating help the curator as well as those who view the curated collection to understand and to learn." .


Developing Future Workskills Through Content Curation - This site includes a concept map of skills needed and talks about "the role content curation can play for students in inspiring passion-based learning, moving towards personalized learning and of the many skills and habits of mind that students can develop through the process."  These two articles pointed me to the link below.
 
Future Work Skills 2020 - this article lists 10 skills that workers should have for jobs in the coming decades. I'd like to find someone who has developed a "test" that could measure how well students and adults are learning these skills and to show what percent of youth in each school are "meeting standards" for learning these.  I think it would be far more valuable than testing reading, writing, math proficiency.

I've written many articles on learning in past blog articles. I hope you'll budget some time to read and reflect on what I've added today. 

Planning your Impact

I was camping over the weekend so did not have Internet access. Now that I'm back it's time to really focus on what I can do during the coming six months to draw attention to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities and to the information I share on the web sites I host. This information can be used by existing programs, volunteers, youth, donors, etc. to help thousands of young people in many neighborhoods connect with networks of extra adults in well-organized non-school programs.

School starts in less than a month, so anyone who writes a story about their experience in a tutor/mentor program, or about the need for such programs in more places, can help attract volunteers and donors to these programs if they just add links to portals that enable people to search for programs by zip code and type of program.  In this concept map I point to the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and Chicago Links Library as well as to other volunteer search engines that anyone can use.

While school starts soon the next event I'm organizing comes on November 19 when I host the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference at the Metcalfe Federal Building , 77 W. Jackson, Blvd, in Chicago.  During the June 2012 conference we recorded three panel discussions. Below you can find a video from the first of these. During the November 19 Conference there will be more panels like this.



In order to host these conference and keep fees low to all participants we need volunteers to step forward to offer workshops or be part of panels. This is a list of suggested workshop topics. Speakers can come from businesses and universities or from non profits. If you're interested in hosting a workshop use this form to present your idea. I also need one or two sponsors to help cover the costs.

While we  hope we can bring together 100 to 150 people at the November conference I hope we can attract even larger numbers to our web sites or to internet meeting places such as the Tutor/Mentor Forum, Facebook, or Linked in. Furthermore, I hope others will use their own media to write articles and encourage volunteers, businesses and philanthropists to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in different locations throughout Chicago and other big cities.

By showing how important tutor/mentor programs are to inner-city youth and how such programs depend on donor generosity to operate, the November conference can stimulate year end charity giving if enough people will make an effort to write about tutoring/mentoring in their own media.

That's what I'm focusing on now that I'm back from my camping trip. I hope you can help me find others who are focusing on the same topics.