Visualize your strategies for helping kids through school and into jobs

Before the Internet was a primary tool for communication, and many years before I started writing this blog, print newsletters were used to share ideas. This is page 2 from the Fall 1999 Tutor/Mentor News. I started publishing this newsletter in 1993 and continued every four months through 2001. At its peak I was sending this to over 8,000 people. I now have that many visits to my web sites every month.

In the graphics on this page of the newsletter I'm communicating a goal that every industry build strategies that support the growth of long-term, non-school, mentor-rich, volunteer-based youth serving organizations. The graphic shows that programs are needed in three time frames, school day, right after school, after-work/weekends and it includes a map, illustrating that such programs are needed in every high poverty neighborhood of the Chicago region.

I started communicating this strategy in power point/pdf essays in the late 1990s, and have been posting them on Scribd.com and SlideShare in the past two years. I've posted a library of graphics from these presentations on Pinterest. The essays on Scribd have been viewed more than 64,000 times in less than two full years.

Interns have worked with me for many years and since 2005 I've had them spend time looking at these graphics and PDF essays, then build new versions that share their own understanding of the ideas, using different types of media to communicate the ideas. This "iceberg" graphic was created to illustrate the infrastructure every tutor/mentor program needs in order to support on-going connections of youth and volunteer tutors/mentors. It was created by an intern several years ago.

At the right is an animation, created by another intern, providing a different interpretation of the same idea.

Here's another example. In this PDF I show that as volunteers spend time (service) in tutor/mentor program, they are learning more about poverty and the needs of youth. They are also expanding their personal network and building new skills. Each week as they do service they informally share stories of what they are learning with friends, family and co-workers, which leads to more people becoming involved. The graphic below was created in 2007 by an intern from Hong Kong, to interpret the message in the PDF. Then it was re-done a few years later by an intern from Korea working with one of our Northwestern University Public Service Fellows. Here's the latest version.

Thus, for more than 15 years I've been sharing ideas that leaders in any industry, politics, universities, and/or faith groups, etc. could be using in their own efforts to help k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood have a wide range of tutor/mentor programs to participate in, with an overall goal of helping kids move through school and into jobs, with a growing number of volunteers from different industry, business and social/economic backgrounds helping.

I've created a web library where I post links to work being done by other organizations, researchers, idea people, etc. Most of the links I point to host their own web library. They serve as a hub for additional knowledge. I'd like to find a web library pointing to places on business, political, media and celebrity web sites where visualizations like I've created are being used to show their own commitment to helping kids in ALL POVERTY NEIGHBORHOODS move through school and into jobs.

If you're hosting such a web library, or see this as a research project for you and your students, please share your web site so I can point to it in my own efforts.

Connected learning - the MOOC experience explained

With so much information available how do we navigate this, find what we're looking for, make sense out of it, then apply it to our own personal agendas? I've been aggregating information that people could use to help inner city kids for more than 20 years and host it in a web library on the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site. It's a huge amount of information and no one can absorb it in a short time.

Frankly, without some help from others, most of the great ideas and resources on the site will be undiscovered. Thus, I've been following the growth of on-line learning, connectivism and MOOCS, with great interest.

Today one of the people I met during the Jan-March Education, Technology and Media MOOC, #ETMOOC, encouraged me and others to view this article posted by Christina Hendricks, describing her own experience during the ETMOOC. She does such a great job I encourage you to read what she has written, then browse some of the articles I've written that focus this process on building a network of people and organizations working to help youth in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.

A Collaboration of the Willing - Leading from Behind

I've used this graphic dozens of times to illustrate a vision of engaging workplace volunteers in long-term strategies that help inner-city youth move from first grade to first jobs. I've created a library of graphics like this on Pinterest and posted a library of illustrated essays on Scribd.com.

I started doing this almost 20 years ago when I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, at the same time as I and six other volunteers were creating the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in Chicago. Every year since then, I've invested time, talent, and a fragmented flow of dollars to build the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Doing this as part of a single tutor/mentor program provided many benefits, but it also made it difficult for leaders throughout the region to clearly understand the T/MC strategy.

This is another graphic I've used often. We all want the outcomes shown at the top of this graphic, but without the work at the bottom, too few people are connected to each other, and too few are working strategically to support age-appropriate tutoring, mentoring, learning, jobs programs, etc. in every high poverty neighborhood of the city and suburbs.

Recently a friend send me a document from the World Economic Forum, titled "Multistakeholder Collaboration for Healthy - Living Toolkit for Joint Action". On the web site where this PDF is shared, is a message saying "To assist stakeholders in initiating and managing multistakeholder actions for Healthy Living, the Forum and the Pan American Health Organization, in collaboration with Bain & Company, have developed the “Toolkit for Multistakeholder Action”. The Toolkit is based on a simple six-block framework to help collaborations structure and progress with their joint work.

It provides step-by-step guidelines, hands-on templates, practical resources and case studies to illustrate solutions to the core challenges of multistakeholder actions at the local, national or global level."

On page 8 of this pdf this graphic illustrates the six steps of multi-stakeholder collaboration. In this concept map, I point to several dozen intermediary organizations working in the Chicago region and focused on the well-being of youth. If you know leaders in these organizations, I encourage you to share the PDF with them.

Many have asked me for the strategic plan of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. While I've created written versions of this countless times since 1993, I feel that "my web sites" are the plan, and are the plan in action! Anyone who is willing to spend the time, can browse through the web sites and learn the strategies I've developed over the past 20 years, and apply them to their own work. I've created a variety of PDF essays to summarize what I'm trying to do, such as this one. I've also created a series of concept maps, that show the vision of helping youth in poverty move to jobs, and this one showing the 4-part strategy that supports what leaders can do to help make this happen.

In 2011 after the Cabrini Connections board of directors voted to no longer support the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC as a business structure to keep the T/MC available in Chicago and to help similar intermediaries grow in other cities. I created this WIKI to show my goals, and this PDF to show value of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to others.

After reviewing the WEB graphic, I created a new version, showing actions I have been taking related to each of the six steps in the tool kit. That graphic is below.

I created this concept map, showing the 4-part strategy, and work that needs to be done to support each step of the strategy more fully. I don't have the organizational strength, funds, or talent to do all of this myself. Others need to share ownership, if they also share the vision of helping kids in every poverty neighborhood overcome the violence, poverty, negative aspirations, etc. that face them.

In this Harvard Business Review blog article by Linda Hill, she talks about leaders like Nelson Mandella, who “stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”

This is the type of leadership I provide, and the goal of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. I believe the ideas and resources I've aggregated, and the tools I continue to develop, can be used by any organization in Chicago that works to help youth and families.

In this ROLE OF LEADERS pdf, I invite leaders from business and many other sectors to take the lead in strategies that help kids move from first grade to first jobs. In this RESOURCES pdf, I show tools I've developed to support such leaders in Chicago. With help, these can be developed and used to support leaders sharing similar goals, in any city in the world.

It has taken me more than 35 years to develop these ideas, and I'm constantly learning and updating my own thinking. Thus, I hope you and others will take a little time each month over the next few years to understand and apply these ideas in your own thinking. As you do, share what you do on blogs and web sites and I and others will learn from you.

If you'd like to connect, why not attend the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago on Monday, Nov. 4, or introduce yourself to me on Twitter, Facebook, Linked in or this blog.

9-14-2018 update - I'm still trying to "lead from behind" but with even fewer resources than I had in 2013 when I wrote this.  I have not hosted a conference in Chicago since 2013, yet I probably reach and share ideas with far more people every week than ever attended any of the Tutor/Mentor Conferences.  

If you value what I'm doing please visit my FUND ME page and offer your support.

My Mentor. The Father I never Had.

On Tuesday, September 17 I attended the Tenth Annual My Hero Awards Luncheon, hosted by the Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth Program. This is a group of lawyers from Chicago who have raised more than $1.4 million since 1994 to fund the general operations of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region. Read more about this event.

During the late 1990s the Lend A Hand Program was part of the Chicago Bar Foundation and held an annual event in November which attracted more than 1500 lawyers, friends and families. Since 2002 a My Hero Awards Lunch in the spring or fall has attracted more than 200 participants to give recognition to lawyers, law firms, business and judges who are involved with volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the Chicago region.

During this week's event Doug Wambach, a shareholder at Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, P.C. received one "Making a Difference Award" and Richard Gleason, managing partner of O'Mara, Gleason & O'Callaghan, LLC, received a second award.

Wambach has been involved in many roles supporting Boys Hope Girls Hope for more than a decade. He was nominated by a youth he has mentored for the past several years. In the nomination letter, the youth wrote "I haven't been writing about a mentor; I'm writing about a father I never had." In his acceptance comments, Wambach said "He's the one who made a difference in my life, and in my family's life."

Gleason has been involved with the mentoring program at the Logan Square Boys & Girls Club in Chicago since 2006. The boy he has mentored for the past 6 years is now working at the club and gave the nomination speech. He said "If it wasn't for Rich, I don't know where I'd be now."

Over my 35 years of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program I've heard comments like this from many alumni and volunteers of the programs I've led, and of other programs I've connected with. This has led me to three levels of understanding, which are reflected in the graphic below, and in this Logic Model pdf essay.

First, the testimony of young people and volunteers convinces me that connecting youth with volunteers from the business community, and keeping them connected for multiple years, is something we should try to do.

Second, to connect youth living in high poverty neighborhoods with volunteers who don't live in the neighborhood, but model many types of work and career experiences that youth might aspire to, structured, well-organized, and well funded programs like Boys Hope Girls Hope and the Logan Square Boys & Girls are needed.

Third, since there are more than 125,000 high poverty youth living in Chicago, and many more in the suburbs, we need hundreds of well organized programs, not just the few that are now in existence. For such programs to be in place and well organized, we need organizations like the Lawyers Lend A Hand to be raising millions of dollars from their industry and spreading this money each year to on-going programs throughout the city and suburbs.

If every industry, fraternal and alumni organization forms a Lend A Hand type program, the result would be multiple sources of on-going funding, and a diversity of volunteers, supporting tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty zip code, thus enabling each program to have a higher percent of the total dollars each needs to operate, as well as a diversity of volunteer talent helping the program innovate ways to constantly improve their impact on the lives of kids....and volunteers.

I've been broadcasting this idea for nearly 20 years, yet there are few leaders who have embraced the idea to the point that they should be receiving awards for how well they support "birth to work" mentoring programs in places where they do business or where employees and customers live. Why is this?

1) Maybe I'm the wrong messenger. I'm not from a wealthy family. I'm not the CEO of a big company. I'm not politically connected. I'm not of a minority racial background.

2) The non profits who would benefit most from increased resources, are not embracing the strategy. There's too much fear of losing volunteers or donors by talking about the need for tutor/mentor programs all over the city, rather than just their own program. The competitive nature of philanthropy reinforces this.

3) Business leaders who lead multiple store corporations via central office strategies don't apply the same thinking to what they do to support multiple non profits in all neighborhoods where they are needed. It's easy to adopt one or two high profile programs, or run a small in-house volunteer program. It's harder to take on a role intended to build an distribution of these programs, and a supply system to support them. Read more about how businesses might help programs grow.

4) I've never been able to keep consistent funding or build a large enough funding base to spread these ideas consistently, draw people together for conferences, or teach leaders to adopt and use the ideas.

I've written more than 1000 articles on this blog since 2005, all intended to build consistent support for constantly improving tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods. In addition, I've created a variety of essays to illustrate ideas that leaders might adopt in support of multiple tutor/mentor programs. Finally, I've created a web library with more than 2000 links to ideas of other people around the world which can be applied to building and sustaining individual programs as well as networks of programs.

This is all part of a 4 part strategy, illustrated in this strategy pdf and this concept map. Since 2011 I've not had a non profit organizational structure to support this strategy, and I'm reaching out to find volunteers and partners to re-build this. However, I'm more interested in finding ways to embed these ideas and strategies in many other organizations, in Chicago and around the country, so more owners carry this forward in future years, and so it's not dependent on any single organization or individual. If you're interested in this let's find a way to talk.

These ideas and web resources are free to anyone who wants to see more young adults standing up in front of crowds saying "my mentor made a difference in my life." I hope you'll spend some time getting to know them.

Using Street Violence to Sell Newspaper

This photo was on the front page of my Chicago Tribune yesterday. If you're a subscriber to the Tribune's internet site you can read the full story online. The print version included two full pages of stories about kids in Chicago who have been victims of street violence.

Included was a map showing where these shootings occurred, which is mostly on the West and South parts of Chicago. I've been pointing to media stories like these for the past 20 years as part of an effort to get more people involved in strategies that build and sustain a wide range of youth serving organizations in these areas.

Here's one story I wrote in July 2010. It includes a copy of the Chicago SunTimes from October 1992 after Dantrell Davis was killed. Here's a story I wrote in 2008 following a SunTimes series about how street violence impacts inner city kids. In this I posted maps of neighborhoods where violence was taking place, with a call for people to be involved in supporting those programs.

I've been following media stories with map-stories since 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Since I never have had advertising dollars to attract public attention, I try to build off of the attention the media have generated with negative news, and images of kids and suffering parents. In my stories I always post a link to the story I'm talking about. However, after a year or two, maybe shorter, these stories are no longer available at the same link. Thus, they don't have an accumulated weight that might motivate more people to become involved in trying to reduce the conditions that cause the violence in the first place. Recently the papers have been hiding these stories behind subscription services, and I feel that further reduces the number of people who will read the story and be motivated to get involved.

While the Tribune and SunTimes and other media have community service and charitable foundations, these only provide funding to a small group of the youth serving organizations in the city and suburbs, and only a small portion of the total funds every youth organization needs every year. Using the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, and drawing from maps that are produced by media and other organizations, I've been able to create graphics and map stories, like below, to try to draw people together who would innovate ways to build a better distribution of resources to all of the neighborhoods where youth serving organizations and other services are needed on an on-going basis.

I think youth can learn to create these visualizations. Interns working with me have been doing this for several years. You can see examples at this page.

I'm hosting another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago on Monday, November 4 and will be doing a series of workshops showing how to use maps to create stories, and how youth can create and communicate these stories as part of their own learning and service. I'm still looking for additional volunteers to host workshops at this conference, and others who will help build participation. If you'd like to get involved email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net or fill out the workshop presenter form on this page.

I've collected media stories that draw attention to violence and poorly performing schools for almost 20 years. I've seen passionate editorials saying we need to do something. Yet, I've not seen a consistent effort to draw people together and draw resources to youth serving organizations and schools that works like the advertising done by most corporations every day to draw people to their stores and sell products and services.

Since media outlets are in business to generate profit we need to find others who will provide the resources and leadership that makes the archive of media stories more open to community activists, and that encourages media stories to point to directories of youth serving organizations throughout the region so more are supported by the people who are reading and following the daily news.

What would you do to make this happen?

Arts Education in Chicago - A Collective Effort

I attended a Chicago Arts Partnership meeting on Friday, hosted by Ingenuity, Inc and the Arts Education Department of Chicago Public Schools. Ingenuity, Inc. is led by Paul Sznewajs, who founded Snow City Arts Foundation in the 1990s, which is when we first met.

Much has been written about Collective Impact in the past couple of years. Paul and his group have done much to bring together more than 600 arts education groups in Chicago with a vision that "all Chicago Public School students, from the day they start school until the day they graduate, will receive quality arts education at every grade level"

During Friday's meeting Paul and others provided a history of how arts education organizations have come together in this effort and a vision for the future. One of the resources Inginuity, Inc. has created is an Arts Look portal that maps locations of arts education providers, with layers of information showing providers of different types of arts education.

This network building started many years ago and has reached out to engage many different arts initiatives. It's supported by the Mayor, and has generated a $1 million a year commitment to fund arts education programs in schools. Friday's meeting was a celebration of progress and an announcement of next steps. Very impressive. Well done.



I'm impressed by what Ingenuity, Inc has accomplished because this is much of what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been attempting to do since being formed in 1993. Our focus has been to help mentor-rich non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning organizations reach k-12 youth in high poverty neighborhoods. Our strategy has been to build a directory of existing programs and a library of information, then a larger on-going public eduction effort that would draw more consistent operating support to existing and emerging organizations. This strategy has been share in on-line maps, essays, graphics, etc. since 1998. It's a strategy that needs many leaders, but can be supported by a few who build knowledge libraries and tools that support collective efforts.