Athletes Adopt-A-Neighborhood Vision

I've been digitizing my files over the past couple of years and the big questions are "Who will look at these?" and "Who will take ownership, preserve, share and teach from these after I die?"  

One answer to the first question is "ME".  In looking at conversations and vision statements from the past I remind myself of what I've been trying to do and gain new ways of sharing messages that too few ever saw in the past.

Here's an example.  

In the 1990s a group of retired professional athletes was trying to set up a social enterprise where they would raise money by selling branded apparel and use that money to fund causes they supported. 

I told them of my vision of athletes using their visibility to draw attention and resources to youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of Chicago. During one meeting they told me they were holding a golf outing and that other athletes would be participating.  I asked them if they would present my Adopt-a-Neighborhood idea and have athletes sign their name on a map showing high poverty areas of Chicago, to indicate their support for the concept.  

They did. That map is shown below.

The map was signed by Carlton Fisk, Tim Fisher, Steve Avery, Darryl Ingram, Jim Miller, Robyn Earl, Jason Herter, Otis Wilson, "J Peterman" - Sinfield, George Foster and Emery Morehead.  As noted on the map, signing this indicated support for the concept, but not a commitment to "adopt" a neighborhood and participate in the program. 

I've shared this graphic in several of my sports-focused blog articles, but without a lot of background information.  Today as I was looking at my digital library I saw this map and opened this PDF, created in 2011, which provides more detail on what I was hoping the Adopt-A-Neighborhood program would become.

Unfortunately, the group of athletes who had approached me never got their business off the ground and no one has ever provided the leadership and money to make this Adopt-a-Neighborhood idea a reality.

What if?  What if it had been adopted by a local sports team and if a year-end event for the past 20 years had featured high profile athletes and celebrities boasting about what they did to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in the neighborhood they had adopted.  What if there were a library, like my T/MI Theater page, showing athletes describing what they had done to support their adopted neighborhood for the previous year?

I think there would be a lot more comprehensive, long-term, mentor-rich youth programs spread throughout Chicago and other cities, and more kids would now be adults talking of how these programs had helped them through school and into jobs and adult lives.

I keep posting information about persistent poverty in America that shows the need to expand networks of support for youth and families in these places, so as we head further into 2024 and beyond, there's still a need for athletes and celebrities in every major city to adopt this idea.

I keep sharing ideas of what athletes and celebrities can do beyond what they already are doing.

So I encourage you to share this "Adopt-a-Neighborhood" idea.  Start a conversation. There are plenty of athletes and celebrities doing great work, yet I don't see any with a map saying "great work needs to reach every high poverty area of my city" and "I can't do it all myself."

Maybe one or two will adopt this as their "game plan" for making the world a better place.

I'm on social media so please connect with me on Twitter (X), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon, BlueSky and/or Threads. See links here.

My Fund T/MI page is at this link.  If you value what I'm sharing please make a contribution to support my efforts. 

PS: I've not found an answer yet for the second question I started this article with.  

Building Great Tutor/Mentor Teams

I created the graphic shown below in December 2016 for this article.  In today's article I'm going to re-emphasize the need to teams with a mix of talents and networks at every tutor/mentor program in Chicago and other places to help build and sustain long-term birth-to-work mentoring programs in high poverty areas.

Below is another graphic that I've used often.

I've been a football fan since the early 1960s and know that for a team to have a winning record, or be the champion of their league, they must have talented, highly motivated, players, with specific skills and experience, at every position on the offence, defense and special teams. Even the coaching staff needs special skills. 

It's the fans, owners, media and city leaders who provide the resources to build and sustain great teams.  As a long-suffering Chicago Bears fan, I recognize that this is not easy.

So let's look at another graphic.  In the upper left is a photo from the mid 1990s, showing teens and a staff member from the tutor/mentor program that I led from 1993 to 2011. At the lower right is one of those teens, in 2010 when she spoke at the program's year-end dinner.

I'm still connected to most of these teens, and many others who were part of tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011 (I left the first program in 1992 and we formed the second program, which we named Cabrini Connections).  Visit this conversation on my Facebook page and you can see many student and volunteer alumni (and Claudia Bellucci, the staff member in the top left photo) posting "Happy Birthday" greetings to help me celebrate my December 19th birthday. 

If you rotate the graphic so that it is vertical, you'd see the message shown in the graphic below:

At every school and non-school program a range of age-level learning and enrichment opportunities are needed to help kids move from one grade to the next, then the next, until they graduate, more through college or vocational school, then into the workforce. Along the way volunteer tutors and mentors can provide support and open doors.

I was supported by many volunteers with many skills during the years I led a tutor/mentor program. That prompted me to create the two concept maps shown below:

Talent needed. Click here to open the concept map.

Network needed. Click here to open the concept map.   

These two concept maps show the different skills and networks that need to be involved at EVERY tutor/mentor program in the Chicago area.  They are also needed at the larger community area level, and citywide level, so that great programs grow in EVERY high poverty area.

If an organization can draw talent from a broader network they can accomplish much more than if all of their talent comes from one sector.

One of the challenges is that not every youth serving organization has the resources to hire this mix of talent, or the network needed to recruit volunteers to fill all of these roles.

That's why cities need a "Virtual Corporate Office" strategy that recruits volunteers with functional skills, from every industry, to support individual tutor/mentor programs.  

Between 1973 and 1990 I held various roles in the retail advertising department of the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago.  I learned how functional teams worked daily to support more than 400 retail stores in 40 states, while my advertising team worked to draw customers to those stores.  All of these roles were needed.

In the ROLE OF LEADERS essay shown below I encourage CEOs from every industry to take roles that encourage employees to take on roles that support tutor/mentor programs in different neighborhoods, with the goal that every program, in EVERY neighborhood, would have the mix of talent needed to do constantly improving work.

Role of Leaders - How CEOs ... by Daniel F. Bassill

There are dozens of other articles on this blog that relate to this article. I encourage you to spend a little time, over many years, reading and understanding them.  I urge donors to endow programs at universities where students study these articles over a period of years, so they  leave college knowing what it's taken me 50 years to learn.

That's because great teams require great leaders, with broad visions.  This country needs a disciplined, sustained effort to develop and support such leaders.  

If you understand this, then please share it with your network, via your own blog posts, videos, GIFs, podcasts, etc.  Help recruit the talent needed in Chicago and other cities with high concentrations of poverty to fuel a broad network of constantly improving, mentor-rich, youth serving programs.

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings and to those who also sent contributions to support my work.

Over the next two weeks and throughout 2024 I hope many readers will visit this page and make contributions to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  

Using Our Resource Links to Tell Stories and Create Change

I've been building a resource library since the early 1990s intended to help people develop strategies that support more kids in high poverty areas as they move through school and into adult lives.  I added two new links today.

First, is an article by Thom Hartmann, which I saw in this Twitter post. 

America is rapidly becoming two nations because Red states are able to mooch off Blue states, using stolen tax money to reinvent the old Confederacy, “own the libs,” and wage “war on woke.” How do we end Red State welfare?https://t.co/gqOvMkyisC

— Thom Hartmann (@Thom_Hartmann) June 27, 2023

I read the article and I hope you will, too. Then I added it to a list of similar articles which I've been aggregating since 2017 on this Dropbox page. If you skim the list you'll find numerous articles about race and class in America.

The Dropbox list is just one place where I've been aggregating links to articles about race, poverty, inequality, social justice, prevention, etc.  The nodes on the concept map shown below open to sections of the library. At the bottom is a "New Links Are Added Regularly" note, with a "see also" node where you can find links to my Dropbox pages. 
 

The second resource is a map on the CARES (Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems) website, which shows data at the county level for indicators such as Children In Poverty, Mortality, Rank by County, etc.  This is a "build your own" platform.  Start at the home page and choose what information you want to show on your map. 

I added a link to this CARES map in this section of my library.  That means anyone can use this site to build a map that focuses on any part of the USA.  Student activists can learn to do this. 

So how do you combine these two resources?

If you read the first article, you can use a map view from the CARES site to emphasize the levels of extreme poverty in Southern states, fed by the self-interested policies of the rich and powerful in these states.   You can also use other data maps, which I share in this concept map.

I'm just one person. Thousands of people need to be digging into this information and creating articles, videos, promotional materials, etc. that aim to increase the number who use their time, talent, dollars and VOTES to blunt the efforts of oligarchs and racists in the South, and across the country, then REVERSE their policies, creating a brighter future for America and the world.

Below is a Tweet that's an example of work that needs to be done.

📣 I know Virginia gets all the "odd-numbered year election" attention, but KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA and MISSISSIPPI all have elections in 2023 as well. Donate to help shore up Dems in red states TODAY!https://t.co/o6XGhck8nQ

— Charles Gaba isn't paying for this account. (@charles_gaba) February 23, 2023

This Tweeter, Charles Gaba, is trying to raise money to help progressive candidates win seats in RED, GOP controlled states, as well as in traditionally BLUE states.  Scroll through his Tweets for the past six months and you'll find Tweets that focus on many different states.

YOU can do this too.  Or you can just help draw attention to this information, using your own social media and communications skills.  

Below is a graphic that I created several years ago to visualize the choices we have.

Imagine a snowball rolling from the top of a mountain, down toward the valley. As it grows it collects more snow, ice and rock, and gets bigger. Unless something stops it, it will eventually demolish every home in the valley. The snowball is the problem of inequality, and the challenges of getting millions of people from beyond poverty personally engaged in helping kids born or living in poverty have the opportunities they need to climb the ladder of social mobility.

YOU have a choice. You can say ENOUGH, and try to stop the forces of evil, or you can let it gain momentum, and destroy any future of peace, hope and opportunity for generations to come.

Thanks for reading.  Share this article and you've made your first choice. Create your own version and share it and you've made two more choices.  Keep making these choices every day.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon and Instagram (see links here). I hope you'll follow me and introduce me to your networks. 

If you're able, please visit this page and send a small contribution to help me fund this work. 

Greater Business Involvement in Youth Development

Last April I posted an article with photos of former President Obama, Education Secretary (and CPS CEO) Arne Duncan, and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, who's now campaigning to become the next Mayor of Chicago.  

Today I posted this Tweet after seeing a story in the Chicago Tribune about Arne Duncan's strategy for reducing violence in Chicago.  

.@arneduncan says "we need violence prevention at scale, more effective policing and a major commitment from the business community", I agree. We also need more support for k-12 programs that prevent kids from needing programs like CRED. https://t.co/0FiqLreXPu https://t.co/oXOTxOlYe1 pic.twitter.com/1ysniSRwIK

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) October 11, 2022

I've been sharing ideas on this blog, my website and in print newsletters since the 1990s showing strategies leaders should embrace.  I shared these personally with Arne and Paul Vallas in the mid 1990s when they were at Chicago Public Schools (CPS). I pointed Barack Obama to these ideas when he was the keynote speaker at a 1999 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.  I also shared these ideas with Michelle Obama in the 1990s when she was working at the University of Chicago.

In the Tribune article, Arne Duncan says "we need violence prevention at scale, more effective policing and a major commitment from the business community".

I agree. However, I think he needs to offer a lot more detail.  I have the same thoughts for what I'm seeing for Paul Vallas.

So, here's one of my presentations, focusing on increased business involvement. 

Creating Virtual Corporate Office to Support Mentor_Rich Youth Programs in Multiple Locations from Daniel Bassill

Below is one of the slides from the presentation.  It includes a map of Chicago, showing areas of concentrated poverty.  In an article last month I pointed to research showing areas of concentrated poverty in cities across America.   Leaders in each city should be using maps the way I've been using them, to focus attention and resources to every high poverty area.

In the presentation I compare a site-based tutor/mentor program to a retail store, like a Walgreens, or a Wal Mart.  Leaders of these companies build stores in places where they see large numbers of potential customers.  Planning teams make sure the stores have merchandise customers want, and have friendly, courteous store staff, to ensure customers will return to the stores over, and over.   

Advertising teams publish weekly messages intended to draw customers to their stores and to sell specific products and services. 

A tutor/mentor program that offers a variety of learning and enrichment experiences, targeted to specific age groups, or to volunteers, provides reasons for them to come to the program and return every week.  I call this a "retail store full of hope and opportunity". 

Below is a chart that lists some of the "stuff" that each site-based program should have available.  It's also in the presentation. 

The reality is that few non profits have all of these elements. Nor do they have the resources to attract them.  Nor do they have advertising dollars to attract customers (volunteers, youth, donors, etc).

That's where businesses and their employee volunteers can make a difference.  Below is another presentation, titled "Role of Leaders".  

Role of Business Leaders - Helping Kids From Poverty Areas Move to Careers from Daniel Bassill

I encourage anyone who is reading my blog to take time to view these presentations, then create and share your own interpretation.  Apply the ideas to your own leadership strategies.  They are freely available to everyone, including Arnie, Paul, Barack and other visible leaders.

One first step for any leader is to build a resource page on their website, pointing people to learning that helps them better understand issues and opportunities.  Adding http://www.tutormentorexchange.net opens all of the resources I point to, including these PDF presentations, to their own followers.  

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I hope you'll connect with me and share your own ideas.  I'd be happy to help you understand the thinking behind these presentations. 

If you appreciate what I'm sharing, consider a small contribution to help fund my work. 

Role of Leaders in Mobilizing Corporate Support

In building the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993  (now Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC) I've borrowed from many sources.  One was Chicago's United Way/Crusade of Mercy, where I served as Loaned Executive from 1990 to 1993. 

Below is a concept map that visualizes the African proverb: "It takes a village to raise a child."  

If you click here, you can find 30 articles where I've used this "It Takes a Village" concept since I started this blog in 2005.  I use the ideas as a strategy that needs to be growing in cities all across the country, and demonstrated with web sites that show a commitment visualized in the strategy map below.



When people in business, media, entertainment, politics, religion, education, colleges, and every other part of the "village" adopt this commitment, with themselves shown in the blue box at the top of the graphic, then we can begin to build the public will and long-term commitment needed to fill every high poverty neighborhood in a city with a wide range of supports needed to help kids move successfully and safely from birth to adult lives free of poverty.

When I was a Loaned Executive I collected donation history for 10-15 companies, showing per capita giving, percent participation, leadership giving, etc. within a company and within similar companies in the Chicago region.  I then briefed CEOs of major corporations who then met with CEOs who they did business with, or had an influence, (and were my accounts). The goal was to solicit campaign pledges each year that grew each company's giving history. 

I borrowed this strategy when forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

My goal since 1993 was that leaders in each industry (shown as clusters on the village concept map) would adopt a Chief Crusader role and would a) commit to recruiting volunteers and providing funding for youth tutor/mentor programs from their own company; and b) would recruit other leaders in their industry, or geographic region, to make the same commitments. 

Over time that would have led to consistent funding and volunteer support to tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of the region.  

That has not happened. Yet, to reduce violence and improve workforce readiness, it needs to happen. 

How to get started? Make a leadership commitment, as a teacher, a college professor, a Rabbi, a CEO, then appoint someone to take the lead. Start a learning process, where you open and close every node on the strategy map so you know the information it's sharing, and you know what your commitment involves.

Role of Leaders - How CEOs can help inner city youth from birth to work by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

View these presentations, created by interns, as part of their own learning between 2006 and 2015. Youth and adults could be creating similar presentations, focusing on their community and their strategies.

Create a version of the strategy map and share it on your website and blog. Teach others to use it.

Raising kids and helping them be healthy, productive, contributing adults who can keep America great, and keep this planet safe and nurturing of all of its different populations and resources...human, animal, plant... is something that everyone should be able to agree on.

It does take a village. But until we have responsible, on-going, commitments of time, talent and dollars from every part of the village, supporting youth in the most economically challenged parts of every city, these will just be empty words.

That means students, volunteers, college researchers, and others will need to learn to create maps that show who in the village is involved, and who is still not involved.  You can see some examples of event mapping of past Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, at this link. Many different forms of mapping are highlighted in articles on the Mappingforjustice blog.

Part of the learning that people do will need to include finding ways to map participation .

I've been posting ideas on this blog, on web sites and in printed newsletters since 1994. The tags on the side of this blog are shown in this graphic, and in articles like this,  in an effort to help people navigate through this vast web of information and ideas.

If you share this commitment, please share this and other ideas shared on this blog and my Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site.  Help build the village in every part of the country.

Thanks for reading.

Please connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  

If you value the ideas I'm sharing, please visit this page and send a small contribution. 

Creating year-round attention

I have used graphics for 20+  years to communicate ideas. Almost all related to what we need to do to build mentor-rich non-school, and school-based, support systems to help kids in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives.

Because this blog has a vertical structure (you only see the most recent on the home page), some graphics don't get as much attention as they should. Here's an example.

We did the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and launched it with a first Chicago tutor/mentor programs survey in January 1994.  Over the next few years we developed a year-round series of events intended to draw attention, volunteers and donors directly to the youth programs we were learning about in our surveys, while drawing those programs together to learn from each other.  

View this video to see animation showing  year-round strategy, created by intern in late 2000s.

We published our list of programs in a printed directory each year from 1995 to 2003 and have shared the list on-line since 1998. You can find it now at this link. 

We started using maps of Chicago in 1993 to show where non-school tutor/mentor programs were most needed, based on poverty, poorly performing (and poorly funded) schools, etc. We plotted locations of existing programs on these maps. I've posted more than 250 articles demonstrating how maps can be used and created an entire blog focused on uses of maps. 

Conferences in May and November, a city-wide volunteer recruitment campaign in August/September, a Tutor/Mentor Week in November were events my team organized.  We drew upon the January National Mentoring Month publicity to try to build renewed attention to tutor/mentor programs in February, when many were looking to replace volunteers who had dropped out over the holidays.  We had other goals but they never were able to be developed.

Visit this page to read more about these activities. 

We're now in the Back-to-School volunteer-recruitment period and this morning I looked at this blog to see when I last used this graphic.  It was last November, in this article. 

It's an important concept because it emphasizes the role anyone can take to draw attention to youth serving programs in their community.  I'll share this on Twitter because while there are countless politicians calling for your votes, and your dollars, I don't see many (if any) using their Tweets to draw volunteers to youth serving programs in the districts they want to represent.

Maybe this can encourage a few to add this message to their posts. 

While I no longer organize conferences or a site-based volunteer-recruitment campaign, I still host a library and encourage youth programs, volunteers, youth, business, donors and others to draw ideas from it that they use to help kids in poverty move safely from birth to work.  Furthermore, I share history of events I organized, such as the recruitment campaign, and the tutor/mentor conferences, with the goal that others in Chicago and other cities will create their own versions of these, and their own year-round calendar of youth support events.

You can find me on each of these social media platforms

And, you can help me cover the costs of keeping this information available to you and others around the world by visiting this page and making a small contribution. 

Thank you for reading and sharing my articles. 

If you scroll back to articles from past years are there some graphics that I used in the past that you think I should emphasize with a new post?  Let me know. 

Steps Leaders Can Take

As news spread yesterday of Elon Musk buying Twitter I posted this concept map asking "what would happen if Elon Musk adopted this strategy?"

Then, last night, I had a nightmare that repeats often.  "How would I explain the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute in ways a leader like Musk might quickly understand?  It took me 45 years to develop my own understanding. I suspect the attention span of busy CEOs would be less than a few minutes."

Then I thought of a "Role of Leaders" essay that I created in the mid 2000s.  The graphic below is from page 2.  It asks "What will it take to assure that all youth in every poverty area of Chicago (and other places) are entering careers by age 25?  How can you and your industry help?"

The answer to my problem is that I don't need to teach people everything about the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I need to convince them to show their commitment by providing leadership, following the steps shown in this strategy essay.

Here's the full essay.  Bring a group together and discuss this with them. 

Role of Business Leaders - Helping Kids From Poverty Areas Move to Careers from Daniel Bassill

Make the commitment and appoint a "get it done" person to lead your company's effort. Start a research project, and start a communications campaign. At the end of the year recap what you did, what you learned from your work, and that of others, and launch planning that repeats your efforts the next  year.

Continue this for 10-20 years and you and people in your company will know more about what I've been trying to do than I do.

And, maybe, you'll have more impact.

This applies to colleges and high schools, too.  Create a student/alumni learning group that applies the same steps.  

Here's one article where I describe how universities could take the lead in helping youth in areas surrounding the university move through school, through college, and into jobs and careers. 

The article includes an outline of steps that could be taken at any university, or even at high schools.

I end the presentation with this slide, saying "it only takes two or three people on campus to launch a Tutor/Mentor Connection."

Well, what if Elon Musk or MacKenzie Scott, or some other billionaire, were to provide money for such a program to grow on a college campus?  And keep it growing for many years.

That would create a generation of new leaders who operate youth tutor/mentor programs, lead schools in high poverty areas, lead companies and universities, and hold political positions in every city and state.  And they all constantly network and learn from each other. They all work to generate a flow of operating resources that reaches every place within the ecosystem of people and organizations working to solve this problem. 

They all contribute to web libraries that anyone can use to constantly improve their own efforts.

View graphic in this "tipping point" article.

The answer to my nightmare is that I don't need to teach people everything that I've learned. I just need to motivate them to put one foot forward toward decades of learning and leadership. 

Who's taking this role?

Thanks for reading my articles. Please share.  I'm still on Twitter, and on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other platforms. See links here. 

April Newsletter. What if....

I sent out my monthly newsletter today.  You can read it here.  

I've been sending out a newsletter, in print or email version, since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993.

At the right you can see the first page of the Jan/Feb 1996 newsletter, featuring a photo of Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and leaders of the Chicago Fire Department.  This was taken at the November 1995 Tutor/Mentor Conference, held at the Fire Department Academy.  Vallas was the keynote speaker. 

Below is a photo of former President Barack Obama, from 1999 when he was a speaker at another Tutor/Mentor Conference held in Chicago.  See it on page 5 of this newsletter. 

You can find archives of past newsletters on this page.  

Here's another Chicago leader. When Arne Duncan was CEO of Chicago Public Schools he gave small grants to support the Tutor/Mentor Connection and spoke at the volunteer recruitment campaign kickoff in 2001. You can see this image in a 2016 blog article I wrote. 

If you search for Arne Duncan, Barack Obama or Paul Vallas on this blog you'll find many articles where I've pointed to them. 

There's a common theme. I point to information people can use to help build and sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas of Chicago.  I point to research showing where and why such programs are needed.  I point to articles showing how current fund raising practices don't do enough to support long-term programs.  And I encourage people to use the information. Or if they pointed to maps the way I've done in more than 250 articles.

Below are recent Tweets featuring Obama, Duncan and Vallas.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than being with young people. And last week, I had a chance to speak with some of the bright students at Hyde Park Academy taking part in our Futures Series with the @ObamaFoundation.

Here's a look at some of the advice I shared with them: pic.twitter.com/Ct9z6Z8LgU

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 14, 2022

@tutormentorteam
Arne Duncan Managing Partner Chicago CRED
Just A Few Questions Podcast

Arne Duncan is the former United States Secretary of Education and Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools.https://t.co/nhCcF3gEhX

— I Post Stuff (@IPostStuff6) April 19, 2022

#Chicago

The Pandemic Crisis Continues: Paul Vallas

Paul Vallas former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools
Marc Sims talks with Paul Vallas about how the COVID19 pandemic is impacting public education.https://t.co/2xVSbj3n89

— I Post Stuff (@IPostStuff6) April 18, 2022

Now imagine how much more they might have accomplished over the past 25 years if they had been the authors of the newsletters I wrote, and the articles on this and the MappingforJustice blog.  Of if they had consistently read the articles and then encouraged people they influence to also read them and apply the ideas.

Would more people have been investing in programs reaching K-12 youth in high poverty neighborhoods, helping kids through school and into jobs and careers?

Would more people "who can help" be responding to their appeals, and reaching out to offer time, talent and dollars to support school and non-school youth tutor, mentor, learning and jobs programs in every high poverty area of Chicago?  Would this strategy have been duplicated in other cities and countries?

We will never know because they did not take that role, nor has anyone else of influence, celebrity status and power.  

Well, it's never too late. Start now. Maybe in 2040 we'll see less poverty and violence, less structural racism and inequality, because of what our leaders, and others, do consistently, every week, for the next 20 years.  

This blog will remain available, either at this address, or in the Internet archive. 

The www.tutormentorexchange.net will also remain available via the Internet archive. 

Thanks for reading. Please share. And let's connect on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  

Using maps to draw resources to high poverty areas

With the tragic war in Ukraine we're now seeing maps showing troop movements, occupied territory and besieged cities. If you're old enough to remember the first Gulf War you might remember the evening news reports with Generals using similar maps to show progress of Allied forces in Iraq.

I've been using maps since 1993 for a similar purpose, in the "war on poverty".  I posted three Tweets last week that draw attention to this strategy. Take a look.

I've posted over 250 stories on #Tutor #Mentor blog since 2005 that show uses of #maps. Take some time to browse through them. Adopt the strategy in your own leadership in #WarOnPoverty. https://t.co/OR2W7YGIto pic.twitter.com/V0TrDs1yMt

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) February 28, 2022

I created this in late 2000s to show planning steps needed to win the #WarOnPoverty. These are just like winning any war. You need better trained, armed & fed troops in the right places for as long as they are needed. You need #PublicWill to support you. https://t.co/H0aad23ssI pic.twitter.com/GXEVIBRgN1

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) February 28, 2022

I share these on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, too, but have found greater engagement on Twitter than on the others.

Here's an example.  One of my Tweets was noticed by Anthony Brogdon, from Detroit, last week. That resulted in a conversation where Anthony told me of a movie about mentoring he is producing (see link) and that he was interviewing people involved in mentoring to help draw attention to his movie.  I joined him in a ZOOM call and below you can see how he shared our interview in another Tweet. Click on the link to view the video.

In conjunction with my effort to produce Foot Soldiers a feature length movie about #youthmentorship I present Daniel Bassill a Chicago based mentor for over 30 years https://t.co/fBH7uFyY9Q @tutormentorteam @TMLAcademy @6figga_dilla @alvinfoo @ChiPubSchools @ourmaninchicago

— Anthony B (@Astrongdream) March 2, 2022

This is what I want to have happen as a result of this blog and my activity on social media. I want to enlist others in drawing attention to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities, and to my own efforts, which I hope many will duplicate.

Here's another Tweet illustrating this goal.

I wish that following the #STOU I'd find social media posts featuring @JoeBiden @BarackObama and hundreds of other leaders, pointing to #maps showing where kids and families need help, and to lists of programs serving them who also need help. If you see any, please share. pic.twitter.com/qpiOJJj78v

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) March 2, 2022

We need leaders from every sector using their own visibility and communications networks drawing daily attention to information showing where and why kids need extra help, and to maps and databases that people can use to distribute their help to youth, and youth-serving programs, in every high poverty area of Chicago and other places.

If you see an athlete, business leader, politician, student or other person pointing to a map saying "get informed; get involved" and "let's fill all of these highlighted areas with great programs helping youth through school and into adult lives and jobs" please share this information on social media and be sure to tag me on Twitter @tutormentorteam.

Browse articles on the MappingforJustice blog for more examples of ways maps can be used as well as articles describing my own use of maps since 1993.  This is one of several articles where I describe my past use of maps and the need for someone to step forward and rebuild this capacity. 

If you'd like to take this role, please reach out to me. 

Shout Out to ...

Below is a graphic I've used for many years to show the role intermediaries can play to connect "people who can help" to "places where help is needed".  In my work those places are high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities, and "those who need help" includes organized non-school tutor/mentor programs and the volunteers, donors, staff, parents and youth who support them.

I've been doing this work for nearly 30 years, having formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, but with uneven and limited resources each year due to inconsistencies of funding caused in part by the dot.com bust in 2000, Montgomery Ward going out of business, the 9/11 tragedy in 2001, the financial markets collapse in 2008 and my split in 2011 from the non-profit where this all started 30 years ago.  The greater difficulty has been due to challenges facing all non profits which I point to in this section of my library and in articles like these. 

Thus, my voice is like a "whisper in the wilderness".  

Below I want to recognize a few with much higher public visibility who are doing some really great things.

Chicago Community Trust - http://www.cct.org 

Under the leadership of Helene Gayle, since 2017, the Trust has focused its efforts on confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap. Browse the website, and Twitter and Facebook pages, to see a constant stream of information intending to mobilize "those who can help" and point them to "where they can help".  

Field Foundation of Chicago - https://fieldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Field-Foundation-Heat-Maps-2020-1.pdf  

Open the link above and view the maps shared in the PDF on the Field Foundation website. The foundation is using these to guide its grant making.  I hope other foundations are looking at this and doing the same.  The map of Chicago does not change, regardless of who is looking at it. Thus, if visible leaders are pointing "people who can help" to these maps, they are also pointing them to "places where help is needed".

Hope Chicago - https://hopechicago.org/ 

This week Hope Chicago (@HopeChicagoEdu on Twitter) announced the names of five Chicago high schools where every graduating student, and some of their parents, will receive full scholarships to colleges within Illinois.  They aim to add schools to this list every year, thus doing much to assure that kids in high poverty neighborhoods are getting through college once they enroll.

Below is a graphic on the Hope Chicago website showing their five step strategy of helping students achieve a "debt-free college education".  

I'm particularly pleased with point 4, which says "Engage existing providers by forging partnerships with community providers and universities to support our scholars and get every one of them over the finish line."  

I'm also pleased to see this page that shows models in other cities that HOPE Chicago is learning from, such as Kalamazoo's Promise.  

Hopefully this means they will use my maps and list of non-school tutor/mentor programs to identify existing programs to partner with and to help form new programs in areas where too few exist. Furthermore, my hope is that they will enlist businesses and colleges to be strategic in how they support youth serving organizations and schools in every high poverty neighborhood.

I share plenty of ideas on this blog, the www.tutormentorexchange.net website and the MappingforJustice blog. 

If these organizations point to maps and graphics like this "birth to work" arrow, on a weekly basis, they can inspire long term funding and employee involvement in many places.

To&Through Project at the University of Chicago - https://toandthrough.uchicago.edu/   

I've highlighted the work of the To&Through Project in previous articles. I get their monthly newsletter and follow their Twitter account. I've participated in some of their ZOOM events.  There is a load of information intended to help Chicago students "to and through" college.  In the maps above I show the new group of middle schools added to their Middle Grades Network.  I also show my map of Chicago tutor and/or mentor programs. 

I've circled the three areas where the To&Through Project schools are located. On the West side of Chicago there are several existing programs that could be partners with the middle schools, but in the other two areas, there are almost none (at least based on my list). 

I had to create these graphics myself. My hope is that at some point in the future I'll see similar graphics on the websites and blogs of these and other leaders in Chicago, who will be each filling the "YOU" role of drawing "people who can help" to information they can use that makes them smarter and more consistent in supporting schools and non-school programs in high poverty areas who are trying to help kids through school and into adult lives and jobs.

I point to these organizations in the monthly Tutor/Mentor eNews along with others who are doing good work and share resources on their websites.  You can subscribe, or read it on my website. 

If you're reading this, thank you. Please go a step further and share my articles with people you know and encourage them to do the same.  Take a further step and create your own articles, borrowing from what I've written, that share your own thinking of ways to help kids in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places move through school. 

As you see other foundations, businesses, colleges, and NPOs doing outstanding work be sure to share what you're seeing on social media and through your own blogs. Together we can turn a "whisper" into a "roar". 

Visit this page to find links to my social media spaces and visit this page to make a contribution to help me pay the bills. 

Super Bowl. Olympics. What's Involved?

Like almost everyone else around the country I'm going to be watching the Super Bowl football game tomorrow.  Many are also watching the Winter Olympics. 

Thus, I want to draw your attention to the infrastructure that is needed to build great teams. Then I want to ask you to think of ways volunteers in business, civic and alumni groups, sports, entertainment and faith groups, etc. can take on roles of fans and team owners to build and sustain great tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities.

Below is a graphic I've been trying to develop for many years.

The team on the field consists of youth and volunteers who are connected via the efforts of the staff and leaders of organized tutoring, mentoring and learning programs. Youth in poverty face many obstacles, thus the defensive line in this graphic represents some of those obstacles. However, organized tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods also face many challenges.

Unless we as a city can overcome these challenges (visualized in this concept map) there will be too few great tutor/mentor programs in the many Chicago area neighborhoods where they are needed. Or in neighborhoods of other cities where NFL, NBA and other pro sports teams operate.

In this graphic, the fans in the stands are people who work in business, attend faith services weekly, attend local colleges, etc. These are the people who support great sports teams by their attendance, by watching on TV, or listening on the radio. They support sport teams, and sponsors, by the way they purchase sports apparel, and the way they talk about their teams on a daily basis. These are people who could be volunteering time, talent and dollars to support tutor/mentor programs.

In the sky-boxes are team owners, boosters, investors and others who pay millions of dollars to make great teams available...at the professional level, and at the major college level. Unless we find investors like this to support the growth of great tutor/mentor teams in more places, there will be too few, and there will be few who have long-term commitments to building great teams.

This next graphic shows the role of intermediaries. The articles I write and graphics I create are limited by the talent I have to do this work. The number of people who see these is limited by my own lack of personal visibility and advertising dollars. Thus, if we want more great teams we need more people doing what I do, taking on an intermediary role to help connect people they know with ideas and with programs where they can help implement these ideas.

I send out a monthly email newsletter, with graphics like these, and with links to different sections of my web library. This section points to almost 200 Chicago area youth serving organizations who need support from fans and owners to be world class at what they do.

The goal is that people use the information I'm aggregating to expand the range of ideas they have to support actions they take to help great tutor/mentor teams be available in more places. Volunteers from different places could help create a better design for this newsletter, could write articles, and could create their own versions to circulate this information to their own network of family, friends, co-workers, etc. 

Since most of my library points to Chicago youth programs, every city needs someone duplicating my efforts and building their own library of local programs, maps and research.  

Below is an animation that illustrates a role athletes could take on a regular basis to mobilize fans and owners to support constantly improving youth programs in high poverty areas.



This animation, and other videos in my library, could be re-produced in many ways, with hundreds of different athletes, celebrities, etc. giving the message.

This isn't something that happens once a year, like the Super Bowl, or NBA AllStar game, or every 2 years like an Olympics. But if it is given the same attention, the result will be better support of hundreds, or thousands of different youth serving organizations operating in Chicago and other cities.

And ultimately, that will provide more of the support youth need to move through school and into adult lives and careers.

I'm on Twitter @tutormentorteam, which is where I'll be commenting during tomorrow's Super Bowl, and every day after that.  Join me. Follow me. Share your own game plan in blogs like mine. Feel free to use my articles for your own game plan and play book. As you share your own strategies, I and others will borrow from you.

Thanks for reading. Let's go out and help great youth tutor/mentor programs grow in more places.