More maps now in my archive

A couple of weeks ago I posted this article, showing map stories the Tutor/Mentor Connection created since 1994 to draw volunteers and donors to youth programs in high poverty areas of Chicago.  The graphic at the left is part of that collection. 

I've continued to aggregate maps from different files in the archive so I encourage you to take another look and see what's there.

While I received donated ESRI software in 1995 to use in making maps, I depended on interns from Northern Illinois University to set up my map-making capacity in our tutoring program office in Chicago.  Then, mostly depended on volunteers to make maps for me in following years since I could not find the money to hire someone with GIS expertise.

Then in 2007 an anonymous donor gave us $50,000 to build our map-making capacity.  Mike Traken joined us on a part time basis in January 2008 and made our maps until 2011 when, due to diminished funding, I was no longer able to keep him on staff.  

Yesterday I created a folder in my archive, showing maps Mike created, such as this one featuring the Illinois District 9 Legislative District.

The maps tell stories. This shows the level of poverty in the district and shows universities and hospitals with facilities in the district. Green stars on the maps show existing youth tutor and/or mentor programs in the area.  Hospitals, universities and businesses are assets who should be strategic in using their resources to help tutor/mentor programs grow, and help kids in those programs, and local schools, move through school and into jobs and careers.

Ideally there should be many more green stars in this district than what my map shows.  

Note, this map was made in 2008 or 2009. What would a map of that district look like now? 

This link will take you to the folder with maps that Mike created.  When you open it you'll see this screen.

Above the maps shown are 14 folders, each with maps related to that topic. Thus, the map of District 9 is in the "Political Leaders" folder, where you will find 9 other folders in addition to the one for District 9.  

Hopefully, these inspire you to make your own maps and map-stories to support the growth of needed services in Chicago or in other places.

I wrote an article in 2014 using these map-stories, with the headline of "Without Effective Leadership, Same Problems Will Continue".  

That's been my message since the 1990s.  

I wrote, "I can not find evidence that any leader, from any industry in the Chicago region, has devoted consistent advertising resources to draw attention to tutoring/mentoring, and to draw volunteers and operating dollars to programs throughout the city, or to programs near places where they do business, or where employees or customers live.

I can not find evidence that the current, or former mayor of Chicago, or any alderman, state elected official or county president, has led a weekly, yearly campaign, intended to draw needed volunteers, dollars and technology resources to the tutor/mentor programs operating in various Chicago neighborhoods. Even the occasional public declarations of support for Chicago's kids don't work like a Polk Bros ad to draw attention to tutor/mentor programs all over the city, and to motivate people to volunteer time, or give operating dollars, to support existing programs, or to help new programs start in neighborhoods with great need, but too few programs."

I think the Tutor/Mentor Connection offers a template that others can learn and build from. That's why I've been archiving all of my records.  Now I just need to find some wealthy visionary who will fund a program at a university, where these records are part of a study curriculum that prepares leaders to adopt the strategy in every city with high concentrations of persistent poverty.

Interested?  

Connect with me on Twitter (x), LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and my blogs. (see links here).

And, if you're able, support my work with a small contribution. Visit this page and use the PayPal button.

Using maps to draw attention and resources to high poverty areas

This week I watched two panel discussions hosted by Friends of the Children - Chicago.  One is shown below. You can find the second at this link.

    

Friends of the Children has a long-term model of supporting kids from first grade through high school.  In these videos the speakers make a case for why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed in areas with many indicators of need, such as high poverty, violence, poorly performing schools, etc. 

I've used graphics like the one below to emphasize the need for long-term programs in high poverty areas of Chicago, so I'd like to see more programs who build such support for kids into their core strategies.  

What I did not see in the videos was anyone holding up a map of Chicago, saying "We need programs like this in every high poverty neighborhood, not just a few."

I've been using maps since 1994 to show where tutor/mentor programs are most needed, and where existing programs were already operating. I've also used them as part of a "Rest of the Story" public awareness strategy.  Below is an example.

This map-story was created in 1996 following a feature story in the Chicago SunTimes with a headline of "Slain children mourned: 'When will this end?"  My strategy was to leverage the public attention of the news report to show the areas where the shooting took place, and to show any tutor/mentor programs in the area (if there were any).  In creating these maps, we also showed "assets", businesses, faith groups, hospitals, universities, etc, who shared the area, and who should be strategic in helping tutor/mentor programs grow near where they do business.  

Unfortunately, we did not have the Internet available in the 1990s so few people actually saw these map stories.  I've been sharing them on this blog and the MappingforJustice blog since 2008. 

Over the past two weeks I've posted several articles showing some of my archives.  Now you can look at two more sections.

This folder includes more than 90 map stories created since the 1990s. 

This folder is even larger.  It contains more than 600 maps and images, mostly created since 2008, which I've used in blog articles, strategy presentations and newsletters.  

Not all of the images in this folder were created by myself, or the volunteers and paid part-time staff, who created maps for me.  Some are screenshots from other websites that we used in stories on one of our blogs.  Some are images of work done in 2008-10 to build the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator Directory (which has been an archive since 2018). 

By sharing these archives I hope to serve as a resource for students and learners throughout the USA and the world, to demonstrate strategies for helping draw attention to places where the people and the planet need extra help, and extra, on-going, long-term, resources.

Between 2006 and 2015 interns from various universities in Chicago and South Korea spent time looking at articles on my blog and website, then created their own visualizations sharing what they were learning with people they know.  You can see their work on this page. 

My goal is to inspire a donor to make a major gift to a university that would fund a Tutor/Mentor Connection study program, where students do similar research and build a similar library of media stories and maps.

Imagine finding an archive like mine on a university website 10 to 15 years from now.

The graphic below visualizes my goal. Universities could be creating future social problem solving leaders who are constantly learning from each other and constantly feeding their own experiences into central depositories of wisdom.  

This blog article describes this as a "Tipping Point", because it not only grows a new cadre of leaders who use AI and other tools to aggregate information and draw from these libraries to support their own work, but also educates alumni who go into business and professions, rather than social service, to be proactive, on-going, and generous in supporting those who do go into social service work.

Since the 1990s, I've been building a library of information to support what people do to help kids in high poverty areas connect with adult tutors, mentors, learning opportunities and jobs.  The concept map below shows that library.

The challenge with such a growing amount of information is motivating people to spend time looking at it, and using it to support what they do to help themselves and their family, and to help others create a better future for all of us.

Thanks for reading. And thanks for sharing.

I'm on Twitter (X), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and a few other platforms (see links here). I hope you'll connect with me.

If you'd like to help me pay the bills, please visit this page and make a contribution.  

I'm not a 501-c-3 nonprofit, so cannot offer you a tax deduction, but can promise to use your contribution to keep this library of ideas freely available to you and the world.

Locating places with persistent poverty

My Twitter feed brought a new report to my attention this week. It's titled "Persistently poor, left-behind and chronically disconnected" and was written by Kenan Fikri who I've been following for a while.  (I'll use Persistent Poverty to refer to this report in the rest of this article.)

The map below was what caught my attention.  It shows areas of concentrated poverty in six Ohio cities.

I wrote about this on the Mapping For Justice blog a few days ago. You can read that article here. 

Today I zoomed into the interactive map shared on the Economic Innovation Group website to look more closely at different parts of the country where some of my #CLMOOC educator friends live. 

This map shows Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

This map shows Kentucky and Tennessee

This map shows Washington State

This map shows Chicago, Milwaukee and the area surrounding Lake Michigan. 

This map shows Washington, DC and Baltimore

What these maps show is that the places of concentrated, persistent poverty, are not everywhere. They are small parts of big cities like Chicago, or big states.  The mapping  platform is interactive, so you can look at other places and you can zoom in to the neighborhood level.  

Below is a screen shot showing the abstract describing the research where I found these maps.  

The abstract shows a focus on social networks and social capital and says "these problems tend not to resolve themselves naturally".

I've used maps since 1994 to try to draw attention and resources to high poverty areas of Chicago to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow and stay connected to youth and volunteers for many years.

Below are two images that illustrate this commitment:

The first is the front page of the 1995 Chicago Tutor/Mentor Programs Directory.  The map's shaded areas are places of concentrated, persistent poverty.  In the Directory, I listed volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs and provide contact information so parents, volunteers, donors, media, educators and social workers can find them.  View PDF of the Directory.

The second is my Total Quality Mentoring graphic.  This shows the goal of connecting youth living in high poverty areas with volunteers from different places and backgrounds, as mentors, tutors, activity organizers, friends and coaches.  

View this PDF to see my vision of leaders from different industries using their own time and talent to mobilize volunteers and donors to support tutor/mentor programs in different high poverty areas of Chicago. 

The role of intermediaries.  The graphic below shows the role the Tutor/Mentor Connection has taken since forming in 1993, and that the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC has continued to support since forming in 2011.

Read articles posted on this website since 2005 and the Mapping for Justice blog since 2008, and the www.tutormentorexchange.net site since 1999, and you'll see the information I've aggregated and shared to support efforts to help build and sustain mentor-rich programs in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other places.

The maps showing persistent poverty in America show other places where an information-based intermediary like the Tutor/Mentor Connection is needed.  My graphics and articles show the active role the intermediary needs to take to draw users to this information, help them understand it, and help them apply it to bring volunteers and dollars to every youth serving program in every high poverty place, for many years.

Colleges and universities in every city and state could create tutor/mentor connection research programs do duplicate the work I've piloted since 1993.  This PDF shows this goal.  All it takes is for one, or two, wealthy alumni to provide the money to pay for such a program, along with a dedicated faculty member who wants to lead this for the next 30 years or more. 

I've shared this story for many years. Every city needs people doing the same, for as long, and reaching more people.  Learn from my example. Borrow from my files Create your own libraries, blog articles and visual essays. 

Or, accept that we'll still have areas of persistent poverty 30 years from now.

You can find me on social media at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon and more places. Find links here. 

At the right is a 1994 story from the Chicago SunTimes, showing how I traded my advertising job at the Montgomery Ward corporation to lead a tutor/mentor program.  The teen in the photo is now the mother of two college age boys, holds at least one MBA, and is a successful business woman.  That was our goal when we launched our program.

That can be the future for many kids living in high poverty areas, if you'll help organized, on-going, tutor/mentor programs reach them.

Do you value what I'm writing? Make a small contribution to help Fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute,  LLC. visit this page. 

Maps. Planning. Teach Youth to Do this Work

Last week I posted an article showing a new data platform created by Argonne Labs, in partnership with the Northwestern University Digital Youth Network.  In that article I asked "How will it be used to make STEM learning and career opportunities available to youth through out the area?"  

That's what I'm addressing with today's article.  As you look at the rest of this article, keep the concept map below in mind.

What are the actions and programs that are working in some places, that could work in many other places, to help kids in high poverty areas move from birth-to-work? Is someone aggregating these into a library that others can draw from in their own planning?  Will people who build the data dashboards, build these concept maps?

Below is a collection of articles about ways to use maps and data dashboards to determine where youth and families need more help as young people move through school and into adult lives,  jobs and careers.

Since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 I've tried to teach people to use maps to focus attention and resources on specific places. This could be an entire city, or a small neighborhood.  This concept map is an example.

The articles I've shared in this collection are just a few of what you'll find in this blog, the Mapping for Justice blog and in the library of PDF essays on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site.

My hope is that educators at colleges, universities, junior colleges, high schools and other institutions will use these articles in curriculum that results in more people applying these ideas in more places.

I've been focusing on this problem for over 30 years and thus there is an extensive collection of ideas on these blogs and in my website.  I realize that very few people visiting this blog will take time to read more than a few articles, at most.  Thus, there needs to be another way to draw consistent, long-term, attention and reflection.  Creating a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy, or embedding these ideas into a strategy with a different name, such as the Digital Youth Network, is my solution.

Between 2005 and 2015 interns from various universities spent time looking at my blog articles then creating visualizations, videos and their own blog articles to share what they were learning. You can see their work on this blog.

Imagine if you were able to find a blog like this Intern blog, embedded on the website of dozens of universities, junior colleges, high schools, etc. in 2035, showing 10 years of learning and actions. 

That could change the world.

I created the concept map shown below to visualize the commitment leaders need to make to help kids born or living in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places be starting jobs and careers by their mid 20s. 

One role any of these leaders can take is to provide the funding that would motivate an institution to create a learning program based on the ideas in this blog.   That might not be YOU, but it might be someone you know. If you share this article with them, they might be inspired to take this role.

Thanks for reading. 

Connect with me on one of the social media platforms I show on this page.

Support my work in 2024 with a year end contribution to my Fund T/MI campaign. 

Or support Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC with a gift to recognize my 77th birthday on December 19. 

Last week I posted an article showing a new data platform created by Argonne Labs, in partnership with the Northwestern University Digital Youth Network.  In that article I asked "How will it be used to make STEM learning and career opportunities available to youth through out the area?"  

That's what I'm addressing with today's article. While data shows "where" people  need extra help, we still need blueprints to show "what help" is needed, and in what sequence.  For instance, in building a tower you don't start on the 4th floor.

Data Platform Maps STEM Ecosystem in Nine Chicago Community Areas

I posted an article this morning on the MappingforJustice blog showing a  robust data visualization site created by Argonne Labs in partnership with Northwestern University’s Digital Youth Network.

I encourage you to read the article and think of ways you can create map stories using platforms like this, to draw attention and resources to specific neighborhoods where kids and families need more help moving through school and into adult lives and opportunities.

New Article on Mapping Blog

While the articles on this blog focus on "all we need to know and do" to help youth in high poverty areas have support that helps them move safely from birth to work, the Mapping For Justice blog, started in 2008, focuses on ways that maps and visualizations can be tools to help meet this goal.

I posted a new article yesterday, using the graphic shown below. I hope you'll read it and skim through other articles on that blog.

While I'm aware of some groups collecting information about youth serving organizations in Chicago and other cities, I've not found any who are doing the analysis of "What programs exist, where are they most needed, where are the voids?"  or writing stories weekly that intend to increase the number of people using this information to help well-organized non-school tutor/mentor and learning programs reach more K-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago or other cities.

If you know of such research please share links in the comment section, or on any of the social media channels where  you can connect with me.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week. 

Chicago school closings. 2011 and now

Today I read a WBEZ article titled "Chicago Closed 50 public schools 10 years ago. Did the city keep its promises?"  

Today's article is the first in a 3-part series and includes maps that show a majority of these schools were in areas with high concentrations of Black Chicago residents.

So far,  the answer to the question, is "No. Chicago did not keep it's promises."  I encourage you to read this article and the ones that will follow.

I was curious to see what I wrote about the school closings, back in 2011 when they were happening.  Below I've re-posted an article that I wrote in November 2011.

--- start 2011 article ---- 

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

It leads off saying:

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

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

It includes a statement saying:

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

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

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

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



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

On this next map you can see locations of different non-school tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago area. You just don't see a large number of programs in many parts of this map. I encourage you to use the Interactive Program Locator (archive since 2018) and create your own map. Sort by type of program and age group served.

When trying to understand this information you need to think in layers. What is the distribution of tutor/mentor programs serving elementary school kids? Middle school? High school? In each neighborhood programs serving all three groups need to be equally available?

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

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

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

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

---- end 2011 article ----

If you've read any of the articles I posted before, or after, 2011, I've constantly encouraged leaders to invest in a city-wide network of non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in every high-poverty neighborhood.

No leader has yet embraced this strategy.  Maybe Chicago's new Mayor will make it part of his strategy, and his legacy.

He won't know about it unless you share this article with him or members of his team.  

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Mastodon (see links here). I hope you'll connect and invite your network to also connect.

If you'd like to help me keep writing articles like this and hosting the Tutor/Mentor Library, please visit this page and make a small contribution.

If you'd like to bring my archives into your university so students can study what I've been sharing and apply it to their own lifetime commitments, I'd really love to talk with you!  

Fix how youth programs are funded

Last night I interacted with some educators who I met in 2013 via an Education and Technology MOOC (#ETMOOC).  I mentioned a participation map that I had seen late 2012, which drew my attention to the event.  After looking around for a while, and exchanging some Tweets with the organizers, I found the map. You can see it below and at this link.

I've been encouraging leaders to use maps since 1994 because they point to all of the places within a geographic region, like Chicago, where people need extra help. Participation maps can show "who is in the conversation, and lead to a discussion of "who's missing".  I wrote about this in 2016 and 2017 articles. 

That's not really the focus of this article.

While I was scrolling my blog via my phone, looking for the ETMOOC map, I found a 2013 article I wrote about foundations who fund youth serving programs in Chicago and around the country.  I'm reposting that article below:

----- start ----

I’ve been part of an Education Technology MOOC (#ETMOOC) this week where more than 1000 people from around the world are connecting on-line and sharing ideas about uses of technology in education, learning, media and network building.

I’ve been trying for the past 20 years to build this type of learning community, connecting all of those who are concerned with the gap between rich and poor in America, the education system, workforce diversity, social justice, violence, public health, and a number of other reasons to be involved. Some people talk about the "village" it takes to raise kids. I write about it and try to bring members of the village together.

I started leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in 1975 (see history) while I held a full time job with the Montgomery Ward company. While our program grew to include over 300 pairs of youth and volunteers by 1990, funding was not an issue because all of the leaders were volunteers.

However, in 1990 when I converted this program to a 501-c-3 non profit and needed to raise money to pay salaries for myself and others to stay involved, the funding of non profits began to become a real issue. Over the years I’ve aggregated a wide range of personal frustration on the challenges small non profits face in finding consistent operating funds, and I’ve built a library of articles that show how others think on this topic.

I illustrate my thinking visually so let me show some maps that I think many of you will find interesting, and useful.

This is a map showing nearly 400 foundation (corporate and private) in the Chicago region and Eastern part of the United States who I put on my mailing list between 1993 and 2005.

Every year I send copies of my printed newsletters to these people, showing why tutor/mentor programs were needed and what I was doing as a direct service provider, and as leader of the intermediary Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The green icons on the map are foundations that funded my organization at least one time. Few funded me more than 2-3 years in a row. Some, like Montgomery Ward, funded me for seven consecutive years, then went out of business, and thus were not able to continue their support. None of the grants was larger than $50,000 and most were in the $1,000 to $10,000 per year range. Some were for general operating expenses, which I could use flexibly to build the organization, while many focused specifically on activities of the Cabrini Connections direct service program or the Tutor/Mentor Connection. In total I raised more than $6 million between 1993 and 2011, with a peak of $500,000 in 2000. This money split with 40% funding the Cabrini Connections direct service program, 40% the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and 20% funding operating and fundraising expenses. With no multi-year commitments, each year since about 1998 I started from zero in raising $300 to $400,000 from a wide range of donors.

This map shows a close up of the Chicago region so you can get a better sense of how many foundations I was reaching out to.

My organization never had more than 3 or 4 people on staff, and never had a full time professional development officer. I was CEO, chief innovator, chief marketing officer, newsletter writer, grant writer, janitor. Yet every year I was challenged to write letters of introduction, letters of inquiry, grant requests, grant reports, each with different requirements and different questions.

Yet we all were focused on helping expand the network of programs supporting inner-city kids during the non-school hours. By 1998 I was using web sites to show the work I was doing and what I was trying to do.

This map shows the Chicago LOOP area.

When I begin using maps I started following media stories about kids being killed in Chicago, with maps showing where this was happening, and with links showing what tutor/mentor programs were operating in those areas,

and what knowledge was available to community leaders, business and foundations so they would work to build programs that would provide more mentoring, tutoring, learning opportunities. Visit this Map Gallery to see a collection of maps created in the past.



This week I attended a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at the University of Chicago, where panel members were asked to talk about their experiences with mentoring.

They each talked about mentors who “helped them stay in school” and who provided life lesions, such as “never, ever forget where you come from”.

Here are some other quotes from the event:

“Who ever is talking to them and showing an interest is a mentor.”

“We need to mentor each other’s kids since our own don’t listen to us enough”

“Foundation of mentoring is caring.”

“Mentoring is a two-way street. Mentors learn from youth.”

“Students who are successful have great networking skills.”

“Since the middle class has left the inner city, how are we going to connect mentors with youth living in inner city neighborhoods” “How do we reach those kids.”

“The politicians don’t care. These kids and parents don’t vote.”

“Why are there only 30 people attending this event when this is National Mentoring Month?” Why don’t more people care?”

I handed out business cards to each of the participants and said “Let’s find ways to change this.” I share these ideas on my blog, and in MOOCs so that people in more places will come together to find ways to support the growth of mentor-rich programs in more places where they are needed.

I host a Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator with maps that show where tutor/mentor programs are needed. Why can’t leaders in these foundations use my maps, or similar directories, to adopt neighborhoods, then adopt tutor/mentor programs in those neighborhoods and make long-term commitments to help each program become the best in the world by borrowing ideas from each other and using a constant flow of operating/innovation dollars and volunteer talent to implement these ideas.

Here’s an interactive version of the map of foundations. You can enlarge the map and zoom in and see the name and location of each. Some no longer exist since this list was last updated in 2005. (2023 editor note: this map may not show up in your Chrome browser. It does show up when I view it from my phone. It also can be seen if you use Microsoft Edge browser.)
  

With more than 200 youth serving organizations in Chicago offering various forms of tutoring, mentoring and non-school support, we can have 200 development officers and/or Executive Directors reaching through this list to find foundations who will give them funds each year, which is a tremendous redundancy.

Or we can build strategies that educate and motivate donors and business partners to reach out and build proactive support systems for tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods that need such programs.

We can discuss ideas like this in face-to-face events, like the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences. We can also connect in on-line events like the Education Technology MOOC.

We can do both. We can do better.

---- end 2013 article ----- 

Sadly, I still don't find people using maps to show participation in events, or to expand participation to more of those who need to be involved.  I've not seen many foundations using maps to show who is receiving their grants, or anyone aggregating this information to show all of those funding specific types of service categories, like youth development and/or tutor/mentor programs, within specific geographic areas.  

I've had almost no response to the business cards I shared in that January 2013 mentoring event. I still don't find youth development, tutor and/or mentor program leaders, staff, funders, researchers, and business leaders interacting in on-going MOOC-like events.

While I've actively reached out to build lists of stakeholders on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I find few doing the same (or adding me to their lists). 

Maybe this is happening in different parts of the country, or the world, but I don't see it.  

If you share this article in your networks, maybe some people will send me links to websites showing this work being done.  I'll add those to my library and share them with others.

Thanks for reading. You can find me on these social media pages. 

Since writing the 2013 article I've added collections of articles in the About T/MI, History, and A New T/MC sections. Read these to understand what I've been trying to do, and to learn how you might duplicate this work in different places.

And, you can help me keep sharing these ideas by visiting my "Fund T/MI" page and sending a small contribution. 

Changing Demographics for Chicago Children - Update from 2007

I've been using maps since 1993 to focus attention on areas of high poverty in Chicago where kids and families need extra help.  At the left is a photo of me with a Chicago Tribune article on the screen behind me. The headline was "City kids at risk" and the sub head told of 240,000 kids living in poverty.

I've pointed to this and similar maps often in an effort to motivate leaders to develop long-term strategies that build and sustain mentor-rich non-school youth programs in all of these areas, instead of having a few great programs in a few areas.  

Below is an article I wrote in January 2007 

----- start 2007 article ---

During a Public Policy Forum hosted in Chicago on 1/24/07, maps were used to show the changing population trends and their implications for future services. The research was created by the Chapin Hall Center for Children.

The T/MC has used maps for many years to show poverty demographics and locations of poorly performing schools as an indicator of need for tutor/mentor programs. The T/MC Program Locator includes a Map Gallery, and a searchable database that visitors can use to shop for programs in different parts of the Chicago region.

However, we've also built a GIS links library, with links to different organizations in the Chicago region and nationally who are using maps to create a better understanding of poverty as the root cause of many other social issues.

During the meeting today I invited the 300-plus participants to use the GIS links on our web site as a resource in their own planning and networking. In addition, I invited them to add additional links, showing other sites that use maps to provide a spatial understanding of important social issues.

I also invited people to provide information about forums where people are using maps to share information, network and collaborate, so that all children in the Chicago region have equal opportunities for an education and a life out of poverty.

Finally, if you know of people who blog the issues that were discussed in today's forum, add your link to the T/MC links library or introduce this resource in the comments section below.

If we build a network of Chicago area and national organizations using maps to make better decisions, then the next step is to create blog-exchanges at strategic times throughout the year, so we can draw a growing number of people together to look at this information, reflect on it, and use it to do more to help kids living in poverty neighborhoods.

 ---- end 2007 article ----

If you spend some time viewing articles posted since 2007 I've often invited leaders to adopt the strategies I've been sharing.

It has not happened.

For a variety of reasons but most likely, too few have ever spent time looking at what I've written, and the ideas have always been too far from common practice for people to understand and adopt them.

Many things have changed since 2007, but two stand out.

First, the number of kids living in poverty has declined.  This article points to research by UIC and the MacArthur Foundation showing demographic shifts since 2000.  The biggest decline is among Black Chicagoans. The UIC report shows that this group declined from 1,063,737 in 2000 to 787,661 in 2020.  At the same time Latino population grew from 753,644 in 2000 to 819,518 2020. 

According to the UIC report (page 40) 28.2 percent of the Black population is in poverty. 18% of the Latino population is in poverty.

That means around 222,000 Black Chicagoans live in poverty in 2020 and 147,500 Latino families live in poverty.  That's about 370,000 people. 

Another report from Self Inc., a financial technology company, says that "20.6% of Chicago minorities live in poverty".  This report says that there are 126,988 children below the poverty level in Chicago.

That's a big change since 1994, but still a huge number.

Second, media stories about crime and violence remind us that poverty continues to have a negative impact on many children and families living in high poverty areas.

I included this Chicago SunTimes story in an article I posted in November 2020. 

It's one of dozens of similar articles I've posted in this section since 2007.  

So, there are still a lot of kids who need help in Chicago. That's true for other big cities, too. 

Yesterday I was contacted by a PhD student from Germany, who had visited my MappingforJustice blog and wanted me to fill out a survey about my uses of technology for civic benefit.  Last year I wrote about an on-going conversation I was having with Aliyu B. Solomon, from Nigeria. 

I wish people in Chicago had been showing similar interest over the past 28 years. Actually, a researcher from the University of Chicago did do a brief case study of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the late 1990s. You can read it here. 

In this report one observation said "T/MC may be particularly difficult to understand because it does not easily fit within known categories of organizations"

That remains true in 2023.  

In the 2007 article I pointed to the library of GIS resources that I had been building.  I've added to that often since then.  I also created this concept map, to help people find data resources they could use in creating stories similar in purpose to those on this blog.

I still don't find many using maps the way I have been so I've also not been able to gather people at strategic times a year to talk about what they are doing. Maybe someone in the future will do that.

The future.

Along the left side of this blog are tags that enable you to narrow your search for articles to read.  I encourage you to open About T/MI, History, and A NEW T/MC to expand your understanding of what I've been trying to do and to learn ways you might build your own version focused on your city, and/or step forward and help rebuild the T/MC to focus on Chicago in future years.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it. 

I'm on various social media platforms. I hope you'll connect with me.  Find links on this page. 

Furthermore, I invite you to help Fund T/MI in 2023 to help me continue to share ideas and host the ideas and library.

Visit this page and use PayPal to send a contribution. 

Go forth and do good!