Tutor/Mentor Connection NEWS
Linking ideas, programs and people to help inner city kids since 1993. A Program of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, a Chicago non profit organization.

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June 2008, Issue #65
  • Using maps to support tutor/mentor programs
  • Connecting participants in local and national events
  • Rate your web site
  • Chicago Lawyers Lend A Hand to Youth MY HERO Awards event
  • On-line Volunteer Recruitment Resources
  • President's Message - Recruiting Talent from Business and Universities


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May 29 and 30 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference - held at the Northwestern University School of Law, 365 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago. 

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) has created maps that show where poverty is concentrated in Chicago and show the participating organizations in the May Conference. You can see these at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com .  We thank everyone who participated, especially the people who volunteered time to lead workshops and serve on panels.

You can now view a conference video, created by student interns from Korea. It's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvdLueMBV24

Using maps, media and events like the May and November Conference,  the  T/MC intends to create more consistent attention for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region. Through this greater public awareness we hope to mobilize more people to be involved in tutor/mentor programs at hundreds of different locations in Chicago, not just one or two great programs, or high profile neighborhoods.

We want to help this strategy grow in other cities. If we link our web sites, we create greater web traffic, and enlist more people in businesses, churches, colleges, etc. can take on the intermediary leadership role that draws volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs throughout big cities like Chicago.  We hope you'll visit http://www.tutormentorconference.org and read more about speakers and workshops and contact us to help organize the next conference in November 2008.

Visit http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com to see more versions of this map and a list of organizations who attended.  See more examples of the maps T/MC is creating at http://www.horizonmapping.net/projects/tmc/tmc_gallery/Tutor_Mentor_map_gallery.html


National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service, held in Atlanta on June 1-3, 2008

During the first week of June the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service (http://www.volunteeringandservice.org/index.htm ) was held in Atlanta. I attended in my role as a Commissioner for the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service ( http://www.illinois.gov/volunteer/) , and as President of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

One of the great quotes was from Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who said, "We all came to this country in different ships. We're all in the same boat now." Another was from former President Jimmy Carter, who said, "We have the some of the best institutions of higher education in the world, but many of the best are surrounded by slums." 

The point of these comments and the focus of many workshops was that ending poverty is a responsibility of businesses, churches, hospitals and universities, not just of the non profits in the front lines who are working with youth, families, gangs and public health issues. 

I've started two discussions on the T/MC web forum that focus on business involvement ( http://tinyurl.com/5jf5kc) and university engagement ( http://tinyurl.com/59d8sd   ) . These include links to places like the Jimmy and Rosalynd Carter Partnership Program, and to web sites that show how employee talent might be mobilized to support the infrastructure of non profits.  At http://tutormentor.blogspot.com I've written a series of articles, with graphic illustrations, showing how the non-profit sector might engage the talent of businesses and universities to support on-going work.

National Non Profit Congress held in Washington, DC, June 1-3.
At the same time as more than 4,000 people were meeting in Atlanta, another 500 were meeting at the national Non Profit Congress meeting in Washington, DC.  While I was not able to attend this event, I did post some comments in its blog section and I encourage readers to look at the capacity-building ideas posted at http://www.nonprofitcongress.org/?q=2008materials . 

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Connect the conferences Using Social Networking and Collaboration tools
More than 4700 people attended the National  Conference in Atlanta and another 500 attended the Non Profit Congress event in Washington, DC.  125 attended the Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago.  Unless you're able to be in more than one place at a time, most of the participants of these conferences were only able to attend one workshop per time slot. Most people were only able to have conversations and collect business cards from a small number of the people who participated in these events.

I'm sure there were many others at these conference who we would like to meet, or who might want to talk to some of the speakers or other participants. That's why the T/MC set up an attendee list on the Tutor/Mentor Conference site. You can view it at  http://www.tutormentorconference.org/RegistrationList/  .  With this feature we encourage networking and collaboration to continue after the conferences are over and we enable people who did not attend the Chicago conference to connect with people who did attend.  If other conference organizers use tools like this as part of their registration process, the people who attend conferences all over the country can become more connected, and we can do more to put the ideas of each conference to work helping kids.

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Network and Share Ideas On the Internet
In addition to creating an attendee list to connect people who attend symposiums and/or conferences with each other, there are a variety of social networking forums where people who are interested in volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring can connect with the T/MC, and each other. Here are some places where the T/MC shares information:

The Tutor/Mentor Connection has a group on http://www.facebook.com and on http://www.myspace.com. Search "tutor mentor" on either site to find our group. 

If you've found a networking forum that connects volunteers, leaders, donors and/or youth in tutor/mentor programs, please post the link on the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site.

   

Mentoring Articles on Tutor/Mentor Connection web site
If you are part of a lively on-line community where issues related to tutoring/mentoring, volunteerism, or philanthropy are being discussed, why not submit an article for the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site?  More than 7,000 visitors view the site every month so this can help drive traffic to your own groups.  Click here to read articles submitted in the past.  http://tinyurl.com/2gqu4l

Volunteer Recruitment links -  One of the goals of the May Conference is to stimulate business, church and media involvement in August and September volunteer recruitment activities.  If you are recruiting volunteers, or if you are a church or business leader encouraging other people to volunteer, here's a section of links non profits can use to post volunteer opportunities, and that volunteers and donors can use to find contact information for tutoring and/or mentoring programs in Chicago and other cities-  http://tinyurl.com/yqkacz

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Recommended Reading:   
The Tutor/Mentor Connection maintains an extensive library of research, blogs and articles that show where and why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, and the challenges communities face in building and sustaining such programs.  A list of articles can be found at http://tinyurl.com/6763wz

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Rate your web site
In the Chicago Program Links at http://tinyurl.com/2k227y we have links to almost 200 different Chicago area organizations who offer various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring.  We asked our Korean interns to view some of the sites and rate them on a one-to-five scale, based on how well the web site supported the tutor/mentor strategy of the organization.  You can find the guidelines for these ratings at: http://tinyurl.com/638ezr

Anyone who is registered and logged in at  http://www.tutormentorconnection.org can rate a website or add their own site to the Tutor/Mentor Connection list of programs. 

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Learn how lawyers and judges in Chicago are supporting volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs
The 5th Annual My Hero Awards Luncheon, will be held in Chicago on July 30, 2008. The event recognizes lawyers, judges and law firms for their involvement in tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region. It is hosted by the SunTimes Marovitz Lawyers Lending a Hand to Youth Program.  This is a model that we hope will duplicate in other cities, and in other industries.  To learn more or purchase tickets for the event, visit  http://lawyerslendahand.org/lawyerslendingahand or email Karina Ayala, at Kayala@chicagobar.org.  
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President's Report
 

How to engage the talent in the workforce to support the infrastructure of non profit organizations?
 

During the second week of June, I posted a series of articles at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com to share my ideas on how we might answer this question.  Imagine if students from Hong Kong or Korea or England and inner-city Chicago were creating advertising, or cause related marketing, that captured the attention of thousands of volunteers and donors and drew them to tutor/mentor programs in different parts of Chicago, or New  York, or Los Angeles?  This is happening. Here are examples: http://tinyurl.com/6cvanq

A key part of the T/MC vision is the idea that maps can be  used to show where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and to identify programs already operating in these neighborhoods.  Along with this is the understanding that all of these programs need to have a consistent flow of resources in order to constantly improve the impact of their services and that third-party intermediaries can provide the leadership, and marketing, that draws volunteers and donors to all of the programs shown on the maps, or in searchable databases such as the Program Locator on the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site.

We've been piloting the uses of maps since 1993. However, it's only in the past six months that we have been able to fund a position in the T/MC  to create maps for us like those you can see at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com and in the map gallery at http://www.horizonmapping.net/projects/tmc/tmc_gallery/Tutor_Mentor_map_gallery.html . We will add new maps at least once each week, so I encourage you to visit these sites frequently and to use our maps to support your own work. 

If you're in another city, I'd be happy to show you how we've built this capacity and help you develop it for your own community, and in collaboration with us in Chicago.

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What if volunteers from business or universities were creating these maps, or hosting these discussions?
Imagine if discussion groups on places like http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com were hosted by volunteers from Microsoft, talking about ways they use technology to support tutor/mentor programs, or by volunteers from Accenture and Deloitte, talking about ways they used their accounting and consulting skills to support tutor/mentor programs. 

Imagine if these discussions used the same map libraries and program locators so that participants from hundreds of social and business networking groups would be innovating ways to fill poverty neighborhoods with great learning and mentoring opportunities. The result might be a supply chain that supports tutor/mentor programs all over the country, the way a business support locations all over the world.  Read about this idea at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/06/war-on-poverty-requires-sophisticated.html

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How do we document the progress of groups of people toward a common goal?
In 2000 the Tutor/Mentor Connection began to pilot an on-line documentation system to show how it was building knowledge, public awareness and resources to support tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region.  More than 1,000 actions have been documented since then. In 2007 a volunteer from Baltimore helped us upgrade this system so that more people could view and understand how the actions of a few, repeated over many years, can impact an entire city of organizations.  You can review the Tutor/Mentor Connection's Organizational History and Tracking System (OHATS)at http://www.vattsystems.com/ohats/Home.aspx

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Cabrini Connections celebrates 16th year.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection was created by volunteers who organized Cabrini Connections in 1992.  I was the leader of that group. We realized that creating one more tutor/mentor program in Chicago might change the world for a few kids, but would not have an impact on the thousands of kids who live in other neighborhoods of the city. Thus, we decided to split half of any money we could raise to develop a strategy that helps all programs grow. The Tutor/Mentor Connection is the result of that decision.  We still lead the Cabrini Connections program and on June 12th we celebrated our 16th year of service to teens in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago.  I encourage you to visit http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com and http://www.cabriniconnections.net  to learn more about this program and celebrate with us.

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Thank you to everyone who reads this newsletter and who passes it on to others in their network.
By attending the conference, participating in on-line groups, or encouraging others to participate, you connect your network to other networks who together can create greater public visibility for tutoring/mentoring  in Chicago and in other cities.  By sharing this information with friends and family in business, universities, churches and civic groups you help us recruit volunteers who will use their talent to help many different programs get the volunteers and resources needed to turn the ideas from conference into more effective volunteer-recruitment in August and September.  

If you would like to know more email tutormentor2@earthlink.net or call 312-492-9614.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Cabrini Connections
800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il. 60622
312-492-9614

Read the blogs at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com