August 2023 T/MI News

With school starting soon volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs are all recruiting volunteers. However, that's only the start of this journey. Programs need to provide training and on-going support.

This month's newsletter points to resources programs, volunteers and students can use throughout the coming year.

The ideas and resources shared in this monthly newsletter point to a library of resources that can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world, to help mentor-rich youth programs thrive in all of the neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Encourage others in your city to find and use these resources!

This concept map show resources that you can find in the Tutor/Mentor library. You can use them to develop training materials. You can use them to motivate volunteers and students to do on-going learning, which is a much more efficient use of staff time in a small nonprofit organization.

At the bottom of each node on my concept maps are small boxes. Put your mouse on these and you'll see links, either to external websites, or to other concept maps.

View this concept map at this link.

Anyone could earn a PhD by using the free resources on the Internet for constant learning over a period of years. The Tutor/Mentor Connection has aggregated links to a wide range of educational websites that can be used by students, volunteers, parents and teachers.

The challenge for leaders of tutor/mentor programs is to motivate volunteers to browse these resources so they know what's there and can lead their students to useful sites, WHEN the student is looking for extra help. Over time, the student should know where to find these resources when they need them, without much help from others.

I'd love to hear stories from readers about successes they are having of motivating students and volunteers to use on-line tutoring and learning resources.

View this concept map at this link

I led two different tutor/mentor programs between 1975 and 2011. The first served 2nd to 6th grade kids. I joined as a volunteer tutor/mentor in 1973 and became its volunteer leader in 1975. I stayed in that role through 1990 when we converted it into a non-profit. I led the non-profit as Executive Director until October 1992. The program had started in 1965, so when I joined it already was recruiting close to 100 volunteers and students at the start of the school year. However, half of those dropped out before the end of the year. Under my leadership this changed. By 1990 we had 300 pairs of kids/volunteers and we were growing from the beginning to the end of the year. 10% of volunteers had served 5 to 15 consecutive years.

I started the second program in Jan 1993, to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade move through high school. We started with 7 volunteer and 5 teens and by 1998 we enrolled more than 80 teens and 100 volunteers. Due to space limitations we stayed at this number through 2010.

During these years I learned how important it was to support volunteers so they would stay and grow in their knowledge and experience. That made them more effective tutors and mentors and turned many into leaders and resource generators.

The concept map above, and the one I point to below, show the cycle of support we provided which led to keeping our volunteers longer.

Here's a second concept map that shows the "volunteer growth cycle".

In PDF essays on this page I share strategies I learned over 35 years for starting and sustaining a tutor/mentor program.

What's your volunteer support strategy look like? Do you share ideas like this on your website, or a blog?

View this concept map at this link

While a tutor or mentor can have a huge impact on the choices a youth makes and his/her ability to move through school and into future jobs and careers, the kids we serve in organized tutor/mentor programs often live in high poverty, racially segregated neighborhoods where they and their families, and their schools face many different challenges. Some of those are shown on the map above.

Thus, as volunteers connect with kids we need to educate them about these challenges and send them back to their family, college, workplace and/or faith group as evangelists who educate others and draw reinforcements to tutor/mentor programs, and to efforts intended to reduce the barriers kids face.

Read - mentor role in larger strategy

Read - virtual corporate office

View - race poverty links in library

Your volunteers can be your most important fund raisers

This spring I received a report from MENTOR, titled "Opportunities to Invest in Long-Term Social Capital for our Youth: A Philanthropic Agenda". I point to that report in this blog article.

In that article I also used the graphic shown above. It's one I've used for many years to emphasize the need for long-term funding of general operations of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs. In the opening paragraphs of the MENTOR report the authors wrote:

"A striking data point from the study's survey showed that most funders want to invest in long-term positive changes (71%), yet none expected outcomes to take five or ten years. Instead, the majority of funders said they expected to see outcomes in just one to two years."

This was probably my greatest frustration when leading a tutor/mentor program. Donors wanted short term, measurable impact. Yet relationships take time to develop and kids need 6 years just to go from 7th grade through high school graduation. They need another 4-6 years to finish college or vocational school and be starting a job. We had to believe this would happen, even though we had no evidence.

Yet, now on Facebook I am connected to many alumni of the programs I led and see them posting stories of college degrees for themselves and high school and college degrees for their kids. That was the hope.

Funders were not supporting us consistently, which made the work much more difficult. The MENTOR report shows this is still happening,.

Read more: "Want to make a Difference? Re-Think Philanthropy" - click here

Use these additional resources in your planning and networking. See latest additions to the Tutor/Mentor Library at this link.

About this newsletter.

While I try to send this only once a month, I write blog articles weekly. Throughout the newsletter I post links to a few of the articles published in the past month or earlier. I encourage you to spend a little time each week reading these articles and following the links. Use the ideas and presentations in group discussions with other people who are concerned about the same issues.

View current and past newsletters at this link.

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