If you lead a volunteer-based youth tutor, mentor program, or other types of activity that engages volunteers, they need to be recognized, and well-supported, throughout the year.

In one of the graphics I share in this month's newsletter is a "volunteer growth cycle" that shows how volunteers who stay with programs for multiple years often become leaders, advocates and resource builders who help the host organization attract needed resources.

This planning should lead to a constant improvement in what programs do to help kids and volunteers connect and build relationships.

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!

Think of volunteering as a form of adult service-learning

This graphic is the first page of an animation created in 2011 by an intern from South Korea to visualize the growth of volunteers in organized tutor/mentor programs. You can view it in this video, since Flash animation no longer works. This visualization was actually started in 2007 by an intern from Hong Kong. You can see his version in this blog post.

These visualizations illustrate work that youth in schools, non-school programs and colleges and universities can do to help mobilize and sustain volunteers involvement in organized tutor, mentor and learning programs.

If you read this final post by Sam Lee, who created this animation, you'll see that she said "As a result of internship, I learn more than I expected. So it's very special time to me." Schools and non-school programs who engage youth in projects like this are creating valuable learning opportunities while engaging youth in actual efforts to create a better world.

Look at the conversations posted in this Tutor/Mentor Connection group and see the ways I have coached interns to create visual interpretations of our ideas. Anyone could use these same conversations to engage their own students in doing the same type of projects.

"None of us is as smart as ALL of us" - read the president's message at the bottom of this April 2007 Tutor/Mentor Connection eMail newsletter.

What you can do to end Poverty

In 2005 I wrote an article on the Tutor/Mentor blog titled "What you can do to end poverty". I reposted it in this April 2024 article. In March 2024 I included the graphic above, in this article, under the headline "Tutor/Mentor Connection needed in many places.

Most of my maps and graphics show where poverty is concentrated in Chicago. Some of the recent research I've pointed to uses maps to show areas of persistent, long-term poverty. They are the same places!

I use a "birth to work" timeline to show the long-term investment needed in each of the high poverty areas and I use a "hub and spoke" graphic to visualize organized programs that expand the network of "who you know" for kids who have limited connections to work and opportunity because of where they live.

Draw attention to these ideas - share them. Create your own.

The idea for the Tutor/Mentor Connection was born in late 1992 following the shooting death of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis in Chicago, and the media attention that followed it. Having worked in retail advertising for the Montgomery Ward corporation, I knew how we used weekly advertising, throughout the year, to draw attention and shoppers, to our 400 stores in 40 states. I recognized that Chicago needed a similar strategy, to draw volunteers, students and donors to every volunteer-based tutor/mentor program operating in Chicago, and to new programs that needed to grow where too few existed.

We did our planning in 1993 and launched in January 1994. Part of that planning was learning to use GIS maps to show "where" programs were located and where they were needed. Part of it was developing an event strategy, anchored by May and November leadership and networking conferences and an August/September volunteer recruitment campaign, to motivate the local news media to tell our story.

In this blog article I share links to a Google archive that shows dozens of media stories resulting from this strategy being followed for over 20 years.

I share this so leaders in other cities might develop their own strategy, borrowing from my archives and the history of the Tutor/Mentor Connection from 1993 till the present (since 2011 the T/MC has been led by the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and our website is http://www.tutormentorexchange.net)

Some day you should be able to find archives like mine in every city where there are areas of persistent poverty.

New Visual Essay. 30-Year History For 30 years I've reached out to universities in Chicago and beyond, to forge partnerships and campus commitments intended to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places and help more kids through high school, college, and into jobs. Now you can review this in a new visual essay which I share in this issue of the Tutor/Mentor blog. Share this in your network and help find donors who will bring this strategy to colleges and the cities where they operate.

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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