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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July 2008, Issue #66
- Learn how Lawyers in Chicago support tutor/mentor programs
- New Maps on Tutor/Mentor Connection web site
- Volunteer Recruitment - do you have a campaign?
- Conferences, Networking,
Recommended Reading
- Compare your web site. Is it helping you recruit volunteers and donors?
- President's Message - Engaging Faith Communities
Instructions for removing yourself from
this list are included at the bottom of this email.
NOTE: throughout this newsletter we use a TinyURL to
shorten long web site addresses so the links do not break. We hope you
find this helpful.
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Learn how lawyers
and judges are supporting volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago
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. Find
details at
http://tinyurl.com/57lnd5
This event recognizes lawyers, judges and law firms who are helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago. At the left is a map of Chicago showing high poverty areas, locations of poorly performing schools, and 31 locations who received 2007 grants totaling $240,000, from the Lend A Hand Program. Cabrini Connections was one of the recipients. The Tutor/Mentor Connection was a major recipient with a grant that helps us support this networking and capacity building effort. You can find the complete list of grant recipients at http://lawyerslendahand.org/support
Today the T/MC posted new maps on the
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com web site, showing the locations of more
than 200 organizations that offer various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring in
Chicago. We have another 200 listing in our database that we cannot map
because we do not have updated information on type of program, age group served,
or time of day the service is provided. If you are a tutor/mentor program in the
Chicago region, contact Chris or Nicole at 312-492-9614 email
tutormentor2@earthlink.net so we can update you information and get your
program on the map!
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Volunteer Recruitment Campaign - Encouraging volunteers
to use the Internet to find places to volunteer.
One
of the goals of the Tutor/Mentor Connection is to stimulate business, church and media
involvement in August and September volunteer recruitment activities.
Another is to teach individual programs to use blogs and web sites to tell
stories of how your veteran volunteers and youth are connecting with each
other, and how other volunteers and donors can help. If programs connect
their web sites via links the traffic generated by hundreds of stories can help
everyone recruit more support as school starts in the fall.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection seeks to support this strategy. You can read more about our efforts at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/RecruitmentCampaign/recruitment.asp
The primary resource we offer is the Chicago Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/programlocator/default.asp which includes a searchable database, links to nearly 200 Chicago area youth serving organizations, and information that people can use to learn why tutor/mentor programs are important and ways to be involved. If you operate a volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring program in the Chicago region you need to make sure your information is included, and up-to-date.
In addition to the resources offered by the Program Locator, there are many local and national services, such as Idealist.org, VolunteerMatch.org, ServeNet.org, and 1-800 Volunteer, which enable non profits to post volunteer jobs, and potential volunteers to search by zip code, to locate volunteer job opportunities. This links shows the range of these resources: http://tinyurl.com/yqkacz
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Stay connected to speakers and participants of Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences
The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) has hosted May and November networking conferences every six months since May 1994. Our purpose was to connect people to information they can use to build strong tutor/mentor programs, and to people who would help them and who they can help. Staying connected between each conference is a goal of this networking. The Attendee List at http://www.tutormentorconference.org/ArchiveRegistrationList/ enables conference participants to connect with each other. During August we will add an archive to this so you can search for participants of each conference since May 2007.
We are planning a November Conference for Chicago. Email tutormentor2@earthlink.net to show your interest in presenting workshops. Watch the http://www.tutormentorconference.org site for details.
View May 2008 Conference Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvdLueMBV24
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Other Conferences: Post information
about your conferences at
http://tinyurl.com/6kecmw
When you organize your conference, post links to the Tutor/Mentor Connection web
site so your conference participants have access to the information offered on
the T/MC site in addition to what they can find at your event.
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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 posted this
week by Bill Huddleston, a workplace
fund raising expert, and to see how you
can submit your own article.
http://tinyurl.com/2gqu4l
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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 map showing
research articles can be found at
http://tinyurl.com/5c5488
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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. Some
are great. On some it's difficult to know that a tutor/mentor program exists. We
encourage site visitors to use web sites to shop and compare, and to determine
where you can volunteer or make a donation. The T/MC web site
encourages visitors to rate web sites using these guidelines:
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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President's Report
Creating a Faith-Based Support System for Tutor/Mentor programs.
In the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) zip code map at http://tinyurl.com/5asyge you can click into the different sections of Chicago to learn more about the tutor/mentor programs who received 2007 Lend A Hand Program grants, and to see if there are others who offer tutoring and/or mentoring in various Chicago area zip codes.
The reality is that there are more than 240 organizations in the T/MC database doing some form of tutoring and/or mentoring (see article and maps at http://tinyurl.com/5juomm ), and the money that LAH is able to give is only a fraction of what each organization needs each year to provide its services. This is why we hope the Lend A Hand model will be duplicated in other industries, as well as in alumni and faith networks.
This map shows Catholic Churches in the Chicago region.
(S
ee
faith maps at
http://tinyurl.com/69bphm if you are reading text-only email)
Imagine if the leaders of the Archdiocese of Chicago were sending sermons to every Catholic church in the suburbs, encouraging them to support tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods. Those congregations could be using maps like this to determine what parts of Chicago are closest to them, and what programs they might support. Volunteers living in the North suburbs who work in the city, could be reaching out to programs along the Kennedy Expressway, or along Lake Shore Drive.
Volunteers in Elmhurst and the West Suburbs, who travel the Eisenhower, could be supporting program on the West side of Chicago, while volunteers who travel the Stevenson Expressway, or the Dan Ryan, could be helping tutor/mentor programs grow in the Southwest and South part of Chicago.
This map of Catholic churches in Chicago is one of nine new maps, showing different faith denominations in Chicago. We write about these at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com and you can find these at http://tinyurl.com/5uuuud.
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.
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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
Thank you to everyone who reads this newsletter and who
passes it on to others in their network.
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
http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com