Use the ideas and resources shared monthly to help youth in your zip code have opportunities to participate in well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school programs.
 
February 2019 - Issue 178
Does Your City Have Enough Non-School Tutor, Mentor and Learning Programs?
 
The ideas shared in this monthly newsletter can be used by youth organization leaders, resource providers, political leaders, universities, volunteers and youth to help mentor-rich programs thrive in all of the neighborhoods where they are most needed.
 
While I try to send this only once a month, I write blog articles weekly. In the sections below 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.
 
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What Indicators Tell You Where Youth Tutor/Mentor Programs are Most Needed?
The new year has just started, and this school year has almost five months to go. Yet, now's the time for planning teams to be looking at data and determining if, and where, more youth programs are needed.

 
Most non profit youth programs constantly focus on two functions.
 

 
a) first is providing on-going support to youth and volunteers; which also includes recruiting new volunteers to fill needs and/or to replace volunteers who start to drop out of a program and working with parents and schools.
 
b) second is building public attention and doing donor research to find money to pay the operating costs associated with a well-run youth tutor/mentor program
 
Since it was formed in Chicago in 1993, the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC has been building an information base to support actions of youth programs and resource providers, to help every non-school tutor, mentor and learning program in the city get the resources needed to sustain operations and, hopefully, constantly improve by learning and borrowing ideas from others. 
 
Support for planning
 
The concept map shown below shows a wide range of data platforms that can be used to identify areas of high poverty where youth tutor/mentor programs are most needed.
 
 
Planning teams, within programs, at the neighborhood level, and/or withing high schools and colleges, could be digging into these platforms, and then drawing people together to discuss ways to support existing non-school programs and to help new programs form to fill voids.  
 
This should be an on-going process, but if it starts now, by August new strategies could be in place to draw attention and resources to existing programs, and a few new programs might also have been created.  
 
Read more:
 
Planning calendar - click here
Steps to Start a Program - click here
Shoppers Guide - click here
Virtual Corporate Office - click here
 
These are just four from a collection of more than 60 illustrated strategy essays you can find in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web library. Use as discussion starters in big or small group planning and learning.

 
How are You Connecting Students, Volunteers, Staff, Board Members and Donors with Ideas and Resources the can Use?
Are you creating a learning organization? Are you using the Internet as a Library and Meeting Place?
 
Learn about resources in Tutor/Mentor web library - read article

 
There are many reasons for creating a k-12 tutor/mentor program. There are many places such programs are needed.

However, there are also many issues that youth and volunteers, in schools and non-school programs, might become involved with, as part of their learning, and as part of building on-going relationships.

 
This graphic points to a concept map created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC, and to the United Nation's Global Sustainable Development Goals. Point your students and volunteers to this link, and encourage them to dig into the information.

 
 

In addition, here are three sets of links in the Tutor/Mentor web library that you can point to from your own web site.  
 

* Black History Month resources - click here
* Homework help - click here
* Volunteer Training - click here
* Youth as Leaders - activities - click here
 
The graphic with the multi-colored dots at the top of this section was first created by Sheri Edwards, a retired school teacher from Washington State, who I've met via the on-line Connected Learning (#clmooc) on Twitter. I just added a few more dots and some categories to her original graphic.   Here's an article by Sheri showing ways to use Twitter for connected learning. It's part of a series of related articles that she wrote, which I encourage you to take time to read. 

 
The Tutor/Mentor library is a vast resource. I've created concept maps to show additional resources in the web library. 

 
* the cMap at left points to a sub section with articles related to social justice, poverty, racism, inequality, housing, prevention, etc. 

 
* Research - why and where are programs most needed?  click here
 
* Resources to help you lead non profit - click here

Encourage staff, volunteers and supporters to spend a little time each week getting to know what's available to them.

 
Is Someone Building a Library of Youth Serving Organizations for your Community? Do They Point to it Regularly to Draw Resources to Programs?
The graphic above points to two lists of Chicago youth programs and Intermediary Organizations that Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC maintains on Facebook. 
 
This information is hosted on the Tutor/Mentor web site and our blogs, and shared on social media.  If such a list is not available for your community, someone needs to create it.  
 
In addition, an extensive web library is available.  Each month new links are added.
 
View this short video to see how you can find recently added links.  
 
Below are a few new links added recently to Tutor/Mentor web library:
 
* 2018 GradNation report. Progress slowing. click here
* 9 Ways Poverty Hurts Education - Mercy Housing blog. - click here
* Teaching with Graphic Novels (PDF) - click here
* Data Story Telling Tips - Improve Impact - click here
* Advancing Racial Equity with State (IL) tax policy - click here
* If you've never lived in poverty, don't tell poor people what to do - click here
* Study of High Net-Worth Philanthropy - click here
* Our Shared Digital Future - World Economic Forum - click here
* African Kings and Black Slaves - Slavery's True Origin - click here
* Building Personal Learning Network on Twitter - click here
* America's Incarceration Crisis - click here

 
View this blog article to find links to every section in Tutor/Mentor web library. 

Additional resources to help Chicago area organizations and supporters connect, learn and work collectively to help build support systems for youth:

* Resources to find Chicago Tutor and/or Mentor Programs - click here
 
* Strengthening Chicago Youth web site, click here;   blog - click here

* MENTOR Illinois - current newsletter
 
* Civil Liberties - resource map (recommend other links). -click here
 
* To & Through Project web site - click here

* Incarceration Reform Digital Resource Center - click here
 
* City of Chicago, CPS, links - click here 

* Chicago Organizations in Intermediary Roles  - click here

* Hashtags I follow on Twitter. Use to expand your own network - click here

 
There's a lot in each monthly newsletter. Bookmark it, or use this ARCHIVE page to find this and previous issues. 

 
What Impact Do I Have? How Can I Show It?
One of my contributors said to me last month, "I don't read your newsletter or your blogs any more because you keep saying the same thing? Can you show what impact you are having, in Chicago or around the country?"

 
I created a document, and posted it in my Google Docs file, that showed some of my interactions over the last two months of 2018 and the logic behind the information I share on an ongoing basis.  That was enough to convince him to renew his giving.

I decided to try to create such an archive monthly, so here's January 2019.

In my letter I said that since I've had no significant revenue since 2011, I feel just keeping the resources I share in this newsletter updated and on-line, is an accomplishment.  Nudging the network daily with my blog articles and social media, it an essential, on-going effort.  If you look through the pages of the two docs I've attached you can see responses from some who I've touched. 
 
The graphic shown at the top of this section is a concept map that shows blog articles from each month in 2018.  It's another way of archiving work done, and demonstrating value.  
 
If you agree this is a value, then  CLICK HERE to and use the PayPal, or mailing address, to send a contribution. 
 
If you'd like to help re-build the Tutor/Mentor Connection and/or bring it to your own city, let's start a conversation.

 
 
Tutor/Mentor Connection, Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
 
 Merchandise Mart PO Box 3303, Chicago, Il 60654 
 
tutormentor2@earthlink.net |  http://www.tutormentorexchange.net

Read about a Tutor/Mentor Connection "do-over" - click here
Connect with Dan (tutormentor) on one of these social media platforms.
 
 

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