Edition: May-June 2013
Issue No. 120

  
   

 
   

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NOTE: throughout this newsletter we use a Tiny URL to shorten long web site addresses so the links do not break. 

 
 		  

Issues of the month

* What's Your Plan for the 2013-14 School Year?
* Register now for June 7 Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago
* Use data to make case for funding of tutor/mentor programs in your area
* Start planning for August/September 2013 Back To School Volunteer Recruitment
* President's Message - Connecting Networks

   

issue 01

End of School Year. How Do You Celebrate? What's Your Plan for Next Year?

Congratulations, Savon
I received a message from Savon Clark today via Linked In. He's graduating from high school in June and is planning on attending UIC.  I met Savon when he joined us in 7th grade. I met his mother when she was part of the program when she was his age!  While he met once a week with his primary mentor, Savon also took part in Tech club each week. Here's a story showing a project he was working on,  written in 2010.  Here's a story from 2008 showing Savon as part of a youth leadership council.

How do you celebrate?
How does your program tell stories of youth and volunteers who are involved? How do you show an long-term involvement?  How do you show the many different activities that are part of your program?

Image created by Tutor/Mentor Connection

How do you show retention of youth from when they join you till when they graduate?
At the right is a graphic illustrating the need for continuous support for tutor/mentor programs who have a long-term commitment to help kids move from the grade level the are at when they join a program, to when the graduate from high school several years later.  If this is your strategy, how do you show it on your web site?  What other programs in your community share the same goals?  Do you network with them and work together to educate donors so the provide on-going operating resources to all of the programs doing this work in your community?  See more graphics like these in the Pinterest gallery at http://pinterest.com/tutormentor/first-grade-to-first-job/


Image created by Tutor/Mentor Connection

 

Registration Open: Next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago will be on Friday, June 7, 2013 at the Metcalfe Federal Building.


Image created by Terrence Harrington, who will be a presenter at the June 7 Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) was created in 1993, so we're now entering our 20th year. The first conference was hosted in May 1994. Following conferences have been held every six months since then. This has been a grassroots affair made possible by all speakers volunteering time to share ideas.  

 

The June 7 conference has an exciting roster of workshops. View the speaker page to see who we expect to present and what they will be talking about. http://www.tutormentorconference.org/speakers.asp

 

Some of topics to be presented:
 

* Stopping The Violence: The embodiment of core values and keys components that must be employed and embraced
 

*Nonprofit Communicators Workshop: Websites and Newsletters that Work
 

* Creating Caring and Safe Youth Centered Communities.

* Impacting Academic Achievement by Building Scholastic Long-term Learners
 

* Building Strong Programs: How to Leverage Evaluation to Strengthen Program Practices
 

* Volunteer Recruitment & Screening
 

* Enhancing the Infrastructure:  Collective Impact through Volunteerism and Mentor Connector Organizations
 

* Peace Summit Panel Discussion with Derrick Grace
 

* Mentoring Urban Youth
 

Mentoring Programs in High Crime Areas
 

* Building Muscle on your Board - Recruiting, Retention and Evaluation
 

* Building Support for Tutor/Mentor Programs from Business and Professional Communities

* The Two Year Waits: Today's Crisis in Male Mentoring
 

Using Social Media to Improve Organizational Capacity
 

* Turning Foundation/Corporate Funders into Investors
 

* Tips for Effective Mentoring
 

* Ten tips to be a More Outstanding Leader


View the agenda page  and the online Attendee List. Registration is now open. Please spread the word and help build participation.  Group rates and $20 scholarships are available. Just ask.

 

See photos from the November 2012 conference and from past conferences. 

 

NAMING RIGHTS: Did you notice that the conference photos invite a company and/or individual to become a lead sponsor, with their name associated with the conference?  Do you know someone who wants to have  this role? 
 

issue 02

  

Data and Maps show Youth in Poverty, Age 6 - 17 in Chicago Community Areas

  



Image created by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC

 

Using data provided by the Social IMPACT Research Center at the Heartland Alliance, and the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator's Interactive map, a set of maps have been created showing Chicago community areas and the number of high poverty youth, age 6-17 who live in each community area. 

 

If a neighborhood like Austin, has 6356 youth in poverty, which is 34.8% of the total youth age 6-17 in the neighborhood, can a case be made to donors that any well-organized tutor/mentor program in the area should be funded consistently from year-to-year?  Can a case be made that even more programs are needed in this area than what are now available?

 

Maps for all community areas of Chicago will be shown and discussed during the noon session of the June 7 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago. Visit http://www.tutormentorconference.org to find registration details.
 

  
 
 
 

issue 03

  

Mobilize Support for August 2013 Back to School Volunteer Recruitment

 


In 44 Chicago community areas more than 1,000 youth between age 6 and 17 live in high poverty. In each of these neighborhoods volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs operating in non-school hours could be helping youth focus on strategies needed to succeed in school and move more successfully toward jobs and careers out of poverty.

Every youth organization that offers tutoring and/or mentoring needs the same resources to operate and constantly get better at what they do.
Does your marketing strategy help draw attention, volunteers and donors to programs in different parts of the Chicago region?  Are businesses, faith groups, colleges, local elected officials and celebrities helping you programs in your neighborhood attract these needed resources?

As we finish one school year, we need to be planning volunteer and youth-recruitment strategies for the coming school year. While workshops at each Tutor/Mentor Conference show ways to recruit volunteers and better communicate the needs of your program, what can we do to encourage teams of volunteers in business, faith groups, colleges, media, sports and entertainment to use their own communications to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs throughout the city and suburbs?

At key times each year most tutor/mentor programs in a city are involved in similar activities. In August they are looking for volunteers. In November they are planning holiday fund raising campaigns. In January they celebrate National Mentoring Month. In February they are looking for replacements for volunteers to replace those who started in September but dropped out at the beginning of the new year. In May they are doing year end celebration, evaluation, and next-year planning.


 Image created by Tutor/Mentor Connection

At these times each year, non profits, intermediaries, business and media could be focusing their messages on why and where tutor/mentor programs are needed.  If links in these messages point to these search tools, everyone will have more resources to help them locate volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in Chicago and other communities. 

* MENTOR resources and referral service - http://www.mentoring.org/program_resources  
* ServeIllinois -    http://www.serve.illinois.gov/
* VolunteerMatch - http://www.volunteermatch.org
* Additional on-line volunteer search web sites http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Volunteer-Recruitment

 

In the Chicago region, use the Map-Based Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and Links library to help locate programs in specific zip codes. Our aim is to help programs grow and thrive in all parts of the region where they are needed.

* Chicago Program Links - http://tinyurl.com/ChiTM-Program-Links
* Chicago Map-Based Tutor/Mentor Program Locator - http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net

One role youth in Chicago can take is to  help collect and maintain information about area tutor/mentor programs, which is shared via the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator .  Read how youth can be part of this information collection process.  http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Information-Collection

 

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president's message

Connecting networks is our goal. We can do more working for common purpose.

by Daniel F. Bassill

This graphic shows intermediary organizations in Chicago and Illinois who focus on the well-being of youth. I want to help them connect more frequently with each other.

Images created by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC   
See this image at http://tinyurl.com/ChicagoYouthNetworks

I focused on this image in last month's newsletter. I'm repeating it again because until the different intermediaries in Chicago build strategies that point to maps showing where youth tutor/mentor programs are needed, and database/directories showing what programs operate in what neighborhoods, we'll never have enough advertising frequency and reach needed to draw needed operating and innovation resources to all of the programs needed in different neighborhoods.

 

Every time I host a Tutor/Mentor Conference I invite representatives of these organizations to participate and use the conference space to further their own agendas. The next conference is June 7. If you're reading this I hope you'll help extend this invitation so more will participate.  Look at this conference attendee list. If people from the organizations shown on the chart above are not on the list, reach out and see if you can persuade them to attend.


Building Business Involvement
This graphic illustrates the goal of building teams of volunteers in every industry who work to mobilize volunteers and donors from their sector to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in different parts of the city and suburbs.

In Chicago the Lawyers Lend A Hand To Youth, http://www.lawyerslendahand.org organization has been raising visibility and operating dollars to support volunteer based tutor/mentor programs since 1994.

If that can be duplicated in every industry, every tutor/mentor program would have multiple sources of volunteer and donors support, enriching the lives of the youth they serve, and stabilizing the financial ability of the organization.

If company teams form to study ways they could get involved, these are some resources they might begin to use to support their research and planning.

CEOs for Cities. http://www.ceosforcities.org/about

Bridgespan Group - Corporate Civic Engagement http://www.civicenterprises.net/Civic_Engagement

Engaging Employees in Corporate Citizenship- Realized Worth - http://realizedworth.com/

Workplace Giving -  http://www.charitiesatwork.org/about/

Keeping Company Stars by Volunteering
http://businessthatcares.blogspot.com/2010/02/keeping-your-company-stars-with.html

Points of Light Corporate Institute - http://www.pointsoflight.org/corporate-institute

Leadership Strategies - Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC - http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/leadership-strategies

Are you already having this conversation? Where? If you post in spaces I host you can attract the people in my network to your space. I can do the same.  Share  your ideas with me on Twitter @tutormentorteam or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TutorMentorInstitute

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Thank you! You read to the bottom of the page.  If you do this every month you are truly dedicated.  I'd like to hear from you. Email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net or join one of the forums I've pointed to. 

Good luck to everyone as they launch a new school year of tutoring and mentoring. 
 


Daniel F. Bassill, D.H.L
President
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
and Tutor/Mentor Connection

  
   

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

Connect in these locations:
* on Twitter - http://twitter.com/tutormentorteam
* Linked in group on volunteering - http://tinyurl.com/TMC-LinkedIn-Volunteering
* Tutor/Mentor Institute on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/TutorMentorInstitute
* Tutor/Mentor Connection forum at http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com
* On Slide Share - http://www.slideshare.net/tutormentor
* On Scribd.com - http://www.scribd.com/daniel-f-bassill-7291
* On Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/tutormentor/

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