The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) is to provide an organized framework that empowers and encourages adult volunteers to contribute their time, effort, ideas and advocacy toward creating life-changing solutions for children in educationally and economically disadvantaged areas.

Cabrini Connections, a non-school tutor/mentor program operating in Chicago, is an example of an "organized framework". It has been connecting youth and adult volunteers since 1993. Its founders are the  creators and operators of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

We want to help similar programs grow in all parts of Chicago. Our strategy is to help the ones already operating, then help new programs form by borrowing from ideas of existing programs.  For this strategy to work, organized structures need to grow in business groups, faith groups, hospitals, colleges, and in many other places where people are looking at the same information as program leaders and innovating ways to provide a consistent flow of volunteers, dollars, and other needed resources to every tutor/mentor program in the city--not just to one or two well-known programs.

This mission is accomplished through a four part strategy. 

1) Collect knowledge from key stakeholders about volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs: how programs succeed, where programs are located, and where more programs and resources are needed.

2) Aggressively share this knowledge through marketing and public awareness campaigns, capitalizing on the Internet as a chief vehicle of communication.

3) Facilitate understanding and collaboration among stakeholders to develop the long-term, integrated actions needed to help youths move from birth in poverty to a job or career by age 25.

4) Strengthen involvement of community and industry leaders to increase essential resources to tutor/mentor programs.

Many of our ideas are expressed in this Library of pdf essays and in the animated presentations on this page. These are ideas that guide Cabrini Connections and are intended to help us get the consistent flow of resources we need to help the teens in our program. They are also ideas that can be used to help any other tutor/mentor program in the country do more to help the youth in their programs.

In the United States, there are more than 13 million youth living in poverty who might benefit from this type of support system.

Review Tutor/Mentor Connection Concept Map (Strategy) to understand these goals in more detail.