Over the past few weeks Chicago has suffered a series of tragedies, with several  Chicago Public School kids killed in gang related shootings. At http://tinyurl.com/2c3b9d you can see how I wrote about some of these stories on my blog, and called attention to tutoring/mentoring as a strategy for helping kids stay out of gangs by being part of positive support groups such as tutor/mentor programs.

After what seems like a long time, the local newspapers have suddendly written several stories about how mentors and tutors are helping inner city kids graduate from high school. Here are a few.  If you know of others, please add them to this discussion.

On June 11, 2007 Dawn Turner Trice wrote about Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in her Chicago Tribune column. You can find the story at http://tinyurl.com/33k43h.

I'm on the National Advisory Council of Mentors Inc, in Washington, Dc, and they were featured in a June 13, Washington Post story. You can read this at
http://tinyurl.com/39xroj

On June 16, the Chicago SunTimes featured a story about mentoring at Erie House, titled "I'm off to college."   On June 17, another story was written in the Chicago Tribune, titled "Dad finds one man can change boys lives".

These stories do a great job of telling how mentors can help kids, by focusing on a single program. However, there are many programs in Chicago providing mentoring, and they all need the type of recognition that stories like these provide. In fact, they need this type of attention on a consistent basis if they are to recruit volunteers and donors and keep their programs in place from year to year.

In the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org I attempt to maintain a database of Chicago tutor/mentor programs. You can search by zip code, type of program or age group to shop for specific programs in specific zip codes. If you search at http://www.volunteermatch.org for tutor/mentor programs, the closest you'll get is a five mile distance area. If you're a parent, or a volunteer, you need to know what's available for your age child, or near where you work or live. Only the Program Locator provides this level of detail.

If you search the zip codes of where Chicago Public School kids are being killed, you'll be able to see what tutor/mentor programs operate in these areas, and compare these programs to the ones featured in the recent media stories.  While some neighborhoods have many listings, many of these are simply park district or library locations, without the type of long-term mentoring programs which are featured in these recent stories.

Many people have a difficult time understanding what the Tutor/Mentor Connection does and how it differs from Cabrini Connections (which is the site based tutor/mentor program from which the T/MC originated). 

I've looked for many ways to clarify this and recently began using a concept mapping tool to show the goals and strategy of the T/MC, as well as the organization of information on the T/MC web site.

Here are some links

Goals - http://tinyurl.com/259qkk
Strategy - http://tinyurl.com/3xrd9e
Learning Network - http://tinyurl.com/yrqae4

You'll see that Cabrini Connections is one of under 100 tutor/mentor programs in Chicago that connect volunteers with K-12 youth.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection is trying to help all of these programs get the volunteers, dollars, ideas and public visibility they need every day to do good work. We don't know of other organizations maintaining a database, using maps to show where programs are needed,  leading a public awareness effort, attempting to help all programs find dollars, and volunteers, etc. the way the T/MC is.

In order to recruit volunteers and donors, tutor/mentor programs need to find ways to tell these stories via the major papers.  However, we need to find a way to get a national discussion going in the media, in magazines and on blogs, asking how cities can make good programs like the ones featured in the media, available in the same neighborhoods where there are poorly performing schools and too  many incidents of youth-on-youth violence.

One of the major obstacles to operating a long-term tutor/mentor program, that keeps volunteers and youth connected for many years, is the lack of consistent funding from business, foundations and/or government.  Most foundations only focus on one or two programs and most do not provide on-going funding of the same organizations.

In order for a city like Chicago, or a region with communities like Aurora, Joliet, Elgin and Waukegan also needing tutor/mentor programs, we need to draw leaders of business, philanthropy,  hospitals and churches into this discussion. They need to form leadership teams focused on the same strategies as the T/MC focuses on, using the same information that is found on this web site.

While it's only mid June, our focus now is on updating the T/MC database and innovating ways to increase public attention during August so that more volunteers seek to get involved in all of the different programs listed in the Program Locator or Chicago Programs Links, not just the few who get written about in news stories.

We need media help to get the story out about the T/MC Program Locator, so more programs will add their own data, or will update out-of-date data.  T/MC cannot successfully reach out to over 400 organizations, and to many that we don't even know, to update this data regularly.

However, if you're in another city, and don't even have the basic database of tutor/mentor programs, you need to find ways to start collecting this information and creating a Program Locator so that as school starts, media stories and advertising can draw volunteers and donors to all programs in your community, not just those who are able to get media to tell their stories. 

We'd like to help you. We'd like you to help us. If we work together, we can link programs, and we can link cities, in ways that get the attention of business, philanthropy and media more consistently.

If any of you would like to meet with me to learn more about the T/MC, or to talk about ways your companies, churches, civic, social and/or alumni networks can take a leadership role in mobilizing volunteers and donors as school starts in August and September, I'd be happy to meet with you.  Call 312-492-9614.