Annual Calendar of Events supporting tutor/mentor program growth in Chicago

The Tutor/Mentor Connection seeks to connect non profits, businesses, media and other stakeholders in a virtual network that supports the growth of comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in cities all over the country.

Can you help us build this village of support for kids living in high poverty neighborhoods?  Click here to see an animated view of this village concept.

These articles illustrate Tutor/Mentor Connection ideas:

1. Creating a Network of Purpose – The Tutor/Mentor Connection
2. Role of Tutor/Mentor Connection, and Intermediaries, in a Community Building Strategy
3. Role of talent volunteer (pro bono, other) in building network of programs (added 1/7/2010)
4. Tutoring/Mentoring as a form of Service-Learning
5. Growing the Tutor/Mentor Learning Network
6. Collaboration Goals
7. Tutor/Mentor Leadership e-Conference – Introduction and Overview

This knowledge map, illustrates the different types of information being collected. It is intended to serve as a "blueprint" which anyone can draw from, or contribute to. While we will never map all of the knowledge, the ideas we do collect may reach a tipping point where the broader range of ideas leads to more comprehensive solutions applied in more places around the world to help kids move out of poverty and into jobs and careers.

Read more about the T/MC goals in the Vision and Mission sections

Within the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site there are more than 1400 links. Each of these has links to many other sites. This is a worldwide network of people and organizations with common interests.  The T/MC uses its May and November Chicago Conferences, and a variety of on-line forums, to build connections between these different groups, and to create public awareness that draws more viewers to each web site, and draws volunteers and donors to  youth serving organizations in Chicago and in other cities. 

Visit Conferences and Forums to learn more.

The book titled, The Spider and the Starfish,  illustrates the T/MC role as a catalyst in building a decentralized network of leaders who support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

Role of Catalyst in Building Network. In a book the role of a catalyst who inspires the growth of a decentralized network of people focused on a common goal is described.  This is a role Cabrini Connections, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) have taken since 1993. The chart below illustrates how volunteers and leaders reaching into their own networks on a regular basis, can draw volunteers, donors, partners, etc. to information hubs like the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site, then on to various neighborhoods in Chicago, or any other city, where they become volunteers, donors, leaders, etc. at existing programs, or where they help form new programs to fill voids.  In a single program, where each volunteer works one-on-one with a student, and all students are different, this same concept applies. The volunteer is accessing all of the resources of the program, and fellow volunteers, to find ways to help the youth take charge of his/her own future.