Our Mission:The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (T/MI) is to gather and organize all that is known about successful volunteer-based, non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.
Read Dan Bassill's 30-Year History of Reaching out to Universities. click here
Help find donors who will move the Tutor/Mentor strategy into one or more universities in Chicago and other cities.
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC archive of ideas and strategies. Apply in any city.
This page shares strategies developed since 1990s by Dan Bassill, founder of Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present). In other sections of this website you can find ideas of others, which we host in this library and this list of Chicago tutor/mentor programs.
These ideas focus on ways to build and sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reaching K-12 youth in high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities. They show what an ideal tutor/mentor program might look like, and what industry and philanthropy leaders, and individuals from all parts of the country, need to do to help such programs be in all places where they are needed.
Please read these, share them with people in your own networks, and use them in actions that help tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago and other cities. You are invited to help us improve these, create your own versions, and write new articles that we have not yet even thought of. Visit this page and viewvisualizations created between 2006 and 2015 by Interns working with T/MC and T/MI.
Read new 2024 long essay showing Dan Bassill's 1993-present efforts to engage universities. click here. Engage your own students in studying this and other presentations shown on this page, and then in creating similar visualizations and create a page like this on your own website to share your ideas. Share how your are using these. Email
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with your comments.
Intro for 3-25-2017 meeting - click here Intro to T/MI - version 1 - click here Intro to T/MI - version 2- click here Tutor/Mentor Learning Network - click here
Note: many of these PDFs still show a Merchandise Mart PO Box address. Since 2021 that has been closed. Find contact info on this page.
NEW 2024. You can now find many of these PDF visual essays on this page.
Definition of Problem - Why and Where Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs are Most Needed
Tutor/Mentor Connection Network of Purpose - Why and where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and how we support the growth of volunteer based programs in high poverty neighborhoods
Tutor/Mentor, Same Words, Different Meaning - defining the terms -understand the difference between tutoring and mentoring
Shoppers Guide - What Would you want to see on a tutor/mentor program web site to convince you to donate or volunteer?
Collaboration Goals - increase resources for all tutor/mentor programs within a city
Animated concept map (video) illustrating how we hope to reduce silos of thinking and encourage greater sharing of ideas and collaboration across sector.
Building greater understanding of Tutor/Mentor Connection These are PDF versions of graphics created between 1995 and 2005 to illustrate T/MC ideas. Up till July 2011 these have not been published on-line.
Adolescent Literacy: What Works and Why, by Garland Publishing,The Center for Early Adolescence, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This 1988 report featured the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program, which was led by Dan Bassill from 1975-1992. The lessons learned from this program are a foundation for Tutor/Mentor Institute ideas.