The Tutor/Mentor Connection idea originated between 1975 and 1990 as Dan Bassill led the Montgomery-Ward Cabrini Green Tutoring Program in Chicago. During those years he also held full time advertising management roles with the Montgomery Ward Company.  In 1993 Dan and six other volunteers created Cabrini Connections, a tutor/mentor program serving 7th to 12th grade inner city teens. At the same time they decided to try to fill a leadership void, and created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout the city get the resources needed to grow.

Over the past 20 years (1992-2013) The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) has become a knowledge-based intermediary that seeks to help volunteer-based programs like Cabrini Connections be operating in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and similar large metropolitan areas.  This organization has history dating back to 1965 when employees of the Montgomery Ward corporate headquarters in Chicago began tutoring 2nd to 6th grade youth from the Cabrini-Green public housing project.  Bassill became a volunteer tutor in 1973 and the leader of that program in 1975.

Since July 2011 Dan Bassill has been continuing to lead this strategy under a new Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC structure. While the tax status and resources to do this work is different, the goals have not changed. Read this Jan 1996 newsletter and compare what it is saying to some of the information on this web site. 

1. This report shows the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993 and formation of Tutor/Mentor Institute in July 2011. 
2. Decade of Challenges: 2000-2010. Read blog articles showing what T/MC  has achieved and challenges we've faced. View PDF report of 2000-2010
3. This shows the vision of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
4. This Network-Building essay shows how Dan Bassill and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC seek to connect people, ideas and organizations from throughout the world.
5. This PDF shows the organization's original structure up till June 2011.
6. The Tutor/Mentor Business, written by Sara Coover Caldwell in 1997, shows growth of Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Connection until 1997.
   
   

This 1965-1992 timeline shows the growth of tutoring/mentoring and Cabrini Connections since a small program was started by employees of the Montgomery Ward Corporation in 1965.  This 1992-2011 timeline shows growth of Cabrini Connections and T/MC since 1992.  The strategy of the T/MC is blueprinted in this Strategy Concept Map.   This article, written in 1997 by one of the founders of CC, T/MC, shows how this all began.

These pdfs show some of the people involved from 1993-2003

1993-1999 - Cabrini Connections
Cabrini Connections 10th Year - 2003
Cabrini Connections 2001-2003

This is one of the 1999 Tutor/Mentor Report newsletters send to more than 8,000 people in Chicago and around the country three times a year. See additional newsletters from pre 2000 in this newsletter archive section.

This is a "How to Start a Tutor/Mentor Connection" paper distributed at a National Conference in 1999

Dan Bassill, the founder of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, and President/CEO since 1993, left the Cabrini Connections organization in July 2011 and created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC as a new structure to support the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago and to help similar intermediary organizations grow in other cities. This PDF is an announcement from the Cabrini Connections Board of Directors, to separate the Tutor/Mentor Connection from the Cabrini Connections organizations, effective June 30, 2011

Dan is available to share the ideas presented in this web site via workshops or one-on-one consulting. This fee structure is a suggested range of fees for such idea-sharing.

If you would like to offer help please email tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net.

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