Recruiting a Volunteer or Student is Just the Beginning.

This week the nation's attention is focused on Chicago and the Democratic National Convention.

While this is happening, volunteer-based tutor and/or mentor programs across the country are trying to attract volunteers and donors to support their 2024-25 school year efforts.

This newsletter is a quick reminder of the resources available to help volunteers find tutor/mentor programs. Now we just need political leaders and celebrities to point to these lists.

Use the ideas and resources shared in this monthly newsletter to help you build and sustain mentor-rich, school and non-school, tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in all areas of persistent poverty. These resources can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world.

Please share this so others in your city can find and use these resources!

Use social media, company newsletters, and media interviews to draw attention and support to volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs throughout the country. Every time someone in Chicago, or in your own community says, "Help kids" or "Be a Volunteer" or "Be a donor", they should be able to point to a concept map or a website, with resources they can use to help them find programs in different parts of the city or suburbs.

Our collective challenge is motivating more people to use their own media and personal influence to make that call-to-action. During this week's Democratic National Convention there will be plenty of opportunities for leaders, or social media activists, to point to lists like mine.

Keeping a list up-to-date is one of the big challenges. If you find broken links on my websites, please report them to me. If you know of programs that should be added, or deleted (no longer operating), report that to me also.

If you're a university or institution that would like to take ownership of this resource and keep it available for the next 10 to 20 years, please reach out to me. I'm now 77 and new leaders are needed.

Governor Tim Walz is a "GIS Nerd"

Find new ways to fund on-going programs

Thank you for reading.

While I try to send this only once a month, I write blog articles weekly. Throughout the newsletter I post links to a few of the articles published in the past month or earlier. I encourage you to spend a little time each week reading these articles and following the links. Use the ideas and presentations in group discussions with other people who are concerned about the same issues.

View current and past newsletters at this link.

Please encourage friends, family, co-workers to sign up to receive this newsletter. Click here.

(If you subscribe, don't forget to respond to the confirmation email).

The next three weeks will be a stress-filled period as we determine who will be our next President of the United States, and our representatives in Congress and state and local governments.

As volunteers and students are starting a new school year, this question has huge ramifications.

I posted a blog article on October 14, showing some issues that need to be addressed, and some thoughts on how we connect with each other to find solutions to challenges we, and our students, are facing.

I'm sharing some parts of that article in this newsletter.

Use the ideas and resources shared in this monthly newsletter to help you build and sustain mentor-rich, school and non-school, tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in all areas of persistent poverty. These resources can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world.

Please share this so others in your city can find and use these resources!

I featured this concept map and that question again in today's article, which you can read at this link.

My article includes a link to the official Kamala Harris for President website issues page, which is at https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

A project that youth and volunteers in school and non-school programs might engage in would be to compare the issues on my map, with the issues on the Harris website. Then, create your own map, showing issues that are important to you, your students and your community.

I use cMapTools to create my concept maps, but there are other visualization tools you can use. Another activity students and volunteers might do is to go through the links in this page of my library, to learn more about visualization tools they might use for a project like this.

Finally, share your maps via blogs, videos, social media, etc. You can influence what local and national leaders focus on over the next decade.

New Resource: Today I learned of a "Stop Project 2025 Comic Book Project" site, created by comic book writers and artists who are furious about the Heritage Foundations' plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. Visit their site and share the comics.

In my blog article I pasted text from previous articles, with links to those pages. I'm repeating that here. I hope you'll take a look at these over the next few weeks and months. Click on the graphic to find links to articles with these quotes.

Thank you for reading.

While I try to send this only once a month, I write blog articles weekly. Throughout the newsletter I post links to a few of the articles published in the past month or earlier. I encourage you to spend a little time each week reading these articles and following the links. Use the ideas and presentations in group discussions with other people who are concerned about the same issues.

I encourage others to duplicate what I'm doing. Write a blog and share your own vision, strategy and challenges. Share your link and I'll add it to this list in the Tutor/Mentor library.

View current and past newsletters at this link.

Please encourage friends, family, co-workers to sign up to receive this newsletter. Click here.

(If you subscribe, don't forget to respond to the confirmation email).

The election did not turn out as many of us wished it would and now there is great fear about what the next few years will bring to America and the world.

Yet, we still need to do the work of raising kids. Our own, and those in different places and with different life circumstances.

Over the Holiday Season youth serving organizations will be reaching out for financial support. Please use my lists to find and choose programs to aid with your contributions.

Use the ideas and resources shared in this monthly newsletter to help you build and sustain mentor-rich, school and non-school, tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in all areas of persistent poverty. These resources can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world.

Please share this so others in your city can find and use these resources!

Since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993 I've created many visual essays to share strategies for connecting networks and drawing support to youth, and youth-serving programs, in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities. View this PDF at this link.

During the past year I've updated most of my visual essays and put them on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. There are three pages of essays! This is page 1. In the past interns have created their own interpretations of some of these. This video was created in 2013 by an intern from South Korea. This is is another interpretation, created using Prezi. I share these as an INVITATION for youth and adults to create their own versions of these, applying the strategies to helping kids in their own communities. Just include a link back to my website to show where the ideas originated.

NOTE: I updated all of my PDFs in 2024 and showed my account on Twitter. In the past month there has been a growing movement of people leaving the platform. I'll still check there for people trying to reach me, but also am on other social media platforms.

Identifying existing youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in Chicago and drawing attention to them has been my goal since 1993. See my lists at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net

This list is on the left site, middle, of the www.tutormentorexchange.net site. The first link opens to my lists of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs. The second link opens to lists of other types of youth-serving programs in the Chicago region, and to similar programs throughout the country. Further down you'll see that I've created lists showing Chicago tutor/mentor program accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

While many programs post regular updates on one or more of these social media sites, many don't post anything at all. How can they expect volunteers and donors to find them if they are not broadcasting an invitation to visit their website?

In the past year the change in ownership as Twitter has caused many accounts to move from the site. Some have created new accounts on BlueSky and/or Mastodon. Some use Threads. I use all three, but am beginning to use BlueSky more frequently. If you're part of a youth serving program or afterschool network please connect with me and others on one or more of these platforms.

How to apply information to problem- solving I've posted many articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog showing how information can support decision-making and help build and sustain more effective youth serving programs in more places. Here's an article title "If more youth-serving programs took this role..."

Thank you for reading.

While I try to send this only once a month, I write blog articles weekly. Throughout the newsletter I post links to a few of the articles published in the past month or earlier. I encourage you to spend a little time each week reading these articles and following the links. Use the ideas and presentations in group discussions with other people who are concerned about the same issues.

I encourage others to duplicate what I'm doing. Write a blog and share your own vision, strategy and challenges. Share your link and I'll add it to this list in the Tutor/Mentor library.

View current and past newsletters at this link.

Please encourage friends, family, co-workers to sign up to receive this newsletter. Click here.

(If you subscribe, don't forget to respond to the confirmation email).