As you view information on this website you may say "That's too old."  Yes. Much of this was created between 1993 and 2015. Yet it focuses on solving complex problems that still exist 30 years after we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago. Furthermore, most people have never seen this information. Thus, it is NEW to them.  Take a look. Decide if you find the ideas useful.

It took Thomas Edison more than 1000 tries before he invented a working light bulb. It will take extensive learning, innovation and effort to build strategies that reach youth in all poverty neighborhoods with programs that help more move successfully from birth to work.

Everyone who visits this web site is embarking on a journey of learning. The longer you stay involved the more you will know.

Visit the getting started page and take a tour of this website.

Then, to help you get started, you can view blog posts by interns who have worked with the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 2006. If you read some of these you'll see they all start the same way, with a conversation with Dan Bassill, founder of the T/MC and president of Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, formed in July 2011.

If you read later articles written by these students, you'll see a growth in their understanding and an effort to share what they know with others. At this page you can see a list of visualizations. This page shows a wide range of strategy presentations done by interns. This blog focuses on work done by Interns since 2006.

Listen to the podcasts created using GoogleNotebookLM in these articles. These demonstrate the type of discussions about the ideas and strategies shared on our blogs and this website that the T/MC and T/MI hope to inspire among thousands of people.

This is a journey we hope people throughout the USA and the world will take.  Start your reading by looking at an article written by Michael Romaine, a Volunteer who joined T/MC in 2010 - Thinking like Google

This concept map shows the four sections of the information in the Links Library on this website.

Take some time to explore each section, the way you might go through a new shopping mall. Return later to places you like.

 

 

Our Vision: Because of the work we do, more youths born in poverty will start jobs and careers by age 25, and more volunteers will make a lasting commitment to tutor/mentoring.

Yes. There is a lot of information and it's difficult to navigate.
Complex problems do not have simple solutions. As you spend time learning what's available you'll find many ideas and resources that can be applied in Chicago or any other city.

You can go through the information in any sequence you choose. I encourage people to think of my web sites as a huge shopping mall. The first time you visit you just walk the mall and peek into every store to see what's there. Then you go back later to investigate stores that you were more interested in.  Some of these become your favorites and you repeat your visit over and over.

This PDF presentation provides a tour of the website.

For your assistance, this concept map is a "learning path" you can follow.
This is the same learning path information, but communicated via a YouTube video format. 

View this video to help you navigate the various sections of this web site (Note this video shows the site prior to 2025 updates. The content location on different parts of the site has not changed.)

Read the Tutor/Mentor blog and the MappingForJustice blog. The articles show how the information on this website should be used to help kids living in areas of persistent poverty.

Stay informed. Sign up for eMail Newsletter.

 

Why do we do this?
We believe volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are the bridges that connect volunteers, donors and business leaders with the children, families and schools on the other side of the socioeconomic divide. However, we don't have all of the answers. When we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 we said "Let's try to learn every thing that is known about this problem, and about solutions that work in some places that could be working in other places if the money and volunteers were available."

Thus, while you can go to five or six different web sites hosted by the T/MC, you can go to more than 1500 other sites hosted by other organizations, universities, businesses and government.  In addition, most of these sites were selected by the T/MC to be on our sites because they have libraries of links that point you to even more extensive networks of information.  If you spent enough time  in this network of web sites you could earn a Ph.D in this subject!!

This Web site is for:

• leaders of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs
• youth in tutor/mentor programs
• volunteers
• board members
• business leaders
• parents
• donors
• media

By exploring this Web site, and making a permanent resource for your own learning, innovation and decision making, we hope you and all visitors begin to understand where tutor/mentor programs are needed most, why they are needed, ways to get involved and approaches to improving existing programs.

Listen to the podcasts created using GoogleNotebookLM in these articles. These demonstrate the type of discussions about the ideas and strategies shared on our blogs and this website that the T/MC and T/MI hope to inspire among thousands of people.

We hope to connect you and a growing number of these stakeholders through an ongoing, dynamic exchange of ideas, and ultimately to improve the availability and quality of tutor/mentor programs throughout the world.

This "tutor/mentor learning network" links the knowledge and experience of people and organizations from around the world.

The Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC was created in 2011 to continue work started in 1993 by the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Its roots extend back further, to 1973, when Dan Bassill began looking for ideas to support his weekly tutor/mentor sessions in Chicago. It grew in 1975 when Dan became the volunteer leader of the program at the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago, and expanded further as the T/MC made a commitment to help other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago get needed resources, not just the one Dan led.  The original tutormentorconnection.org site is now an archive. This site now hosts the library, with more than 2,000 links, pointing to information created by others around the world, and dozens of strategy essays created by Dan.

Our goal is to help you learn to use this information to expand your understanding of where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, the differences between different types of programs, and the actions people in business, philanthropy, government and other sectors can do to help world-class tutor/mentor programs operate in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago or any other metropolitan area in the world. See Learning Network pdf