Issue 246
Ideas to Help Tutor/Mentor Programs Reach
K-12 Youth in More Places.
The themes in this newsletter also repeat every year, as it seeks to support volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in high poverty areas.
It's October, which means many volunteers are in the first weeks of getting to know their mentee and many others are building on relations that began one or more years ago.
My newsletters point to an extensive library that can be used by volunteers, students, staff, parents, educators and more.
Visit https://tutormentorexchange.net/
While the primary focus of this newsletter and my website and blogs is to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs reach more youth in areas of persistent poverty, many of the sections have information that can be applied to any issue that needs support from many people, for many years.
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!
Teach youth and volunteers to use resource libraries
At the bottom of each node on this concept map is a small box with a link to a section of the 'Homework Help' portion of the Tutor/Mentor resource library. Volunteers and staff should review these resources on a regular basis so when a student is looking for a specific type of support, you know where to direct them.
In others parts of the library you'll find additional resources that leaders, staff, volunteers and students can learn from:
Resources for training volunteers; for parents; and for program leaders - click here
Blogs by educators, youth programs, network builders, and fund raisers - click here
"View new articles posted on Substack that show elements of concept maps and visualizations created over past 30 years..
I've used visualizations and concept maps to share ideas and strategies for more than 30 years. I probably built the habit during my 17 year retail advertising career with Montgomery Ward. Most of my graphics share a set of ideas and can look confusing to viewers. In many blog articles I've tried to show the elements of many of these. In August 2025 I began posting a series of articles on Substack.com to show this collection.
Visit this link to view the first one.
Visit my profile page to view the collection..
Are you using a blog or social media to tell the story of your youth-serving program?
Share the link and I can add it to my lists.
Check out the new links added each month to the Tutor/Mentor library.
Visit this page on the Tutor/Mentor website and you'll find a list of 'new links" added to the library in 2025, with the most recent shown first. Below are two of them.
One is an article on the SocialRoots website that shows a vision of 'rewilding the Internet', supporting connections across movements from different fields that already exist.
The second is a "Bank of Ideas" website from Australia that has build a huge resource library to support "the development of caring, health, inclusive, sustainable and enterprising communities and local economies (primarily in Australia).
Some of my first experiences with online information sharing came in the 1990s when I participated in a listserv that focused on youth development in Australia. Good ideas can be found in every part of the world. Use them to innovate solutions to problems in Chicago and your part of the world.
Tutoring Chicago Celebrates 60th Year
I led the program that is now Tutoring Chicago, from 1975 to 1992, when it was the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program. I'm thrilled to see how they have continued to serve Chicago youth in the years since I left and was honored to be interviewed as part of this year's 60th Anniversary Celebration.
Watch the video here.
Read my blog article - here
Several other Chicago area tutor and/or mentor programs have long histories, too. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago Lights, Midtown Education Foundation, Chicago Youth Programs, Inc., etc. are just a few that you can find on the lists I host on the Tutor/Mentor website.
Intermediaries who support youth-serving programs in Chicagoland
I created this concept map many years ago and update it often. It shows organizations who serve as "intermediaries" helping networks of youth-serving programs that operate in the Chicago region. Under each node is a small box with a link to that organization's website. Ideally, if you visit any of these sites they would have a page with links to each other, and to this map, so our collective voice could have a greater impact in helping youth-serving programs grow in all the places where they are needed.
The bottom part of the map has nodes for businesses, faith networks, universities and philanthropy. I don't really have an extensive library showing how organizations in these categories are mobilizing attention and support to help tutor/mentor programs.
In the lower right corner is a yellow box with the headline "Help update this". That's been an invitation for a long time. Sadly, too few have responded. Yet, unless other people are helping aggregate information showing "who" is doing "what" to help Chicago kids, others will have a difficult time finding such information.
You can reach me on many social media platforms. If you know of anyone hosting this information, or want to suggest additional links, just share your ideas with me in one of these forums.
Below are resources to use.
(I repeate many of these each month. That does not mean the information is old. These websites keep adding new resources to their own sites!)
* Community Mapping Toolkit - click here* Grantmakers for Education - click here
* AfterSchool Alliance resources - click here
* Why nonprofits struggle to network -- and how that's holding us back - click here
* National Mentoring Resource Center - click here
* UCLA Center resources - click here; Guide to Learning Supports pdf - click here
* Every Hour Counts - network of intermediaries building after school systems - click here
* MyChiMyFuture - Chicago youth programs map and directory. click here; visit the website - click here
* Chicago Mentoring Collaborative - click here
* Chicago Learning Exchange supports Out-of-School-Time community in Chicago - click here
* ACT Now - Championing Quality Afterschool Programs in Illinois - click here
* To & Through Project website - click here
* Center for Effective Philanthropy - click here
* Forefront -Illinois' statewide association of nonprofits, foundations and advisors. click here
* YouthToday online magazine - click here
* South Side STEM Asset maps - read about using maps - click here
* Incarceration Reform Resource Center - click here
* Prison Policy Initiative - click here
Read These Tutor/Mentor blog articles
(Do you have a blog? Share it on social media.)
After the March, Do the Planning - click here
Seek and Support (youth-serving programs) - click here
Connect with other out-of-school-time leaders - click here
What issues unite us? - click here
Follow Me on Substack.com - click here
New example of using maps in planning - click here
Tipping Point articles - add Vu Le to your reading. - click here
Explore the maps. Create your own stories. - click here
Bookmark these Tutor/Mentor Resources
* Lists of Chicago area, volunteer-based tutor, mentor programs - click here
* Homework help and volunteer training resources - click here
* Resource Library - click here
* Strategy essays by Tutor/Mentor - click here
* Work done by interns in past - click here
* Maps and Map-Stories from past 30 years - click here
* Political Action resources - click here, and click here
* Featured collections on Wakelet - click here
* Tutor/Mentor Institute Videos - click here
* About T/MI articles on blog - click here
* History of T/MC - T/MI articles - click here
* Create a New Tutor/Mentor Connection - click here
* Reaching out to Universities to adopt the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy - click here
* Chicago Youth Serving Organizations in Intermediary Roles - click here to view a concept map showing many organizations working to help improve the lives of Chicago area youth. Follow the links. If you know of other intermediaries that should be added please share that information with Dan Bassill.
Thank you for reading this month's newsletter.
Please share this with people you know who work in non-school youth serving programs, or in sectors that should be strategically supporting such programs, such as business, philanthropy, education and public policy. If they are not receiving these newsletters then we have no way of engaging them. Also encourage friends, family, co-workers to sign up to receive this newsletter.
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.
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Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present)
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