Do you remember the "Circle of Life" song in the "Lion King" movies? Its message reminds us of the annual repetition of events as we and our students grow older.

In the school-year cycle we still have three full months before Summer break. In a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program, many are in the "can't wait" mode of thinking.

Yet this is the time for leaders to be collecting feedback, looking at what other programs do, and recruiting volunteers to help them start the school year again in the fall.

This planning should lead to a constant improvement in what programs do to help kids and volunteers connect and build relationships.

The ideas and resources shared in this monthly newsletter point to a library of resources that can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world, to help mentor-rich youth programs thrive in all of the neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Encourage others in your city to find and use these resources!

The President supports tutoring. He needs to dig deeper.

President Biden called for more tutors during his March 2024 State of the Union address. In the early 2000s President Bush also issued a call for tutors, as part of his "No Child Left Behind" plan. I created a presentation titled "Defining Terms" to call for a more sophisticated strategy that matched the type of tutoring and/or mentoring support provided to the person who was being served, and the social/economic environment where he/she lives. View the PDF in this article. Share it with policy-makers, donors and business leaders.

Create future leaders who LEAD and SUPPORT

As you look at the maps and identify where volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs are most needed and what programs already exist you'll soon realize that a lot of programs are needed. Every program needs visionary, innovative, persistent leaders and staff, which means every one also needs a core of dedicated volunteers and donors.

Read this article from the Tutor/Mentor blog that points to the need for one, or many, universities to set up "pipeline" programs that draw students into college level courses that teach some of them habits and skills that enable them to lead constantly improving programs and teach the rest of them habits of consistent, on-going giving, that leads them to provide the support each program needs over many years. If you are in a position to make a billion dollar gift to a university (as someone recently did) why not endow a tutor/mentor connection type curriculum at your favorite university.

Planning Calendar and Steps to Start a Tutor/Mentor Program

On-going volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs work on a cycle that repeats from year-to-year, with recruitment of youth and volunteers at the start and celebrations and graduations at the end. In that cycle there needs to be constant data collection and learning that enables programs to improve what they do so they have a greater positive impact on youth and volunteers from year-to-year. In this section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website you can find ideas that I learned from leading a tutor/mentor program for 35 years which you can borrow to help build your own program or start new programs where more are needed.

About this newsletter.

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.

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).

During May and June volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that operate on a school year calendar will be holding year-end celebrations with students and volunteers. Follow these programs on social media, or visit their websites. Celebrate with them.

As this happens, leaders are already collecting ideas and making plans to operate through the summer and launch their programs again with volunteer recruitment campaigns in the fall.

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!

How Many Tutor/Mentor Programs are needed in Chicago?

I've been trying to ask, and answer, this question for nearly 30 years. "How many tutor/mentor programs are needed in Chicago?" First, we need to know how many already exist, and how many kids and volunteers are involved. Second we need to know how many kids live in areas of persistent poverty. The Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I formed in 1993, launched its first survey in January 1994 and updated that information annually through 2010. We plotted the location of programs on maps and were able to sort by age-group served (elementary, middle and high school) and type of program (pure mentoring, pure tutoring, combination tutor/mentor).

The only time a survey was done to determine the number of youth in these programs was in 1997, by the Associated Colleges of Illinois, in partnership with the Tutor/Mentor Connection. The maps above were included in this report.

Sadly, far too few people ever saw that report because we had no means of mass distribution and I've never had funding to repeat it every few years, or to ask additional questions about the number of volunteers involved and what their backgrounds were.

I asked the "How many" question in this blog article. I invite new leaders to come forward and rebuild this effort in Chicago and launch it in other cities. If you know people already doing this type of survey, please share the links on social media.

What you can do to help end poverty

Tap into Manpower and Brainpower of Local Universities.

While I have had help from interns from many universities in Chicago and beyond, this was never part of a consistent strategy from any of these universities, aimed at helping more kids from high poverty areas come to their universities, then build lives in careers in the cities where they are located.

In one of the graphics above I show that the Tutor/Mentor Connection was born in a single Chicago tutor/mentor program in 1993 and was part of a two-part strategy until 2011. The media stories and public attention helped our own program grow! Thus, it could do the same for any youth program who wants to take the lead in duplicating what I started 30 years ago.

However, there's too much work that needs to be done. That's why I keep pointing to universities as potential leaders of a Tutor/Mentor Connection-type strategy, with funding from local and national benefactors.

This article on the Tutor/Mentor blog shows roles interns have taken over the past 30 years. These can be duplicated in dozens of cities for the same purposes.

Share this in your network and help find donors who will bring this strategy to colleges and the cities where they operate.

About this newsletter.

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).

By mid July leaders of volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs are already beginning to launch volunteer recruitment campaigns for the start of the 2024-25 school year. Is your program working alone to attract attention? Or is it part of a coalition of similar programs all working toward a common purpose?

How do you find peers who are doing similar work?

That's the purpose of this newsletter and the library that I've maintained for the past 30 years.

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 links in this concept map to find youth programs in Chicago and around 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 like this, or a web page like this, with resources 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.

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.

Get to know the resources available to you

About this newsletter.

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).