Does your Mayor show a "master plan" to help youth born today be in jobs and careers in 25 years? Does the plan include maps and strategies to mobilize and distribute talent and operating dollars into every neighborhood with high poverty?
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC archive of ideas and strategies. Apply in any city.
This web site is where we share our own ideas, through a variety of illustrated presentations, which have been developed over 35 years of leading a single tutor/mentor program, and thinking of ways such programs could be better supported in all the places they need to operate.
These ideas focus on what an ideal tutor/mentor program might look like, and what industry and philanthropy leaders, and individuals from all parts of the country, need to to to help such programs be in all places where they are needed. We call this the Tutor/Mentor Institute because we aim to constantly learn new ways to do this work, and we aim to teach others to adopt these ideas in their own leadership.
From this site we also point to several other web sites where we provide links to more than 2,000 other web sites, and host forums where people can gather to network, share ideas or work directly with youth. This strategy map illustrates how these ideas all relate to each other.
We hope you will read these, share them with people in your own networks, and use them in actions that help tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago and other cities. We also hope you'll help us improve these, and write new articles that we have not yet even thought of. If you would like to tell us how your are using these, email
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with your comments.
Intro for 3-25-2017 meeting - click here Intro to T/MI - version 1 - click here Intro to T/MI - version 2- click here Tutor/Mentor Learning Network - click here
Note: many of these PDFs still show a Merchandise Mart PO Box address. Since 2021 that has been closed. Find contact info on this page.
Definition of Problem - Why and Where Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs are Most Needed
Tutor/Mentor Connection Network of Purpose - Why and where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and how we support the growth of volunteer based programs in high poverty neighborhoods
Tutor/Mentor, Same Words, Different Meaning - defining the terms -understand the difference between tutoring and mentoring
Shoppers Guide - What Would you want to see on a tutor/mentor program web site to convince you to donate or volunteer?
Collaboration Goals - increase resources for all tutor/mentor programs within a city
Animated concept map (video) illustrating how we hope to reduce silos of thinking and encourage greater sharing of ideas and collaboration across sector.
Building greater understanding of Tutor/Mentor Connection These are PDF versions of graphics created between 1995 and 2005 to illustrate T/MC ideas. Up till July 2011 these have not been published on-line.
Adolescent Literacy: What Works and Why, by Garland Publishing,The Center for Early Adolescence, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This 1988 report featured the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program, which was led by Dan Bassill from 1975-1992. The lessons learned from this program are a foundation for Tutor/Mentor Institute ideas.