Our Mission:The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (T/MI) is to gather and organize all that is known about successful volunteer-based, non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.
Read Dan Bassill's 30-Year History of Reaching out to Universities. click here
No General would go to war without a map. Strategies leaders can use.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) have created a variety of short PDF essays to illustrate how maps can be used by leaders to mobilize and distribute volunteers, dollars, technology and other resources to fight America’s war on poverty, poorly performing schools, crime and violence.
Read this this article showing our 30 years of using maps.
See column in 10-21-2015Chicago Tribune about using maps in violence prevention strategy. Using maps this way has been a vision of Dan Bassill's since 1993. See article from 1994 ChicagoSunTimes and read blog articles that show uses of maps (see links below).
See map stories created in the 1990s and 2000s. click here
The Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator was created in 2004 to help leaders, volunteers, donors, parents and social workers find places in different zip codes that offer volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring in the non-school hours. THIS IS NOW (2021) ONLY AVAILABLE AS AN ARCHIVE. Read more about mapping strategies in this wiki page.
A key part of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) strategy is to "increase the frequency of media stories and advertising that draw attention to tutoring/mentoring and draw volunteers and donations to tutor/mentor programs in different parts of the Chicago region. Visit the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery (archive) to see this strategy in action.
Tutor/Mentor Connection has maintained a database since 1994 of more than 150 locations in the Chicago area where various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring are offered during non-school hours. This was published in a printed directory every year from 1994 to 2002. (see 1995 copy here) as part of on-going effort to help EVERY program get needed ideas, dollars, volunteers, etc.
To help draw attention to programs in different areas TMC created Poverty Maps to show where tutor/mentor programs are needed and Asset Maps, to show locations of businesses, churches, hospitals, etc. in the same part of the city, who could be mobilizing volunteers and providing ideas, technology, dollars, and even jobs, to help kids succeed in school and move to careers.
Use these examples to build your own information-based strategy to help youth serving programs grow in your community.
Distribution of Tutor/Mentor Programs
Tutor/Mentor Connection has maintained a database since 1994 of more than 150 locations in the Chicago area where various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring are offered during non-school hours. This was published in a printed directory every year from 1994 to 2002. (see 