Build the network. Connect the Network. Nudge the Network....Role of Intermediaries.

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.

Use the Chicago Programs Map and Chicago Programs Links to learn about different tutoring and/or mentoring programs in separate zip codes of the Chicago region. View maps in the Mapping for Justice blog, the Tutor/Mentor blog and in the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery (archive).

To update information about your program or other programs in the Chicago region, contact Dan Bassill at tutormentor 2 at earthlink.net.

Since 1993 the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC have been using maps to help leaders mobilize support for tutor/mentor programs in specific locations of the Chicago region. This is a  map of the Illinois 7th Congressional District created in the early 2000s. The area has large concentrations of poverty and many poorly performing schools.  It also has areas of affluence, and the 290 Expressway, leading from the Western suburbs top the downtown work area.

If leaders in business, politics, hospitals and churches use their leadership and communications on a consistent basis, they can connect volunteers and donors from the affluent parts of this district with tutor/mentor programs operating in many of the high poverty neighborhoods.

Maps like this can be seen in the http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com articles, and in the Tutor/Mentor Map Gallery (archive).