Mapping For Justice

Mapping Justice - Teaches teens to use maps to raise awareness

2026-04-17T15:58:00.000-05:00

Today I saw a LinkedIn post from the Afterschool Alliance that announced an "EcoGIS: Mapping Environmental Justice and Beyond" program. I followed the links and the first took me to an article with the map shown below.

The article started, by saying it is part of the Afterschool Alliance's Collective For Youth Empowerment in STEM and Society (CYESS) Initiative. It shows work done by youth through a program of CYESS.

Before I followed that link I read the article and saw that the EcoGIS project was part of a flagship program Mapping Justice. That really caught my attention since the name of this blog, started in 2008, is MappingForJustice.

I followed that link and learned that it's a program based in Florida and supported by a group called "Trubel &Co" that provides "civic tech education to turn local data into community action" through "specialized workshops that explore the intersections of justice, data storytelling, and technology, giving students, nonprofits, and advocates an opportunity to learn technical skills and engage with critical issues pertaining to their communities".

I have links to the CYESS program on this page in the Tutor/Mentor library.

So today I took a new look at the "Collective for Youth Empowerment in STEM and Society" program. This is their home page.

Click on the "Projects" link in the top menu and you'll find the page shown below.

Then click on the "toolkit" button under the "Civic Engagement Resources" paragraph. This is a huge resource. As I looked through this section I was hoping to see how the initial maps and information collected by students was part of on-going efforts to share the information and get more people involved in solving the problems highlighted by the maps.

I found a lot more than that.

But I'm not sure if I found maps showing organizations working to solve these problems, with an analysis of "are there enough?" "or are different types of programs also needed?" More important, were there blog articles and public awareness campaigns trying to draw volunteers and donors directly to the programs doing the work?

I don't know if anyone on their team has ever visited this blog or my website, but that's what my maps have been used for. Below are links to three visual essays that I hope some of the leaders of these programs will study.

- "Getting Attention for a Cause" - click here

- "Rest of the Story" - role youth can take to draw attention to causes - click here

- "Rest of the Story - example focused on one Chicago community area" - click here

This entire blog is a resource that anyone learning to create maps might use to find ideas for how the maps can be used in on-going campaigns. On the Tutor/Mentor blog you can find nearly 300 articles showing uses of maps in one set of articles on the blog.

Then, look at this concept map which shows the 4-part information-based problem solving strategy that I've piloted since 1993.

Step 1 involved collecting and organizing information. Creating the maps and blog articles would be included in this step. Step 2 focuses on increasing the number of people who look at the information. Step 3 is where people learn to use the information collected in Step 1, to provide time, talent, dollars, votes and other resources in specific places shown by the maps (Step 4).

Most of the problems that GIS maps highlight are complex and will take many people, and many years, to solve. Without people focusing on all four of these steps, from year-to-year, most of these problems will still be with us many years from now.

Thank you to the Afterschool Alliance for launching the CYESS program and for sharing it on LinkedIn. I hope anyone reading this will take time to dig through all the articles on their site. It's a great resource.

Furthermore, I hope you'll add a link from your resource page to my blogs, concept maps and visual essays.

On these sites I show a 30 year history of collecting and sharing information. In 20 or 30 years I hope that some of the projects created through CYESS in 2026 will have websites and blogs showing their own long-term efforts at bringing people together to try to solve some of these complex problems.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms. Find links on this page.

I depend on contributions from a small group of people to continue this work. Visit this page if you'd like to help.

Have you visited the ESRI GIS site?

2026-03-25T15:23:00.008-05:00

I was able to obtain donated ESRI GIS software each year from 1995 to 2011. Many of the maps that I show on this blog from 2008-2011 and earlier were created using that donation.

ESRI maintains a huge on-line library of resources. In this blog article ESRI introduces the most recent U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) which is available in the ArcGIS Living Atlas.

The direct link to the ACS Atlas Collection is here.

I started using ESRI software in 1995 (When I say "I", I really mean volunteers and part-time staff made the maps under my direction.) Below is an example of how I shared these at every Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

Below is a visual essay showing how I've been using maps and why. Click here to open.

Is someone in your community creating maps like these and sharing them in their blog articles, newsletters and social media? If yes, send me the link.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and/or Twitter. Find links on this page.

I depend on a small group of supporters for contributions that help me cover expenses. If you'd like to help, click here.

Population & Households Data - Cook County, IL

2026-03-18T16:09:00.000-05:00

My friend Layton Olson shared a link to the Cook County Community Data Snapshots on the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning website. Open the Dashboard and you can view the data at the county, municipality and Chicago Community Area levels.

I open the Municipality page at this link. You can use the drop down menu to pick a community in Cook County that you want to view. You can also select for different types of data. I chose "Population & Households". I'm showing three examples.

Alsip

Aurora

North Chicago

For each area selected you get a view like those I've shown. It has a map of the community showing its location in Cook County. And it has five visualizations of the data, showing Race & Ethnicity, Language spoken at home, if not English, Household size, Age cohorts, and Household Income.

Planners who are concerned about income inequality and the negative affects of high poverty can easily see what percent of people in each area have household income below $25,000 or ranging from $25,000 to 49,000.

These would indicate how many people in the community need extra support from public and private sector support. I'd love to find a version of these maps, with overlays showing youth serving programs in the area, sorted by type of program, age group served, etc.

Ideally someone would create a tool to collect and sort information about non-school and school-based tutor, mentor and learning programs and show where these are located, using demographic overlays to show where they are most needed.

Oh. We did that.

View this PDF essay to see features we built into the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator when we first put it on-line in 2004, then when we updated it in 2008.

Then view this "everyone's a map-maker" essay to see how maps could be created and integrated into public education campaigns.

Unfortunately, I was not able to keep the Program Locator updated after 2011 and on-line after 2018. It's now only available as and archive that anyone can use in building their own version.

In one section of the Tutor/Mentor library I point to on-line directories that I've learned about. One project any university might adopt would be to build a program locator for their city, then have students keep it updated and leading public awareness campaigns that draw parents, volunteers, donors, media, policy-makers, and other users, with the goal of helping existing programs support long-term involvement of youth and volunteers, while helping new programs form were more are needed.

Another project would be to build a library with links to Program Locator type directories in every city in the USA and the world. That would be an extensive resource!

I'd be happy to help any university that wants to take this role.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon and/or Twitter - see links on this page.

And, if you want to help me keep hosting and sharing this information, visit this page and make a contribution.

Mapping Conference Participation - IVMOOC Project

2026-01-29T10:45:00.001-06:00

On this page I've shared the Network Mapping tool created by a team of Indiana University students in the Fall 2025 Information Visualization (IVMOOC) class.

This week I received the final report from a second IVMOOC team, who used the same Tutor/Mentor Conference history, to visualize participation. Below is the interactive map-based visualization that they created.

Open the interactive map at this link. Across the top of the map are dates of the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, held in Chicago. For each conference the IVMOOC team created a zip code map, with shaded areas showing where conference participants came from.

You won't find the text that I show with the map on the actual interactive version. I had to read the Final Report to see their description of the information on the map, how to view the four classifications which you can view, using the drop down menu at the top left.

I'm sharing some of that below.

--- beginning of text from the report ----

Dashboard Walkthrough

In addition to static figures, an interactive dashboard was developed using Plotly to provide a more flexible view of participation trends. The dashboard displays ZIP codes shaded by intensity, where darker colors represent higher levels of activity. Users can explore the data dynamically through a dropdown menu that switches between four key metrics:

Total Participation: Shows the overall number of participants from each ZIP code. This view highlights the most active regions and provides a baseline for geographic engagement.

Change in Participation: Displays year‐to‐year changes in participation by ZIP code. Areas shaded in stronger colors indicate growth, while lighter or negative values highlight declines. This view is useful for spotting emerging regions or places where engagement has tapered off.

New Members: Focuses on participants attending for the first time. This metric helps identify ZIP codes that are contributing fresh engagement and expanding the community base.

Recurring Members: Highlights ZIP codes with participants who attended multiple times.

Then they provided this Data Analysis.

The data included thousands of individual entries. Most participants came from Illinois, with a strong cluster centered in Chicago and nearby cities such as Evanston, Oak Park, and Cicero. Outside Illinois, several states, including Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, showed consistent participation across multiple years.

The total participant count increased gradually from the 1990s through the early 2010s, suggesting a steady growth in engagement. However, the participation rate dropped slightly in the final years, likely due to changes in outreach or available data coverage. (Note - this was largely due to less funding available to host and market the conferences following the 2011 decision of the Board of Directors to discontinue support of the Tutor/Mentor Connection part of the Cabrini Connections nonprofit, that was launched in late 1992. While I formed the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to keep this strategy available to Chicago, I never found significant funding due to no longer operating as a 501-c-3 non profit.)

Geographic concentration: Participation spanned 616 ZIP codes across 45 states, but Illinois dominated with about 66% of all participants. Chicago alone accounted for over 5,500 entries, underscoring its role as the central hub. After 2005, participation gradually expanded into nearby states such as Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, reflecting regional growth. (This also reflected the growing use of the Internet since the early 2000s).

Organizational diversity: More than 1,532 unique organizations were represented. Nonprofit and education-related groups contributed the majority of attendees, while donor and policy-focused organizations made up a smaller share, highlighting a sector imbalance.

Temporal trends: Yearly participation fluctuated, peaking in the late 1990s and early 2000s, followed by a gradual decline after 2010. This suggests that outreach strategies or conference accessibility may have shifted in later years. (As noted above, there were less funds available after 2011. However, there also was growing competition as others hosted their own networking events. And with the Internet, there were fewer reasons for people to attend face-to-face events.)

The report concluded with this INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

Our analysis has shown strong participation from nonprofits and educators, but limited involvement from donors and policymakers. This imbalance suggests that the conferences primarily served as spaces for practitioners and community‐based organizations rather than funding institutions. While this helped strengthen grassroots connections, it also limited opportunities for broader institutional influence and resource mobilization.

The interactive dashboard provides a clearer picture of how participation evolved across ZIP codes and years. By toggling between metrics such as total participation, change in participation, new members, and recurring members, several patterns emerge:

● Community clusters: The dashboard shows that nonprofit and education‐related ZIP codes consistently appear with high intensity, especially in Illinois. Many of these areas also show strong recurring member counts, reinforcing the persistence of local and regional communities over time. (Note. if you view many of the maps on this blog you'll see where poverty is concentrated in the Chicago region. If there were a demographic overlay to the IVMOOC map it would show most of the participating organizations came from these high poverty areas. That was our goal.)

● Peripheral actors: When switching to the “new members” view, donor and policy‐related ZIP codes appear less frequently and with weaker intensity. Their limited presence suggests missed opportunities to expand engagement beyond practitioner and educator communities.

● Regional hubs: Chicago and surrounding Illinois ZIP codes dominate across all dashboard views, acting as central hubs of participation. After 2005, the dashboard highlights new activity in Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, showing geographic expansion and gradual integration of neighboring states into the conference network.

● Retention vs. outreach: The dropdown comparison between recurring members and new members reveals a balance between retention and outreach. Some ZIP codes show strong recurring participation, indicating long‐term commitment, while others contribute more new members, highlighting successful outreach into fresh regions. Together, these dashboard insights suggest that while the conferences were highly effective at sustaining nonprofit and education networks, future outreach could focus on strengthening donor and policy participation and leveraging regional growth beyond Illinois.

--- end of text from the report ----

The report reinforces what I recognized since launching the conferences in 1994. We were attracting many of the volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region, along with some of the university programs and researchers involved in doing this work. Occasionally we had participation from foundations, business, universities and local media. However, we never were able to attract a large and consistent following of business, philanthropy and policy representatives.

This concept map visualizes the long-term goal of bringing people from every sector together in an on-going effort to learn where youth need extra help, how volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can expand networks and learning opportunities, and ways business, philanthropy and public policy need to support programs in every high poverty neighborhood, not just a few.

Open this page and view a second concept map that visualizes the different networks who we were trying to connect via the conferences, our website library and on-going social media efforts.

As long as donors, business and policy makers live in silos, disconnected from organizations doing the work and people being served, there will be too few resources distributed consistently and in too few places.

The 2025 IVMOOC team report shows that we were not very successful at this. Had I had the report in the mid 2000s I might have been able to recruit leaders to help. However, part of the reason I never was able to accomplish all that we were trying to do was the loss of major donors in 2000 when Montgomery Ward went out of business, and the dot-com bubble burst, then 2001 to 2003 following the 9/11 attack. We were just recovering in 2007 and 2008 and had earned several grants of $50,000 or more, when the financial crisis began, causing us to lose major supporters like HSBC North America, and ultimately in mid 2011 causing the Board of Directors to decide to focus only on the direct service part of the organization.

As you look at this report, visit this page and look at the Network Mapping tool created by a second 2025 IVMOOC team. These show two ways of looking at participation in an event, or network, and of understanding "who's participating" and "who's missing". Until those who are missing are involved, the network will continue to struggle to achieve significant impact.

Thank you to the students who created both of the 2025 IVMOOC visualizations and reports. I look forward to being part of the Spring 2026 project cycle. I also look forward to hearing from readers how they are using this information. Just share in the comments, or reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Using Concept Maps to Understand Systems

2025-12-06T11:06:00.000-06:00

While most of the articles on this blog focus on the use of GIS maps, which I started doing in 1993 as I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I've used a few articles to show my use of concept maps. Visit this section and this section of the Tutor/Mentor blog and you'll find many more.

Today I found another example of concept maps being used to help understand complex systems. I'll show a few screen shots below, then I encourage you to go to the site and do your own exploring.

Open this link and you'll be introduced to a Child Care Systems map that "explores the current reality of the childcare system in low to middle income communities in India, Bangladesh, Viet Nam, South Africa and Kenya.

On most KUMU maps the explanation of each node is shown on a left hand sidebar. That's true on this map, too. In this case, there's an in-depth explanation of what the map is trying to show. All of the nodes on the map are shown in the above graphic.

At the top of the map are labels, such as "deep structure", "family and community", "gender equity", #policies and resources, and "social and economic development".

At the lower left is a legend that shows what category of information each color represents. You can click on any of these and get a view that only shows nodes of that category.

Click on "deep structure" and you'll get this view.

What I really like about this map is that while information can be seen on the left, this map includes clarifying information directly on the map. Click any node and a "pop up" text box appears. Even the "orange arrows" surrounding some nodes have text boxes.

Click on "gender equity" and you'll see this view.

Click on "policies and resources" and see this view.

Click on "social and economic development" and see this view.

In this article on the Tutor/Mentor blog I showed slides from a Global Futures Society Network Map.

This map shows "who" is involved and how they are connected to each other. If used in combination with a map like the Child Care Systems map, it seems that there could be a robust, on-going conversation that might lead to fixing some of the problems addressed on the Child Care Systems map.

In this article, titled "Mapping Event Participation" I show my own efforts since the late 2000s to map participation in conferences that I hosted, with a goal of connecting those who attended with each other, and building an analysis of "who's there" and "who's missing".

These are powerful tools, if used in on-going planning, network building and capacity building.

In this article I wrote about mapping assets within universities and of creating an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection, where students, faculty and alumni would do the work I've done for the past 30 years, and the work that I'm now showing about the use of concept maps.

If you've read this article, please share it with people in your network who have the wealth that could lead to funding a university-based Tutor/Mentor Connection, based on the ideas I've shared. Share it with students who might want to do this work as independent study, or for information visualization courses, like the IVMOOC course offered at Indiana University.

Maybe someone in your network will be the 'tipping point' that make this a reality.

Thanks for reading. Please connect with me on one or more of the social media platforms that I show on this page.

If you're able please contribute to my December 19th 79th birthday campaign, or my Fund T/MI campaign.

Cook County (IL) Digital Equity Map

2025-11-02T09:47:00.002-06:00

I'm always looking for websites showing uses of maps to focus attention and resources on many locations where people need extra help. Below is the Cook County Digital Equity Map.

You can find the map here. Click here to find information about how the IMPACT Small Grants Program is providing funding and storytelling support to local nonprofits, media organizations and libraries throughout Cook County.

Join in the on-line Chicago Hack Night presentation this coming Tuesday (Nov 4, 2025) at 7pm and learn more about this program and an IMPACT Small Grants Program. If you can't make the live presentation all Chicago Hack Night events are recorded so you can watch them later.

City Bureau is partnering with the Cook County Board on this IMPACT Small Grants Program.

As you look at the Cook County map, look at this visual essay that I created in 2015 to show ways to use maps to focus attention and resources on EVERY high poverty area of Chicago and its suburbs.

In this presentation I show maps of Cook County Commissioner districts, along with other political districts, like Chicago Aldermanic Wards and Illinois State Legislative districts.

Below I show maps of Cook County Commission Districts 2 and 3, and shootings that took place in their districts.

I did not see a feature on the Digital Equity map that sorts the information by district. How can Commissioners be held accountable if voters can't see where people need help, and where help is going?

I'd love to see maps on websites of every elected official that mirror the thinking I share in this visual essay. It shows a collaboration across districts, focusing on shared geography, and shared commitment to helping people who need extra help.

Maybe this is being done somewhere. If you know of such sites, please share the link. If not, share my presentation with elected officials and encourage them to build a platform with this functionality.

Thanks for reading.

I've been sharing this message for over 30 years, but far too few people have seen it and thus, too few are applying the ideas. You can help, just by sharing my posts.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter and other platforms. Find links on this page.

If you value what I'm sharing, please chip in to help me pay the bills. Visit this page.

New example of using maps in planning

2025-09-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

Below are two maps from an interactive tool created by Kindred Futures, that maps pathways to building collective Black wealth in the Southeast part of the USA.

These two maps are part of a set of maps that you can find at this page. While the story features Atlanta, the interactive platform enables you to create map stories for any part of the states shown on the map. If enough of these stories are created and shared, they can attract more interest, volunteers and investors to support the goals stated on the website.

If you browse through articles I've posted on this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog you'll see that I've encouraged people to create map-platforms that provide information that informs and can be used in planning.

What's next?

My only hope is that the developers will take a further step and collect information about existing youth tutor, mentor and learning programs and plot that on maps, the way I've done for many years. This article highlights 30 years of using maps.

In this article you can see how I share maps created by others and show how they might be improved by adding some of the features that were put into our mapping platforms between 2004 and 2008.

In total, these articles are intended to stimulate thinking and innovation in how intermediaries collect data and share it on interactive platforms, with the goal of drawing resources directly to youth serving programs shown on the map, or to help leaders see where more programs need to be built.

If you're creating a platform like the ones I'm showing, post a link to your site in the comment section. Then connect with me on one of these social media channels.

I found this 2014 interview today on Mastodon

2025-09-17T17:17:00.001-05:00

Below is a post that I found on Mastodon.social today when I did a search for #youthdevelopment.

This is an interview of me (Dan Bassill) recorded by Phil Shapiro in 2014. You can listen to it here. Note. This is a platform called "MakerTube" not "YouTube".

I hope you'll take time to listen to it. Phil is a librarian from the Washington, DC area. It shows how Phil and I met in an Internet discussion group in the early 2000s and have stayed connected through constantly changing Internet platforms in the years since then. While the interview is from 2014, Phil shared it in August 2025. Wow.

During the interview I pointed Phil to a series of article about my use of concept maps, that I wrote in late 2014 and 2015. You can find the collection at this link.

If you listen to the entire interview (about 32 minutes) you'll see that I end with the goal that alumni of the programs I led will some day take my place leading this effort. That was 10 years ago. It's still my goal, only I'm now a lot older.

Since doing the interview in 2014 I've moved my library of concept maps to this page on my Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. And, you can find 93 articles that feature concept maps on the Tutor/Mentor blog.

Thanks Phil for doing the interview in 2014 and sharing it on Mastodon. Maybe a few more people will take a look.

This was not the first time Phil boosted my work. Take a look at this 2009 article that Phil posted in PCWorld, titled "Crowdsourcing the MacArthur Awards".

Thanks for reading. You can find me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a few other places. (see links on this page).

If you value what I'm doing and can help, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

Explore the maps. Create your own stories.

2025-08-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

I've been using maps since 1994 to show where Chicago area kids need extra help based on the level of poverty and inequality in the areas where they live. This blog was created in 2008 to show maps my organization was creating. Since 2011 the blog has shared maps created using our interactive map-based Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

The Program Locator has only been available as an archive since around 2017, so the blog has been used to show data platforms hosted by others. Below is a concept map showing some of the platforms found in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library.

On this concept map I've circled one node, titled "Education data". Click on the small box at the bottom of the node and you see three links. I opened the one titled "Education Opportunity Map".

This is the "Education Opportunity Project at Stanford University". This page shows three projects. I chose the "Segregation Tracking Project" and opened the map shown below.

In the lower right is a legend. The green shading shows the level of White-Black Segregation between schools in each state, with the dark green being the most segregated. The orange shading shows the percent of White Students in individual schools, with the darker Orange being the highest.

I zoomed in to the Chicago region, to the map-view shown below. This map shows the level of segregation in individual schools. Just click on any of the dots and a pop-up will show the name of the school and level of segregation.

I zoomed in as far as the site would allow. The map below shows the South Side of Chicago.

The dark green background shows that this is a highly segregated area and the white dots showing individual schools, confirms that.

I've written about segregation several times in past years. Open this link to find articles on this site, and open this link to find articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog.

Now create your own map stories.

Explore the data platforms shown on the concept map at the top of this article. Zoom into your own city, state and/or neighborhood. Learn about needs and opportunities.

Then brows my blog and use my articles as templates, to see how you might embed maps in articles and/or videos intended to draw more people to information about race, segregation and inequality, and to draw more people to organizations working with youth and families living in areas of persistent poverty.

Students in middle school, high school and college can learn to do this. At some point in the future every city should have at least one blog like this one, sharing datamaps and stories created by others, and drawing attention to places where people need extra help.

I've created many visual essays that show how maps and map-stories, created by many people, can have a huge impact on changing public policy and influencing the flow of needed resources into high poverty, highly segregated neighborhoods. Here' one example.

Find more like that in this collection.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll share this, and your own work. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky and Mastodon (see links here).

I depend on help from a small group of donors to fund the work I'm doing. Please visit this page and add your own support.

Learning, network building and innovation

2025-07-09T11:23:00.000-05:00

Since March 2025 I've not added new links to the Tutor/Mentor library since the site was being upgraded. That work finished last week so I've added many links that I'd seen in the past few months.

Below is a view of the VizDex website, which is a library of personal and independent blogs and newsletters dedicated to data visualization.

I saw mention of this on one of my social media feeds and once I visited the site I asked if my MappingforJustice blog would qualify. The answer was "yes" as you can see from the image I've posted.

I've now added that link to my own library. For the past few years, as I've added new links, I notified viewers by putting that link on my "new additions" page. Below you can see the "new links for 2025" page.

When you look at this list, note that under every listing is a "find in this section" statement, with a link to the section of the library where I added the link.

In this case, it points to a page where I've several dozen links to websites that demonstrate uses of concept maps and visualization.

These are in alphabetical order so you need to scroll to the bottom of the list to find the VizDex site. As you do you'll find many more sites where you can learn ways to use concept maps and visualizations.

One of those you'll see is this Power Mapping article on a website named "The Commons: Social Change Library".

This article is particularly relevant because it describes my own vision of using concept maps to "know the network, then nudge the network". And it's part of a much larger library of social change information managed by The Commons.

Below is a page from a visual essay where I describe how the links I point to are experts in specific topics and often host libraries of their own. Thus, I don't need to have "everything" in my own library if I can point to others who have greater depth of specific topics than I have.

I've posted several articles on the Tutor/Mentor library showing how my library was intended to stimulate innovation and constant improvement within the youth/workforce development ecosystem. In this article I included this statement.

I started building a library of research and peer tutor/mentor program information in the 1970s, to stimulate the thinking and innovation of volunteers working with me to build the tutor/mentor program I was leading at the Montgomery Ward Corporation in Chicago. As I created my library, began sharing it with peers, leading other programs. I formalized this information collection/sharing in 1993 when I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Now I host an extensive web library of information, with links to more than 2000 other web sites, that anyone in Chicago, or the world, can dig into to find "carrots" that inspire their own innovation and constant improvement.

I was pleased that the VizDex leaders added this blog to their list. I wish more were doing the same and that we were working collectively toward motivating more people to use the libraries for on-going learning and problem solving. Furthermore, I'd love to find people using the Power Mapping ideas who are building maps showing the ecosystem needed to change policy and make more, and better, long-term youth development, learning and career development resources available in every area with concentrations of persistent poverty.

We need to be connected and working collectively to draw attention to the resources we are sharing.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon and other platforms and share links to your own libraries and blogs.

I also ask that you consider making a contribution to help me fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC so I can continue to keep the library on-line and freely available to the world. Click here to learn more.

Chicago's Violence Reduction Dashboard

2025-06-06T13:52:00.006-05:00

A few days ago I watched an introduction to Chicago's Violence Reduction Dashboard which was created by the University of Chicago's Urban Crime Lab. Below I'm showing a few images I made from the video. Click on the images to enlarge them.

If you scroll back through articles posted on this blog since 2008 you'll see my interest in maps, and how my organization created an interactive tutor/mentor program locator that plotted locations of Chicago volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs as overlays to demographic and crime data such as shown in these graphics.

The two images below show the data plotted on a Tableau GIS platform. The first show the entire city and the second illustrates how you can zoom in to look at a smaller section. The data sorts by zip code, aldermanic ward, community area, etc.

View the video below and you'll see how the above images are from the dashboard.

While this Mapping For Justice blog is fully focused on maps and visualizations, the Tutor/Mentor blog shows uses of maps as part of the larger strategy of helping kids in high poverty areas that I launched in 1993, and have supported through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011. Here's one example.

I wish I had this type of functionality in the 1990s and 2000s! Over a period of 16 years I mixed together volunteer and paid talent to create maps and map-stories intended to show where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs were most needed in the Chicago region and why. By 2009 when the interactive Chicago program locator was built the financial crisis had hit and we lost our funding and ultimately the capacity to continue to update the program locator and create map stories.

The concept map below shows my 30 year history of using data maps. You can find the link to it in this article.

This graphic visualizes my goal in using maps and it's one I hope others who now have this capacity will adopt.

Creating data dashboards that help people understand the distribution of problems within a big city like Chicago and keeping those updated is a huge challenge. However, unless layers of information are added that show organizations working in different places who are constantly looking for volunteers, donors, talent, technology and ideas to do good work, the maps are not connecting "people who can help" with "places where help is needed".

They are missing a big opportunity to be part of the solution.

And if this role is not taken by many leaders there will always be a few great organizations in a few places, but too few great organizations in all the places they are needed, because of the competition for scarce resources.

Below is a concept map that I created to show layers of information that I'd love to see on these data maps, along with strategies that get more people to view and use the information. See it in this article.

In mid 2011 when I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in order to keep the Tutor/Mentor Connection available in Chicago. As I wrote above, I lost the funding and capacity to continue building and maintaining my own program locator. However, in the 14 years since then I've pointed to data platforms built by others that could be used to create map stories that draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in high poverty/high violence areas of Chicago and other places.

I hope you'll take a look. I hope donors will provide you with the funding to build and maintain this capacity.

There's too much information on my blog and website for a quick review. Unless someone keeps referring to the information, they way college students review course material, or faith group review religious texts, too few people will build the understanding needed apply the ideas I'm sharing.

That's why I keep encouraging wealthy donors to fund the creation of Tutor/Mentor Connection-type programs on college campuses, where my archives can serve as study material, intended to build the new leaders needed to build the technology and apply these ideas.

Thanks for reading. Please share this with your network and connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, Mastodon and Threads (see links here).

If you value what I'm sharing and are able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work.

View my concept maps

2025-04-16T11:57:00.003-05:00

Below is one of the first concept maps that I created, back in 2005, to visualize the ideas I was sharing in my blog articles, e-Mail newsletters and website.

I wrote about these in a series of articles posted on this blog in 2015.

I use cMapTools to create my concept maps. It's easy. It's free. Each map has nodes that are connected by lines and arrows, so you can "read" the map to understand what it is offering.

At the bottom of each node are two small boxes. The one on the left has links to external websites. The one on the right has links to additional concept maps. Thus, you have layers of connected ideas.

A few years ago I created a page on my main website where you could see, and open, all of my concept maps. That site has been down for repairs for a few days so I decided to add lists of cMaps to the concept map shown below.

At the lower left you can see how a single node might include several maps. I encourage you to make a visit and just open the links in each node, to learn what types of maps are available. Later you can dig deeper into any single map that interests you.

In my concept maps I embed many geographic maps showing areas of high poverty in Chicago where volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs are most needed, and where current programs are located.

These maps intend to draw volunteers, donors, media, youth, parents and others to programs throughout the city, not just one or two high profile programs. They also are intended to support a planning process that identifies where more programs, or specific types of programs, are needed, and who could be helping such programs grow.

I encourage people from other places to use my maps and blog articles as a starting point for creating a similar collection, focused on their own city/state. Then share your maps in blog articles and on social media like I do.

Together we might draw more attention to this information than each of us can by ourselves.

That leads me to this post on the Tutor/Mentor blog. It features an article by Vu Le, titled "Funders, here's the blueprint for saving democracy."

I urge you to read it. Then, you could create a concept map that visualizes the steps he writes about, and share this in your own blog article with philanthropic and business leaders in your own area.

Share your articles on social media and I'll boost them as I see them.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to connecting with you.

Why I've Blogged Since 2005

2025-03-28T10:12:00.000-05:00

I started the Tutor/Mentor blog in April 2005, almost 20 years ago. This Mapping blog was started in 2008 and I've been posting articles on it since 2011.

In late February a few of my #clmooc friends created posts showing why they blog and invited me to add my own history. I invite you to read posts by Kevin, Sarah and Sheri to see where I'm getting my inspiration.

I created this image, showing me in 1997 with former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, for my "Reflections on Why I Blog" articles. You can find the first one here. I hope you'll take a look.

Helping others understand - using AI

2025-01-22T10:28:00.000-06:00

Below is a podcast discussing strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present), created using Google NotebookLM's artificial intelligence. Click here to open and listen.

Over the past few months I've posted three articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog showing how an educator friend from Kentucky has used Google NotebookLM. This prompted me to try it out last week and one of the three articles shows my own work.

One thing I like about this tool is that a podcast is created, with two people talking about the source material I provided, which was past articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog and pages on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. I've shared links to this information for over 20 years with the goal that this type of discussion would be taking place in communities all over the world.

The way this works is that I upload content, which could be a PDF, a website address, or video. In this case I provided three blog articles and two pages from the website. Below is a summary created by NotebookLM.

The (1, 2, etc.) numbers in the text refer to the different blog posts I provided.

Summary
This document details a comprehensive, long-term strategy developed by the Tutor/Mentor Institute (TMI) and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) to create sustainable, volunteer-based tutoring and mentoring programs, especially in high-poverty areas of Chicago. The core strategy involves a four-part cyclical process: first, data collection and mapping to identify needs; second, targeted public awareness campaigns to garner support; third, facilitation of understanding and application of the gathered information; and fourth, resource mobilization to improve existing programs and build new ones. The approach leverages a robust online resource library, concept maps, and visualizations to effectively communicate the need for and benefits of these programs, ultimately aiming to build a self-sustaining network supporting youth from elementary school through their careers.

The author's involvement began in 1973, when he started as a volunteer tutor/mentor while also starting a retail advertising job with the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago [1, 2]. In 1975, he became the leader of the volunteer program [2, 3]. He continued to lead a single site-based tutor/mentor program until 2011 [2]. Simultaneously, he began reaching out to other programs in Chicago for ideas, which laid the foundation for the Tutor/Mentor Library [2, 3]. In 1976, he started inviting programs to gather for lunch to share ideas, which eventually led to joint volunteer training events [2]. These early collaborations were the roots of forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 [2, 3], while also forming a new program to serve teens in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago [3].

Tutor/Mentor Programs: A Sustainable Support System
The Tutor/Mentor Institute (TMI) and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) have established a comprehensive system to support youth through volunteer-based tutoring and mentoring programs. This system is designed to address the core reasons for these programs, identify where they are most needed, and ensure their long-term sustainability [1, 2].

Why Tutor/Mentor Programs Are Needed:

• Addressing Inequality and Poverty: These programs specifically target areas with high poverty rates, aiming to provide opportunities for youth who may not have access to strong support networks [2]. The goal is to have programs available in all high-poverty areas, particularly in Chicago [3, 4].

• Providing Long-Term Support: The focus is on offering continuous support to youth, from their elementary school years through high school and into adulthood, including career preparation and job placement [2, 5]. These programs are intended to help young people successfully navigate their educational journey and transition into adult life [2].

• Expanding Support Networks: The programs connect youth with a diverse range of adult mentors and learning opportunities, helping to make up for the limited networks that are often a result of living in high poverty areas [2, 5].

• Filling Gaps in Non-School Hours: The T/MC and TMI focus on non-school, volunteer-based programs, recognizing the importance of support outside of regular school hours [2].

Where Tutor/Mentor Programs Are Needed Most:

• Mapping Areas of Need: The T/MC utilizes maps to visualize the locations of existing programs and to highlight areas where more programs are needed, particularly in high-poverty neighborhoods [2]. These maps are tools for volunteers, donors, and leaders to help them decide where to invest their resources [2].

• Focus on Chicago: While the resources are designed to be applicable in any location, much of the library's focus is on the Chicago area [4]. However, the T/MI advocates for the duplication of this library model in other urban areas [4].

• Data-Driven Approach: The strategy involves collecting data and indicators of need to help direct resources to the areas that are most in need [2].

The Resource Library:

• Comprehensive Sections: The library is divided into four main sections, each with numerous sub-sections [6]. This library is part of the Tutor/Mentor Learning Network, created in 1993 [1].

• Wide Range of Topics: The library covers a variety of subjects, including [7-9]:
◦ Justice, inequality, poverty, and law
◦ Homework help
◦ Research links related to education and tutoring/mentoring
◦ Philanthropy and fundraising
◦ Training and learning resources for tutors, mentors, parents, program leaders, and educators
◦ Arts, climate, health, and STEM
◦ Literacy and alternative youth programs
◦ Afterschool networks and resources
◦ Political action and progressive issues
◦ Technology and the digital divide
◦ Collaboration, knowledge management, and process improvement
◦ Chicago government and public schools
◦ College and career links
◦ Business involvement links
◦ Blogs on education, network building, and fundraising
◦ Social entrepreneurs ◦ Suggested books
◦ Volunteer administration networks
◦ T/MC and T/MI history, blogs, and websites

• Dynamic and Growing: The library is continuously updated with new links and resources [6]. New links are added to the library each year [7].

• Archived Resources: The original Tutor/Mentor Library is available at an archive location, beginning in January 2022 [10].

T/MC Blog Topics:

• Extensive List of Topics: The blog covers a wide array of subjects [11-13]:
◦ Leadership ◦ Learning ◦ Network Building ◦ Collaboration ◦ Concept Mapping ◦ Strategy ◦ Mentoring ◦ Public Awareness ◦ Volunteer Recruitment ◦ Maps and Visualization ◦ Philanthropy ◦ Poverty ◦ Social Justice ◦ Youth Leadership ◦ The Four Part Strategy

• Long-Term Perspective: The blog archive demonstrates an ongoing dedication to the ideas and strategies. The blog includes articles from 2005 to 2025 [14-20].

Ongoing, Long-Term Process:

• Cycle of Improvement: The TMI promotes a cycle of continuous improvement with a four-part strategy that repeats annually [2, 5].

• Emphasis on Sustainability: The focus is on building systems and infrastructure to support programs over the long term [1, 2].

• Resource Mobilization: The T/MI is dedicated to assisting individual programs and communities of programs in developing business plans for obtaining the resources to fuel innovation and process improvement [2, 21]. The T/MC seeks to increase the amount of attention and resources that are drawn to tutor/mentor programs [21].

• Building Public Will: The TMI also focuses on building public support for this type of work [5].

• Four-Part Strategy: Several blog articles focus on the 4-part strategy, developed since 1993. See more details about this below:

• Annual Event Calendar: The T/MC has developed an annual event and marketing plan that repeats from year to year [21]. The annual event calendar features four key events [23, 24]:

• Volunteer Recruitment starts in August, aiming to increase the number of people who volunteer their time, skills, or financial support at tutor/mentor programs [22, 24].

• Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in November, designed to bring together leaders, volunteers, and supporters, and to encourage year-end donations [24].

• Feb/March Motivation/Recruitment event to energize volunteers and recruit replacements [24].

• Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in May/June, intended to celebrate the accomplishments of volunteers, students, and programs while sharing best practices [24].

The T/MC and TMI framework is about addressing systemic issues that affect youth in high-poverty areas, not just about tutoring or mentoring or building a program [2, 25]. The goal is to create a sustainable support system that helps young people move successfully through school and into adult lives and careers [2, 5].

The four-part strategy is:

• Step 1: Information Collection and Mapping
The first step focuses on gathering and organizing information about existing tutor/mentor programs, their locations, and the needs of the communities they serve [3]. This includes creating maps to visualize where programs are located, where they are needed, and what resources are available [1, 3]. The aim is to provide volunteers, donors, and leaders with data to make informed decisions about where to get involved and where to invest resources [3]. This step also involves building a large library of resources with articles about why these programs are needed and how to make them stronger. The library includes links to youth-serving organizations nationwide, as well as articles on fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and training [3]. Concept maps provide greater detail, and point to relevant sections of the web library [3].

• Step 2: Public Awareness and Communication
This step focuses on creating a daily flow of stories about tutoring and mentoring, aiming to draw people to the web library and encourage them to support programs [3]. This involves using various communication channels, such as social media and newsletters, to highlight the need for tutoring and mentoring and to promote events [1, 3]. The strategy uses a calendar of events timed to the rhythm of tutor/mentor programs [1]. For example, August focuses on volunteer and student recruitment, November on year-end giving, and May/June celebrates the work done and focuses on planning [1, 4]. The goal is to generate media coverage of events and to use the visibility of leaders to draw attention to the cause [1].

• Step 3: Information Facilitation and Understanding
This step is designed to help people understand and apply the information gathered in Step 1 [3]. It involves providing resources and support to help volunteers, leaders, and other stakeholders make sense of the information and use it to improve their programs [3]. This is achieved by sharing examples of how to apply the information, hosting conferences to bring people together to learn from each other, and using social media to share information and draw attention to programs [3]. The goal is to create a network of leaders who can help facilitate understanding of the information [3].

• Step 4: Resource Mobilization and Program Improvement
The final step focuses on translating increased awareness and understanding into action [3]. This involves encouraging people to seek out tutor/mentor programs in their communities and offer their time, talent, and money [3]. The maps and visualizations created in Step 1 play a key role here, by showing where the needs are greatest [3]. The goal is to support programs so that they constantly improve, helping kids connect with volunteers and learning opportunities [3]. This step is not a one time thing, and repeats each year to help programs grow [3].

Maps are a critical tool within this strategy [3].
They are intended to show where existing programs are located, making it easier for volunteers, parents, donors, and the media to find them [1, 3]. At the same time, these maps highlight areas where new programs are needed, particularly in high-poverty neighborhoods [3]. The goal is to have effective, constantly improving programs in every high-poverty area, reaching youth of all ages [3]. By building and maintaining a comprehensive list of programs, the strategy encourages each program to learn from each other [3]. The T/MC hosted conferences every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 to facilitate this [3, 4]. Connecting with each other via online platforms is also strongly encouraged, creating a continuous learning network [3].

Concept maps and visualizations are central to the T/MC and TMI strategy [2, 3].
They are used to share complex ideas in an easy-to-understand format [2, 3]. Some of the concept maps and visualizations mentioned include:

• Concept maps that break down the four-part strategy into its component parts. These maps show how each step is connected and how they work together to achieve the overall goal [3].
• Visualizations of the 12 years it takes for youth to move through school and the additional years it takes to get into a career. This graphic is meant to emphasize the need for long-term support [1].
• Graphics depicting the elements of "Total Quality Mentoring" [2].
• Concept maps showing the various supports kids need, from elementary school to high school and beyond [2].
• Visualizations showing how to build public and private sector support for programs [2].

The four-part strategy was developed in 1994, and refined by 1995 [3]. The author's goal is to provide a library of information and ideas that volunteers could draw from, and to help programs build a talent pool of veteran volunteers and staff who could provide answers to a wide range of questions [2]. The resources provided are intended to help others understand the need for strong tutor/mentor programs and to take action to support them. The author notes that he does not have all the answers, but he believes that the information and resources he has gathered can help people to solve complex problems [2]. The overall goal is to build and sustain public and private support for hundreds of separate programs and for the intermediaries who support the entire system [2].

The T/MC was formed in 1993 [3, 5]. In 2011, the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC was created to continue the T/MC’s work and expand its reach [3, 6]. The author now seeks leaders in universities, businesses, and other institutions to take ownership of this work, adapt it, and carry it forward [3]. This involves adopting the four-part strategy, building their own directories of local programs, and creating their own maps and visualizations [3]. The strategy is designed to be decentralized [3, 5]. The information library and ideas shared on the blog and website are meant to inspire the thinking and actions of others [3, 5].

At the left is a 1994 Chicago SunTimes article about me leaving my advertising career with Montgomery Ward to support tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.

One lesson I learned from this deep dive using Google NotebookLM is to NOT use too many sources. The summary above draws from six sources of information.

This MappingforJustice blog was created in 2008 and has been used since then to primarily show the uses of GIS maps. The paragraphs above show how important this is.

I've posted all of this information multiple times on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor blog. What Google Notebook LM does is provide a different summary, and more importantly, the podcast. It makes the information more understandable and demonstrates the type of conversations these resources are intended to inspire.

However, one caution with the podcast is that they often exaggerate and add in information not in the source materials. Since last week I've created 6-8 podcasts, but only two am I able to share, such as the one above. I've not yet learned how to fine tune the podcast.

I hope you value this review. It's a new year and as we fear what the new President will do, we need to emphasize what individuals can do. You can create your own interpretations of any of my resources, focusing on helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in high poverty areas across the world.

Or you can apply the four-part strategy to creating an information base that focuses on other problems that need to be solved. As you do that, the NotebookLM tool adds another way to help people find and understand the information you're sharing.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to connecting with you. I show social media links on this page.

I depend on a small group of supporters for financial support. Please visit this page and contribute if you can.

Help me help others

2024-12-18T09:23:00.001-06:00

Throughout the year I share examples of how maps can be used to draw attention and resources to youth serving tutor, mentor and learning programs in high poverty areas of Chicago.

I point to articles on this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog, which I started in 2005.

I point to the library and list of Chicago tutor/mentor programs that I host at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

I don't charge a fee for using the resources I share. I encourage others to duplicate them and apply the ideas to helping kids in every city and state.

While I operated the Tutor/Mentor Connection under a 501-c-3 nonprofit status from 1993 to 2011, I've supported it through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011. I've used my own savings and I depend on contributions from a small group of supporters to help keep these on-line.

Please visit this page and make a contribution if you're able to help me.

Thank you.

After the election the work continues

2024-10-30T17:29:00.002-05:00

11-6-2024 update - the election was not the result I and millions of others wanted. Yet, what I wrote last week is still true.

The US election next week will be a tipping point. Which way do we go as a democracy? I voted for Kamala Harris and hope she wins. But I realize that is just a step in the work we need to be doing to solve the complex problems facing the US and the world.

I've used this blog since 2008 to share uses of GIS maps to show where people need extra help, and to show where help is being delivered. In one set of links in the Tutor/Mentor library I point to many websites showing uses of GIS maps.

I've posted several articles over the past 20 years showing why I've built a library and how I hope people will use it.

Below is what I wrote on the Tutor/Mentor blog in November 2022.

Below is a post I saw on Twitter, showing a "Social Change Ecosystem Framework" developed by Deepa Iyer, of the SolidarityIs and Building Movement Project.

.@aliciasanchez: This #SocialChangeMap ecosystem reduces hierarchy, but also shows how roles can be racialized & gendered: "Is it always women of color who are caregivers in your life? Is it always white folks who are considered visionaries? What's the power dynamic around that?" pic.twitter.com/cWLHqRfRdL
— Building Movement Project (@BldingMovement) November 16, 2022

Here's an article by Deepa Iyer that describes a use of this Social Change Map. I love the "hub and spoke" design she uses and how this shows the range of people and networks who need to be part of any problem-solving ecosystem.

I've used similar visualizations for more than 20 years.

You can see these in hundreds of articles on this blog. I've posted several dozen articles since 2005 that I've tagged "complex problems". And many more tagged "network building". Plus a few more tagged "ecosystem".

Below is a concept map created more than 10 years ago that shows the range of talents and networks that need to be involved in solving any complex problem.

All of these emphasize that no single person can solve the many complex problems we face locally and globally. If you scroll through the articles tagged complex problems you'll find many visualizations showing complexity.

I found another on my LinkedIn feed this week.

This graphic by Christian Sarkar can be viewed in an article titled "The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems".

One of the features of this graphic is that it shows relationships and how the problems are inter-related to each other.

What would have made it better (in my opinion) would have been links from each node, to web libraries with information about each problem.

For instance, here's my concept map showing the research section of the Tutor/Mentor Library. At the bottom of each node is a link to a specific collection of websites.

Linking to libraries like this would expand the information anyone has to understand a problem, to connect with others who are also trying to solve the problem, and to find work being done in some places to solve the problem that might stimulate innovation and/or duplication in many other places.

The challenge, of course, is building and maintaining such libraries, and attracting people to use the information. And, finding consistent funding to pay for the work. I was never able to do that.

I hypothesize that every link I point to from my library represents an ecosystem of many people working for that organization and an even greater number who that organization and its employees connect with.

Looking at the graphics by Christian Sarkar and Deepa Iyer, imagine people from each of these nodes connecting with each other in on-going learning, innovation, resource development and problem solving.

Who are all of those people? Who are all of the organizations working in each category?

Someone who's been doing some deep thinking about part of this is Greg Bloom, Founder of Open Referral. He was the speaker at the November 15, 2022 ChiHackNight event.

I encourage you to view the short video on the home page of the Open Referral website to understand the important work they are doing and the problems they are addressing.

Greg's group has been bringing people together since 2012 to talk about the challenges of building and maintaining information directories and to "create a common set of data standards, that define and structure information, so that it can be readily transferred between systems". Read through the FAQ questions and answers on the Open Referral website to understand this better.

View Greg's Nov 15 presentation to ChiHackNight. click here

That means many distributed directories could be connected in larger directories, making more information available to more people.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I and a few others created in 1993 and launched in 1994, has been collecting information about Chicago area volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs for 30 years, along with building a library that represents the ecosystem of research, resources, funding, businesses and everyone else who needs to be involved in helping kids in poverty move more safely from birth-to-work.

We published our first printed directory of Chicago tutor and mentor programs, and the ecosystem of those who support them, in 1994 and updated it annually through 2003. After that all of our information was put on-line.

We had others ask us to share the data, but who never offered to help pay the costs of collecting and maintaining it. I never did this for fear of the larger organization eliminating the need for our work, and then at some point in the future, ceasing operation, so none of the data we had been collecting would remain available.

Furthermore, if our data was owned by a national organization, the people who managed it would not have local passion, or local purpose, to use the data regularly to help existing programs constantly improve, nor to help new programs form where data analysis showed more were needed.

That was why we were collecting the information in the first place!

Thus, I proposed there be a decentralized collection of data that was shared in a system similar to what Greg has been working on. Back in the 1990s the technology, or motivation, to do this was not available.

Thus, I fully understand the challenges Greg describes. For the past 10 years I've been a one-person army trying to maintain the library, share it, and get people to talk to myself, and each other. If you read though this blog you can find hundreds of articles that relate to this.

Bringing people together.

When we were planning the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and talking about building a directory our PR partner from Public Communications, Inc. in Chicago, said "You've got to host a conference!".

Using the contact information from organizations we learned about through our survey and our networking, we hosted a first Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in May 1994 and hosted one every six months after that until May 2015, at which time I had to stop due to lack of money.

In this article you can see a map showing participation over 20 years. Here's a presentation showing how universities hosted these conferences and how I reached out to them for many years. Between 1996 and 2002 attendance ranged from over 150 to over 300. Our mailing list grew from 400 to 14,000. This represented quite a large ecosystem, yet, it was not attracting business, philanthropy, government or university participants. Thus, there were always too few of "the right people" to fully build the Tutor/Mentor Connection to what I hoped it would accomplish.

Since forming the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 the range of people I've been reaching dramatically declined and conference participation dropped to around 100 per event.

So let me sum up.

1) the world is dealing with complex problems and some people are creating great visualizations showing this complexity;

2) some people recognize the difficulty of collecting and sharing social service information and are trying to innovate new solutions;

3) knowing "who" should be included in a directory, or in an "invitation list" is part of the problem in a big city like Chicago; getting them to come to "your event" or into "your conversation" is a huge challenge if you're not well-connected, or have a reputation that draws people to you. Getting into "their conversations" and "being heard" is just as difficult.

4) I find very few people creating visualizations of who should be connected, or who they are bringing together via their events.

5) even if you have a list of "who" unless you do some sort of network analysis of event participation and/or social media conversations, you don't really know how well your network is connecting.

I'm sure readers might list more problems. I'd love to hear from you.

This has already been a long article, but if you've made it this far I encourage you to go one article further. Review the 4-part strategy described in this concept map.

The "information collection" described in this article is just STEP 1. Getting people to look at the information (step 2) and helping them understand it (step 3) and use it (step 4) also need to be funded and supported as part of any problem-solving process.

---- end 2022 article ----

Last week I posted another "after the election" article on the Tutor/Mentor blog. Click here to read it. Having libraries like mine can help people innovate solutions to problems based on how others may already be trying to solve them, and can help find others to help with the work.

Electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz blunts the regressive policies being promoted by the ultra conservatives but does not fix the problems that we face. Those who are funding Trump will still be trying to change the face of America in 2025 and beyond.

It will take an ecosystem of people to build and sustain an America that creates hope and opportunity for everyone and dims the passions of the fanatics. I hope the next administration helps such systems grow and that my resources will be useful.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll share this. I'll be 78 on December 19th and I keep looking for people/institutions who will take ownership of my archives, the library and this vision of supporting problem solving with extensive libraries like mine.

I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon. (see links here). Let's connect.

If you appreciate these articles please visit my FundT/MI page and send a small contribution.

Governor Tim Walz - a 'GIS Nerd' - ESRI Blog

2024-08-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

There are many reasons to like the selection of Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as the Vice President candidate of the Democratic Party. One that's close to my heart is shown in this ESRI 2024 blog article, titled "Why Governor Tim Walz is a 'GIS Nerd' and What that Means for the US".

I encourage you to read the ESRI article, then go to the Minnesota Executive Map Portfolio and view each collection. Open the collection under "Minnesota Children, Youth and Families" and you'll see the page I show below.

Click on any of the maps and it opens to an interactive map where you can enlarge and look closely at any part of the state. The example I show below is from the "Children in Poverty" map. I've zoomed into the Minneapolis - St. Paul area.

The more you enlarge the map, or zoom into a specific area, the greater the level of detail you'll see. Notice that if you click on the map a pop up will show the number of children under age 18 that live below the poverty line and what percent of children this represents for that census tract.

I've added a link to the ESRI article and the Minnesota Executive Map Portfolio in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library.

In my April 2024 article I shared this page from a 1997 Tutor/Mentor newsletter and asked "What if Leaders had used maps like this?"

Maybe they are. I can't tell from the maps I'm viewing on the Minnesota site. The maps are great, as far as they go.

What I don't see (maybe it is someplace else) is a set of maps answering the questions of "How many tutor/mentor programs are needed?" and "What programs already exist?", sorted by type of program, age group served and location".

Nor do I see a section of blogs where writers have created images like I show above, and embedded them in articles, like I'm doing here. As a teacher, maybe Governor Walz was teaching youth to create map stories. Does anyone have a link to a collection of blogs that show this?

Browse past articles on this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog and you can see how I've been trying to use maps. If you're familiar with the Minnesota maps, of similar collections from other states, do you see information showing maps being used for the same purposes that I've been trying to use them?

Below is an example. This is a page from a PDF essay that I first created in 2011, then updated in 2018.

It shows community areas of Chicago, and the number of high poverty youth, age 6-17, in that area. It also shows what percent this represents. The green stars on the map are known volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in this area. The platform I used to create this was the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, launched in 2004 and updated in 2008, which was also interactive.

As you can see from this image, you could sort my maps for programs in specific zip codes, and that provide different forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring services to different age groups.

If you look at the Minnesota map above, it shows this information in a much better format. It just does not include information about service providers. Thus, it cannot be used by the Governor or any other group to draw attention, volunteers and donors to the providers, or to determine where more programs are needed.

I wish I'd connected with Governor Walz in the late 2000s when I first launched the Program Locator and in the 2015-17 period when i ran out of money to keep it active. Now it's an archive, which you can read about on this page.

This is the type of image I'd like to find on the website of political and business leaders in every state. It's me, in the mid 1990s, with a Chicago Tribune article on the screen behind me saying "City Kids at Risk".

Kids in every city and state have been at risk for more than 30 years but I've not found any leader who has the same history as I have, trying to create an information base people could use, then trying to build on-going visibility so more people use the information to help programs grow that help kids in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs and adult lives free of poverty.

It sounds like Governor Tim Walz may have been doing much of this. Too bad we've never met.

Until now. I know he's busy with the election, but if you know him, share this article and my blogs. Hopefully we'll connect after he's elected Vice President of the United States and he can champion this strategy in every city and state.

Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon and other platforms. See links here.

Please send a contribution to help me keep sharing these stories. Visit this page.

What If Leaders Had Used Maps This Way?

2024-04-21T17:45:00.000-05:00

Below is a page from the 1997 NEWSLINK, the printed newsletter of the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I formed in late 1992.

The headline is "No General Would Go to Battle Without a Map". It's aimed at corporate CEOs.

In the top map inset is a 1997quote from Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley. It says, "I look forward to a time when businesses, churches and leaders throughout this city will each stake out an area in a particular community and pledge to take an active responsibility for the education and well-being of all the young people in that area."

The bottom map shows hospitals in Chicago. The heading next to it says, "Channel marketing: Encourage "look-alike" groups (health, law, arts, science) to expand outreach programs in neighborhoods where they operate, with afterschool programs serving as distribution centers for these efforts"

In the text it says "Healthcare groups with "prevention" programs aimed at changing behaviors before they come to the health care provider as problems could partner with existing programs. Staff and volunteers could be role models to help youth hear healthcare "prevention" messages, modify behavior, and sustain changes until they become a habit. At the same time health groups are a source of mentors, job shadowing, careers, professional resources and even safe place for youth and adults to meet."

In the inset the text says:

WHAT IF?
While everyone can't be a one-on-one mentor, different groups have special skills that could help tutor/mentor programs be more effective.

While the map shows how hospitals could adopt neighborhoods, what if the alumni groups of Chicago's business schools (Northwestern, Chicago, DePaul, Loyola) made it their mission to have teams of business/marketing experts at each afterschool program in the city to help ALL programs build effective long-term business plans.

WHAT IF THAT PROMISE WERE MADE?

I've been encouraging businesses to adopt strategies like this for more than 25 years. You can read the full NEWSLINK issue at this link.

Visit this page and view visual essays that I've created since the 1990s to share similar ideas and strategies.

While we mailed our print newsletters to nearly 7,000 people by 1997, too few people have ever seen the ideas I've been sharing.

That means they are "NEW" to everyone who has not seen them. Which means anyone can begin to add these ideas to their own leadership and maybe ten years from now the WHAT IF will be LOOK AT WHAT WE DID!

If these ideas have value to you, please visit this page and make a small contribution to help me pay the bills and keep this resource available to you and the world.

Maps and Map-Stories from past 30 years

2024-04-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

This is a story that appeared in the Chicago SunTimes in November 1994. It talks about my leaving my corporate advertising job to lead a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago.

The two photos show me with a 7th grade student, who is now a college graduate with two kids in college. We're still connected on Facebook.

The second is a map of Chicago, with high poverty areas highlighted, and known volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs shown.

While we launched the site-based Cabrini Connections program in January 1993, we spent all of 1993 planning a second program, aimed at building greater attention and a better flow of volunteers and dollars to EVERY volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago, including our own.

We named that Tutor/Mentor Connection and launched our first survey to learn about existing programs in January 1994.

Why maps?

In late 1992 as I was forming the new program I told a librarian at the United Way/Crusade of Mercy about our intent to learn about every tutor/mentor program in Chicago. She asked, "How will you share that information?"

I told her I had not yet figured that out and she went into the library and came back with a magazine that describe Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and how that could be used to plot locations of programs on a map of Chicago.

I was immediately sold on the ideas and have spent the last 30 years trying to do that.

The first challenge was learning about GIS technology and building the capacity to create maps. That was solved in 1993 when Metro Chicago Information Systems offered to produce maps for us (for a fee). They produced maps for us through 1995. We launched our own capacity in 1996 (see below).

How were maps used?

One strategy was to publish our list of programs in a directory, which we began to do in May 1994. We updated that annually and continued publishing it until 2002. Then we moved the data to an online Program Locator, which was used until 2018 when the site went off line. View 1995 Directory.

A second strategy was to create map-stories following negative news in the Chicago SunTimes or Chicago Tribune. Below is one example.

Our aim was to show where something "bad" happened, and was given significant attention in local media. Our goal was to tell "The Rest of the Story", showing the level of poverty and number of poorly performing schools in that area, which were contributing factors to what happened.

We added locations of tutor/mentor programs in the area, if there were any. Then we also added layers showing assets, such as churches, business, colleges and/or hospitals, who shared the geography, thus should be strategically involved in helping tutor/mentor programs grow, and helping those programs constantly improve what they were doing to help kids through school and into jobs and careers.

At the same time we created maps like these, showing businesses, faith groups, universities, etc. who had locations in many parts of the Chicago area, thus could be supporting volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in many places, not just a few favored, high-profile, programs.

The goal has been to have good and constantly improving programs in EVERY high poverty area, not just in a few places.

Over the past few months I've been creating archives in my Google drive folder and now you can look at all of the maps and map stories we've created, as well as the media stories our strategies generated.

Map stories created since 1993 - open this link

From 2008 to early 2011 we were able to hire a part time GIS expert to create maps using donated ESRI ArcView GIS software. View his collection.

The collections below show maps used in blog articles, visual presentations, social media, etc. Many of these maps were NOT created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection or Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Some were created using the interactive map-based program locator that was created in 2008 - open this link

As we found ways to create maps and map-stories we created an on-going event strategy that generated media stories. Below is a folder that shows several hundred articles.

Finding talent to do the annual survey, create and maintain a database, and then create our maps was always a challenge. Drawing attention to the maps was an equally large challenge. That's why I began to reach out to universities in 1993 to try to form partnerships that would lead to students, faculty and alumni duplicating the work my small organization was piloting.

Last Friday I posted an article on the Tutor/Mentor Blog, featuring a PDF presentation showing my "30-year history of reaching out to universities". Below are three pages from that presentation

Students from Northern Illinois University set up a GIS map-making capacity at our Cabrini Connections office in 1995. One student worked for us part time in 1996 and 1997 to create maps for us, then continued as a volunteer.

Vamshee Bhupathiraju, a graduate student at IIT, came to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2003 through a technology grant. He created the on-line program locator, which was launched in 2004. This was the source of data used in the interactive Chicago Program Locator built in 2008 by a team from India.

Students from Indiana University created a map in 2016, showing participation in every Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference from May 1994 to May 2014.

These were significant contributions. These are just 3 pages out of 50 that I share in this presentation. They show what's possible. I hope you'll take a look.

I'm sharing my archives because I believe other people could do what I've been trying to do, and do it better. And because I'm now 77 and need others to continue this work.

My maps show that non-school, volunteer-based, tutor, mentor and learning programs are needed in many parts of the Chicago region, but in many cities around the country (and probably the world).

Too few people ever saw the maps I'm sharing because I never had millions of dollars for advertising and was not a Taylor Swift type of celebrity who could draw people to complex ideas on a regular basis.

Universities have the talent, and responsibility, to do this work. However, unless major donors step forward to provide on-going, decades-long, funding, none will do this for as long as I have and none will ever be able to publish an archive like I've shared here, showing 30 years of maps and map stories.

Ten or fifteen years from now archives like mine could be available on university websites in many cities. It only takes "two or three people on a campus to launch a Tutor/Mentor Connection", and a major donor!

I'll be sharing more of my archives in coming weeks, primarily in articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog. My goal is that a few people will be motivated to dig deeply into this information. I'm sure there's a book that could be written, showing strategies leaders can use to help end poverty by helping more kids through school and into jobs and careers.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it.

I'm on Twitter (x), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other platforms. You can find links on this page.

If you are able to make a small contribution to help me keep doing this work, visit this page.

University of Michigan Poverty Solutions Data Maps

2024-04-02T10:11:00.001-05:00

I've followed the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions account on Twitter (X) for a few years and have a viewed some of their live presentations. Below are screenshots from two resources I found on their site today.

Michigan Poverty and Well-Being Map - open link

Multidimensional Index of Deep Disadvantage - open link

Both maps are interactive, meaning you can zoom in to small sections of the country, or the state. And you can click on an area and get data showing the level of poverty and/or disadvantage in that area. I encourage you to spend time learning to use these in your own advocacy.

I've added links to the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions site in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library. Take time to get to know these resources. Share them with your community.

As I prepared to write this post I scrolled through this blog, looking at articles I had tagged "datamaps".

I encourage you to do the same. You'll see many other interactive data platforms and maps.

In many articles you'll see how I've used maps to call attention to areas where kids and families need extra help. Here's one example.

There are a lot of resources mapping poverty but I don't find enough people using the maps the way I have been since 1994, to draw volunteers, donors and business investment into these areas and keep it there for many years.

That's the only solution I know of. It comes down to building and sustaining public attention and public will.

I took this photo many years ago, as a reminder of what I needed to do daily, and what others also need to be doing.

I'm on many social media platforms. See links on this page. I hope you'll connect and post links to map-stories you are creating.

I also hope you'll visit my "Support Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC" page and make a contribution to help me continue to maintain this library and share it daily with the rest of the world.

Persistent Poverty in America

2024-02-14T11:24:00.003-06:00

My Twitter feed brought a new report to my attention this week. It's titled "Persistently poor, left-behind and chronically disconnected" and was written by Kenan Fikri who I've been following for a while. (I'll use Persistent Poverty to refer to this report in the rest of this article.)

The map below was what caught my attention. It shows areas of concentrated poverty in six Ohio cities.

For the past 30 years I've used maps to focus attention on areas of concentrated poverty in Chicago. In this set of MappingforJustice blog articles, I show other cities with the same challenges. In the 1990s a book titled American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, written by Douglas S. Massey, addressed this same issue.

Below are a few passages from the Persistent Poverty article that I highlighted. (click to enlarge). Go to the report to read this in context.

The abstract shows a focus on social networks and social capital and says "these problems tend not to resolve themselves naturally". The second shows that hidden in affluent Cook County are several clusters of persistent poverty census tracts. Two with over 200,000 residents."

This is not a new problem. This 1994 Chicago Tribune front page pointed to some of the same high poverty areas as are shown in the Persistent Poverty report.

I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993 (and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011) to try to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in these areas as a strategy for expanding the networks of adults from beyond poverty areas who were helping kids through school. I point volunteers and donors to these programs, through lists that I host on this page.

In the Persistent Poverty report, one strategy was to expand networks of support and bridging social capital.

This paragraph highlights the difference between "bonding" social capital which consists of strong ties between family, neighborhoods and/or church groups. These are present in many high poverty communities. What's not present are large doses of "bridging" social capital, which connect youth and families to people and opportunities and solutions beyond the place where they live.

I've been writing about social capital on the Tutor/Mentor blog for many years. Add these articles to your research.

The graphic below was created in the 1990s to show the design of the tutor/mentor program I led. It's a strategy designed to expand "bridging" social capital for K-12 youth and families in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities with areas of concentrated poverty.

The hub on this graphic represents a youth, a family, a school or a neighborhood. It shows a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program as a place that draws workplace volunteers from many different backgrounds to serve as one-on-one and group tutors/mentors to youth living in high poverty places of Chicago. The timeline in the middle of the hub emphasizes the 20-plus years it takes to help each youth through school and into jobs where they can earn enough to raise their own kids free from poverty's challenges.

The strategy I've emphasized has been to enlist leaders from every industry to use their own media, visibility and resources to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in all parts of a city, not just to one, or two, high profile programs.

These two PDFs show this goal - Total Quality Mentoring click here

Role of Leaders - click here

I've focused on cities because the geographic size makes it difficult for workplace volunteers to meet with kids during the school day, or right after school, because of the distance between work and program locations. The after work and weekend hours are times when that volunteers is more able to stop at a neighborhood program and make an on-going commitment.

However, there are not enough long-term programs and there is inconsistent funding to build and sustain such programs. Here's one of many articles where I focus on funding. No solution will come without addressing the flow of dollars to these places!

However, as the map from the Persistent Poverty report shows, the problem of long-term poverty is not limited to cities and urban areas.

These two paragraphs emphasize the different history of places across the US and the lack of simple solutions.

Below is another graphic from my collection.

It emphasizes the role each person can take to be part of a solution. If you've read this far, that means YOU!

Read the report. Here's the link again.

Update: I asked if there is an interactive map showing the Persistent Poverty data. There is. Follow the link in this post from Twitter (x):

There is! Much of this analysis was based off of @InnovateEconomy's big Advancing Economic Development in Persistent Poverty Communities project from last summer. The tract groups view on this map brings the full geography of poverty into focus: https://t.co/1DGIT80B9h pic.twitter.com/RLnR5eL0CR
— Kenan Fikri (@kenanfikri) February 16, 2024

Using the interactive map you can zoom into the Chicago area, or any other place with high concentrations of poverty. Look at it. Create your own map stories.

Then, share it with people in your network, so they read it and begin to think about roles they might take in helping more people become involved in efforts that make mentor-rich programs available in all of the high poverty areas shown on these maps.

3-7-2024 update - Here's another article using the EIG dashboards to understand t his data: https://cityobservatory.org/a-yawning-chasm-patterns-of-neighborhood-distress-in-us-metros/

Then visit this section of the Tutor/Mentor library and read additional reports about poverty, race and inequality in America, that I've been collecting for more than 20 years.

In last Sunday's Super Bowl a group spent millions of dollars to purchase ads talking about Jesus. I wish someone were spending the same money talking about the research I've been pointing to and mobilizing people to be volunteers, leaders and donors supporting youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in all high poverty areas of big cities across the country.

And building a similar research library showing the different challenges of rural areas, reservations, and other places where solutions may be different than for big cities. Then, drawing readers and planners to that resource so they develop solutions.

And that they do it consistently for the next two decades.

What do you think? Connect with me on social media. (see links here)

Help me pay the bills. Make a contribution to Fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. click here

Explore STEM Visualizations for Stakeholder Conversations

2023-11-30T10:50:00.005-06:00

Today I explored a robust data visualization site created by Argonne Labs in partnership with Northwestern University’s Digital Youth Network. The project is described on this page.

Click on any of the green circles and you'll open data tables for nine communities on Chicago’s south side, cataloguing STEM assets from Kindergarten to career.

2026 update - the links on the Argonne page no longer open, possibly due to restrictions by the Trump administration. However, you can still view the interactive map, using the link below.

The nine focus communities are shown in the map on the home page. Open this link and you'll find an interactive version. Below are some map views that I created in just a few minutes.

Click on the "layers" tab and you will see a menu of choices for what you want to show on your map. For instance.

This view shows community organizations in the area who offer various forms of STEM learning opportunities. The orange circles show census data for each census tract in the nine community areas.

In the map view above I've clicked on an icon for the Chicago Youth Programs site at 5350 S. Prairie Ave. You can see program information in the text box to the left of the map. This is an organization I've know for many years and is also included in my list of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs.

Below is a map view where I've clicked on the orange circle for the census tract with the Chicago Youth Programs location. I asked for information showing the number of youth under age 18 in the area. The map shows 678 kids out of a population of 2152 in that census tract.

The next map view shows businesses, or potential employers, in the nine community areas. Put your curser over any black dot and find information showing who that business is. Zoom in to see what businesses are in different census tracts.

There is a lot to explore. Here's an article about the platform, posted in the Block Club Chicago publication.

My question is, "How will it be used to make STEM learning and career opportunities available to youth through out the area?"

I've met in the past two years with the people who created this platform and encouraged them to dig into the history of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the tools and strategies we piloted from 1993 to 2011 to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in the Chicago region. This Mapping for Justice blog is a textbook for anyone who wants to use it that way. Just read some of the "strategy" articles.

I started building a list of Chicago tutor/mentor programs in 1993 and at the same time began learning ways to use GIS mapping to show where the programs were located and where more were needed. We published our first Directory in May 1994 at the same time as we hosted our first networking conference. We used the directory to launch citywide volunteer recruitment campaigns in August 1995.

In 2004 an intern from India built the first on-line Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which was a searchable database shown below. We had organized our annual survey in 1994 to learn who offers volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, where they were located, what age group they served, and what type of tutoring and/or mentoring did they offer, as well as what time of day did they offer services.

The search fields on the Program Locator enabled people to search for specific programs based on the categories of our survey. This worked like most search engines. If you had an idea of what you were looking for, and where, the platform helped you narrow your search and find tutor/mentor program information in that area.

In 2008 a team from India built a new version of the Program Locator. The home page is shown below. This works differently from Google. It starts with a map of a specific area, then shows layers of information, including our data on Chicago tutor, mentor programs.

At the left you can see layers of information that can be displayed on the map. These layers included our data about Chicago tutor/mentor programs, but also included poverty data, poorly performing schools, and assets (businesses, faith groups, colleges, hospitals) etc.

Thus, you could create a map showing the entire city.

Or you could zoom in and create a map view showing a portion of the city.

You could add text to the map to focus on specific organizations in various community areas.

You could follow news stories with map stories. On your map you could not only show existing tutor/mentor programs, but you could add layers showing businesses, hospitals, faith groups, universities who share the same geography and who should be innovative and strategic in helping mentor-rich non-school programs grow in the area. For each part of the city the mix of programs and assets is different.

The Program Locator is now only available as an archive. However, you can see some of the features in this PDF essay.

How to Use Chicago Tutor/Me... by Daniel F. Bassill

One of the challenges of the STEM project is building public awareness and drawing people to the platform, then teaching them to create stories on a regular basis that draw even more people to the platform and motivate them to take actions that help kids in the area have access to mentor-rich STEM learning programs that provide on-going support as kids move from 1st grade through high school, college/tech school and into jobs and careers.

Since my organization did not have advertising dollars we developed a "Rest of the Story" strategy that followed media stories with maps that showed the neighborhood and pointed to tutor/mentor programs in the area (if any) and described the need for more programs. Below is a mid 1990s example.

The STEM project leaders could duplicate this and other strategies that I've piloted over the past 30 years. They are all on-line and available to anyone motivated to look. They might even add some features and functionality to their platform based on what I have done, or tried to do.

The Tutor/Mentor Blog is an even broader text book than the Mapping For Justice blog. Think of the sections below as chapters, or courses in a learning curriculum.

Public awareness - click here

Using maps - click here

Media strategies - click here

Follow up to violence - click here

Mentor role in larger strategy - click here

Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website - click here

The challenge: Too much information.

View this graphic in this article. The ideas I share and websites I point to are a vast information ecosystem. It's like a university library or the library of different religious groups. It can't be learned in a day. It needs to be part of on-going learning.

For that to happen major donors, perhaps MacKenzie Scott, need to provide money to fund programs within high schools and college that provide advance degrees for people who spend 10-20 years learning and applying these ideas.

Thanks for reading. Please share these ideas with leaders in Chicago and other cities. Maybe you know one of these donors, or are one yourself.

Connect with me on social media platforms and share your own strategies and maps. Help build the network. Help the STEM network grow and reach more people.

Finally, consider a year-end contribution to help me continue this work in 2024. Visit this page to use the PayPal.

Maptitude tools using GIS for regional economic planning

2023-11-15T14:45:00.002-06:00

Below is a map view showing three cities in Oregon, using a mapping product from Maptitude.

This map is part of an article on LinkedIn titled "How to use GIS to look at changes in employment patterns".

In the introduction the writer says "This article explores how to use GIS (geographic information software) in local or regional economics. Many times, local or regional governments, economic geographers or regional economists are asked to look at changes in employment patterns over a specific period within a particular geography (e.g., a city, township, or county) or between several geographies where a comparative analysis is required."

This is a detailed article with step-by-step instructions for building a map-view like shown above. You may not feel comfortable doing this work yourself, but if you understand the potential, you can share the article with others who might be able to fund this type of work in your community.

In my June 25, 2023 article titled "Where are non-school youth development programs most needed?" and in many other articles on this blog, I've encouraged the use of GIS software to do an analysis of community areas, similar to what is described in the Maptitude article, but different in purpose.

Here are just a few articles I encourage you to read.

In this article I show the concept map below.

This concept map shows layers of data that need to be collected and mapped to not only show where tutor/mentor programs are most needed, based on indicators like poverty concentrations, poorly performing schools, violence, etc., but also to show assets (businesses, colleges, hospitals, faith groups, etc) who share the same geography and who should be leading efforts to make mentor-rich youth programs available to more K-12 kids.

This 1994 Chicago SunTimes article shows me with a student from the tutor/mentor program I led at that time. In the background is a map of Chicago, with high poverty areas highlighted. I've been trying to harness this technology for nearly 30 years!

I've never been a GIS expert myself, thus always depended on volunteers or paid staff to make maps, and map stories for me. Since these resources were inconsistently available, I never have been able to do the type of analysis described on the Maptitude site.

Yet, I keep pointing to maps as tools that leaders in Chicago and other cities should be using.

Youth in non-school tutor/mentor programs, high schools and/or colleges could be learning to do this type of analysis and then sharing map stories to mobilize more people to become strategically involved in helping reach K-12 youth with on-going programs that expand their networks of "who they know" while helping them through school and into adult lives.

In these articles I outline a "Rest of the Story" strategy that young people, supported by professional mentors, could be leading.

Please share my articles and help recruit people to do this work. If you know groups who already do this, share their website and blog addresses in the comment section and introduce them to me on social media.

Thank you for reading. Visit this page to find my social media platforms.

Visit this page to make a contribution to help me continue to share these ideas.

Pain and suffering around the world

2023-10-08T09:41:00.000-05:00

Today I'm listening to news about the brutal terrorist attack in Israel, following the continuing Russian attack in Ukraine, and looking at headlines about kids killing kids in the USA.

It's overwhelming.

A few years ago I posted a map showing disaster areas throughout the world. Today I looked for updated information and found this detailed map on the Visual Capitalist website.

The Reliefweb website also has a map showing disasters around the world.

As I look at the scale of these conflicts and natural disasters I ask, "How can I keep trying to help kids in high poverty areas connect with tutors/mentors in organized, on-going non-school programs?" That seems like such a small issue compared to these larger conflicts and disasters.

This is not a new concern for me. Below is a graphic I created in the 1990s.

This shows a goal of attracting a small percent of attention and philanthropy to youth tutor/mentor programs on a regular basis.

Below is another graphic that I created to show the need to divide attention and giving into slices of a pie so that a small percent goes to on-going problem solving, like helping kids entering 1st grade today be entering jobs/careers in 12 to 20 years.

Here's another. It uses the pie chart from the graphic shown at the top of this page, to emphasize how every non-profit youth program competes for a small, inconsistent, pool of donor dollars.

My goal has been to draw youth serving programs together in an on-going campaign that educates donors and increases the size of the pie, and motivates them to look for 1) where tutor/mentor programs are most needed; 2) choose a zip code you want to help; 3) look at websites for programs in that area to see what they do and what help they need; 4) then look in a mirror, and decide how, and how much, you want to help.

While we need to give attention to disasters and conflict around the world, and in America, we need to continue to devote a small slice of time and dollars to helping kids grow up safely and well-prepared to be leaders in their adult lives.

Where are non-school youth development programs most needed?

2023-06-25T16:46:00.001-05:00

The Heartland Alliance released its latest data tables last week. I wonder who in Chicago is using this information to understand where youth need extra help in the non-school hours, based on levels of poverty in their community area?

Here's an example of the data available on their site

Below is the same table, along with maps that I created from other sources. The first one shows the North Lawndale area of Chicago.

This second one shows the Albany Park community area.

I used data provided from the Heartland Alliance in 2011 and again in 2018 to create the presentation shown below. It includes maps for each Chicago community area, with the total number of kids age 6 to 17 and the number who fall into the poverty level.

Chicago Community Areas: Youth In Poverty-2018 from Daniel Bassill

In the above graphic for the North Lawndale area I used a map showing shootings that had been published by the Chicago SunTimes, along with a map from the Program Locator (no longer available) that my organization created in 2008.

View the presentation below to see more examples of maps being used to help determine where non-school programs are needed, where existing programs are located, and where more are needed.

Planning needed following violence in Chicago from Daniel Bassill

In early June I posted this article, asking who is doing research about youth program availability. The two SlideShare presentations are examples of the type of analysis that needs to be done ... with much greater depth and professionalism than what I've been able to create.

Between 1993 and 2011 I operated as a non-profit organization and while funds were inconsistent we were able to pilot a process of collecting information about volunteer-based youth tutor/mentor programs and segment that by age group served, type of program, and location. We shared that via an on-line search table (created in 2004 and updated in 2008) which I show below.

Since 2011 I've not been able to update or continue to develop this and now it's only available via the Internet Archive. Had I been able to continue development we would have expanded the type of programs were were looking for, to include arts, technology and youth development categories.

Furthermore, we would have built a fund-raising page, that would attract donors to different neighborhoods of Chicago, where websites of existing programs would provide information enabling volunteers, parents and donors to choose who to support. I feel that creating the funding page was important because for a small organization one of the most difficult challenges of doing this work was collecting the data and keeping it up-to-date. Having the site raise money for your organization would be a strong motivator for keeping data updated.

Combining the fund raising feature with the maps of each community area was a strategy intended to drive resources to EVERY high poverty area of Chicago, not just the most visible areas, or the most well-known programs.

I described this fund raising strateg on this page.

The value.

Building a segmented, searchable, list of non-school youth serving programs would be a valuable resource for Chicago or any city. Helping those programs attract operating dollars and volunteers would help each program operate and constantly improve.

However, without the demographic information such as provided by the Heartland Alliance (and others that I show on this concept map), leaders, volunteers and donors don't know where programs are most needed. Without providing the number of kids within a community area who live below the poverty line, it's impossible to gauge weather or not enough kids in each grade level are being served by existing programs. Without segmenting the program list by type of program we might see a density of icons on a map, but still be not providing needed services in many places.

Finding a way to gather this data and use if for analysis is a huge challenge.

My hope is that philanthropists will fund work in Chicago and other cities that builds on the work my organization started in 1993 and that is shared in articles on this blog that extend back to 2008, and articles showing uses of maps that I share on the Tutor/Mentor blog, started in 2005.

Enough is Enough.

We continue to be reminded by daily media stories of the results from not having the type of support systems for too many youth that might offer hope and opportunity and serve as a disincentive for gangs, crime and violence.

Tutor/Mentor programs are not quick fixes. Yet if leaders had embraced the strategies the Tutor/Mentor Connection was piloting in the 1990s and sustained them for the past 25 years, I feel that a lot fewer young people would be lost.

What can you do?

If you've read this far, thank you. As the graphic at the left illustrates, we're all able to access these articles via our computer and phones. Start skimming through my archives. Share what you read with people in your network. Help find the leaders and philanthropists needed to build this research capacity.

Create a new portal, available FREE via open source code, so that it can be adopted and used everywhere. Create communities on social media where people creating and using these portals, and who are building tutor/mentor programs, can connect and learn from each other and build the public will needed to generate the flow of resources essential not only to support the platforms, but to support the thousands of youth tutor, mentor and learning programs that are needed in high poverty areas around the country.

If I can share this via a blog article, you can too!

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