Our Maps Make The World A Better Place - Get Involved!

Hey! A review of our mapping work from VerySpatial.Com...

"a great interactive website...geospatial technologies are being used to make the world a better place and encourages people to make their own impact on society."

(This map shows the locations of 10 shootings that occurred in three separate high-poverty neighborhoods in the 24 hours between April 1st and 2nd, 2010. The darker shades of red and blue show the highest poverty rates. The green stars show known mixes tutor/mentor programs, in the Tutor/Mentor Connection's database. This map was featured in a Mapping For Justice article on April 2nd.)

I smell a press kit coming!

Seriously.

We need more press, more buzz, and more investment... to continue providing innovative tools to those who are building mentoring capacity in areas where our maps indicate there are probably a lot of young, impressionable, at-risk youth.

We need to continue providing extra scholastic and decision making skills for kids on the fence in these high-poverty enclaves... kids who have untapped talent and might just choose to side-step the lure of the streets in their teen years, and focus instead on becoming fruitful members of our society and economy... rather than drains on your tax dollars, our economy, and our collective future as Americans.

More press. More buzz. More investment.

This means YOU doing what you can, to help kids you might not think of as your problem...

But you don't like crime. Just click on that map to the left to expand it and see all the crime in Chicago, early this year.

You don't like the undereducated...

• The Alliance for Excellent Education estimated that high school dropouts from the Class of 2006-07 will cost the U.S. more than $329 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes."

And I'm betting you don't like that word taxes...

• “Cost of poverty” reports estimate the costs to the U.S. associated with childhood poverty at $500B per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of GDP.

Help us create this buzz and find the investment needed to connect our not-for-profit maps with policy makers who understand that tutoring/mentoring is part of an urgent long-term and comprehensive response to the economic and social burdens we're all facing (versus another high-priced band-aid policy that will have no real long-term effect... like calling in the National Guard, for instance).

I won't lie to you. It took a $50,000 donation in 2007 to help us rebuild our map capacity and get to where we are now. That money is gone and we're depending on general donations until we find new sponsors and benefactors to help us get to the next level.

If you have contacts in your network, or a philanthropic budget yourself, you can help us connect our tools to the mainstream today, toward a much brighter tomorrow.

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Attend our workshops at the May 27 and 28 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference to meet others who are already invested.