How does a city get from "here" to "there"?

There's plenty of information showing a need to provide extra learning support and mentoring for youth in high poverty areas, but few examples of sustained, decades-long, efforts by cities to build and sustain a network of programs reaching a growing number of youth in all of the high poverty areas of a city. I've used maps and graphics to illustrate the need for planning, leadership and resource development strategies that would take a city from its current level of youth serving organizations to a future level reaching more youth with higher impact organizations.

Last Saturday I posted a "strategy map" illustrating a shared commitment that needs to be adopted by leaders in every sector of business, philanthropy, government, education, non profit, etc. so more are innovating and leading actions that support the growth of strong programs.

Then on Tuesday, I posted a concept map illustrating the different supports youth in high poverty areas need to move from first grade to first job, over a 20 year period of continuous support, available in multiple neighborhoods.

So what might a city need to do to mobilize and support this level of sustained effort? Since 1994 I've been piloting a four step strategy aimed at helping tutor/mentor programs grow in all of Chicago's high poverty neighborhoods.

Step 1 includes building a library of information, including information on existing non-school youth serving organizations, and information people can use to borrow ideas from others and innovate actions that lead to constantly improving programs. These actions include new ways to generate flexible operating dollars throughout the program and intermediary network in any city.

Step 2 focuses on the marketing, social media and leadership needed to build public awareness and draw more people to the information in step 1. One of the challenges that must be overcome is the lack of advertising dollars available to create a reach and frequency of message delivery that gets more people involved, and keeps them involved.

Step 3 focuses on ways to help more people understand the information in the library, how it relates to them, and actions they can take to support the growth of one, or many, tutor/mentor programs in the city where they live, or in other parts of the country. There is so much information available that I've written many articles focused on "learning" cultures, where youth and adults are motivated to spend time on a regular basis reading and reflecting on this information.

Step 4 focuses on actions repeated throughout each year, for many years, which generate a greater flow of needed dollars, talent, technology and ideas to every one of the tutor/mentor programs operating in a city, and to every neighborhood where such programs are most needed.

This animation was created to help you understand the four part strategy and strategy map. This PDF also shows the four part strategy. This blog article does the same.

The heart of this strategy is the information collected and shared via step one. Articles I've read about innovation show that if you're exposed to ideas of how other people are already solving the same, or similar programs, you are stimulated in more ways to innovate ways to solve the same problem where you are. I've devoted an entire section of the tutor/mentor library to creativity and innovation ideas.

I've spent the past 40 years thinking of ways to influence youth and volunteers and of ways to build and sustain mentor rich non school programs that focus on the relationships between youth and adult volunteers and the long-term impact these programs can have on youth and volunteers. This, my understanding of how all of these ideas relate to each other is probably more intuitive than most other people in the country.

Yet, because I share my thinking, and my library, others can build learning organizations in high schools, colleges, business and communities and support a process that shares what I've learned with thousands of others, who then add their own ideas and talent to improve what they do to help youth in their communities move through school and into productive, adult lives and careers. Spend time looking at this information, then look for people who may already be leading this strategy in your own community. If you can't find such a group, start it yourselfe, as I did back in 1993.

As you look at this information I hope to connect with you in on-line communities as well as in conferences I host every six months in Chicago or that others are hosting at different times each year.

What does "mentoring to career" pipeline look like?

Last Saturday I posted an article with a strategy map, showing commitments many leaders need to take to help youth living in high poverty neighborhoods move from birth to work. Below is another map I hope you'll spend some time looking at. The link is here.

Most of us take for granted the support system we have that helps shape who we are, and how we grow up. This PDF is includes some graphics that show that the network surrounding kids living in high poverty is much different than that of most kids living beyond high poverty areas.

The concept map is intended to show supports that should be available in the lives of youth as they move from first grade to a job and career. This is a "hub and spoke" design, with the spokes leading to nodes indicating a type of support. In a couple of the nodes, such as the homework help section, you can see how I link to a web library with links to quite a few sites that learners could draw ideas from.

This graphic shows the concept map in a different way, yet it intends to communicate the same idea.

I've been seeking volunteers from engineering, design and architecture firms who would help me create an animated version of this graphic. I'm also looking for writers and data visualization people who will help fill each node on this map with links to information people can use to build and sustain age-appropriate non-school learning programs. If someone is working with a youth in 3rd grade, you should be able to click into that section of the graphic, and find information related to mentoring, tutoring and providing social/emotional support for youth at that age level. If you're working with high school kids, you should be able to click into nodes that show things you can do to support high school youth.

You should also be able to find discussion forums where people are sharing ideas, and where funders, policy makers, researchers and business leaders are also participating. Without their involvement in the process, the commitment of resources will be too narrowly focused, and to short a time frame.

The goal of these graphics is to show that youth need a wide range of support at each age level, and they need this support to continue through high school and post high school years. That means the way programs are supported needs to change, to be more consistent.

The maps on this blog intend to show that this "birth to work" support system needs to be available in every high poverty neighborhood, not just a few neighborhoods.

What is the role of volunteer mentors and tutors? They not only can draw from this information to innovate better ways to support the youth they work with. They can use this to help youth in different neighborhoods have access to more of the supports the youth need.

Visit my Tutor/Mentor blog to read more about these ideas.

Using Concept Maps to Communicate Strategy

If you browse through articles posted on this blog since 2008 you'll see how geographic maps have been used to show where volunteer-based, non-school, learning, mentoring and tutoring programs are most needed in Chicago, based on indicators such as poverty, poor schools, violence, health disparities, etc. In the next few blog articles I'm going to post concept maps that show commitments and strategies that need to be adopted by leaders from business, government, philanthropy, entertainment, sports, and the non profit sector, if the map is to be filled with high quality programs.

I've been using CMaps, a free concept mapping tool, since 2005. This was introduced to me by Ariane Lee, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who worked for me for one year. Once she introduced CMaps to me, I began to create a variety of maps. In these maps you can follow a train of thought, from one node to another. In this strategy map, the blue box at the top can be filled by any leader who makes this commitment. As you follow the train of thought, you'll see small boxes at the bottom of each map. The box on the left leads to other web sites with related information. The box on the right, leads to additional concept maps, that provide deeper thinking related to that specific node.

In this particular map you can see a box to the left, indicating that there is an animated version of this map. It was created by interns from IIT, during six week internships in Jan-Feb and May-June, 2009. The voice over was provided by a Northwestern University graduate, who was serving a one-year fellowship. I encourage you to listen to it. The information it provides will help you navigate the map. Some of the links are broken and this needs to be updated, but the information is still useful.

This strategy can be adopted and applied to Chicago, or to any other city in the world. It can be adopted by a University or a Hospital and focus on the area around that specific university or hospital. If you'd like my help in thinking through your strategy introduce yourself to me on Twitter, LinkedIN or Facebook or email tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net.

NOTE: since posting this article in October 2014 I've posted several related articles. View them all-click here.

Chicago Health Atlas a valuable resource

This map view was created using the Chicago Health Atlas, one of the projects of the Smart Chicago Collaborative.

While a majority of the maps in the Mapping for Justice blog were created by Tutor/Mentor Connection, I've also used articles to point to other map platforms that provide indicators showing a need for extra investment and support of youth and families in neighborhoods highlighted on these maps. In this section of the Tutor/Mentor web library are more links to poverty and crime maps.

Our aim is to encourage, and inspire, a growing number of people to create videos, blog articles, books, slide presentations, etc. that use these indicators to show people beyond poverty where they need to be investing time, talent and dollars to help communities overcome challenges they cannot overcome by themselves. If youth learn to create map stories, and how to communicate these regularly as part of a call to action, they learn skills they can apply in adult lives, and provide talent that helps draw needed resources to various places shown on the map. If you're creating map stories with a goal of drawing resources to volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in different parts of Chicago, or in another city, please share your link.

Using Data to Support Fund Raising

All of the maps on this site are intended to support actions that draw volunteers, dollars, technology and ideas to all of the high poverty areas in Chicago where a wide range of volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning organizations are needed in the non-school hours.

Below is a graphic showing the home page of the Boston Indicators Project, which I've been following since around 2004.

What I've liked about this site is that it has created a list of 10 indicators/issues which represent most of the major issues of concern to people in the Boston area. If you click into any of the issue areas you can dig deeper into a wide range of data, maps, articles, etc. to help you better understand the problem and potential solutions.

On the right bottom of the home page is a section focused on the Boston Giving Common, created by the Boston Foundation.

I created screen shots showing the progression of pages you find as you click into the Giving Common. First, you'll find ten categories, which align with the 10 issue areas on the Boston Indicators site. If you click any of these, such as youth development, you go to a page listing youth development organizations in the Boston area. If you click on an organization you go to a page with financial information, web site address, and a button that you can click to make a donation!

I don't know if this represents all youth serving organizations in Boston, or just a few.

I also don't see maps that show locations of different organizations, with layers showing different types of services, or different age groups served, which is what I've created on the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

I also don't see an explanation of a year-round strategy intended to draw a growing number of volunteers and donors to this web site so more will become supporters of different programs. I also don't see a use of MOOCs or engagement of youth as story-tellers, as part of a strategy to engage growing numbers of people to focus on each separate issue area.

Yet this is a great model of a high profile community organization acting to leverage it's own giving by encouraging others to support organizations in the region who require consistent, on-going and flexible operating dollars and a wide range of talent to have a growing impact on solving the problems that the indicators show face Boston. It has constantly been improving what it does since I first saw the site many years ago. I suspect it's leaders will be adding some of the features I've mentioned as the look for more ways to engage Boston area citizens, social benefit organizations and resource providers.

While I write about this, I also share my interest using my Twitter @tutormentorteam feed. And I've added the link to this section of my web library so others can find this and use it to inspire their own efforts. I've shared this with Chicago organizations and hope I'm invited into brainstorming conversations and planning groups who are looking for ways to mobilize all stakeholders in the region in long-term problem solving.

If you're aware of something like this in other cities, or something working even better to draw needed resources to all of the neighborhoods who need a wide range of services, share the link on your own blog and with me via a comment or a Tweet.

US Schools Highly Segregated

This Metro Trends Blog article shows that "Despite our country’s growing diversity, our public schools provide little contact between white students and students of color. Metro Trends has mapped data about the racial composition of US public schools to shed light on today’s patterns at the county level. These maps show that America’s public schools are highly segregated by race and income, with the declining share of white students typically concentrated in schools with other white students and the growing share of Latino students concentrated into low-income public schools with other students of color." Read the article.