On November 17 and 18 the Tutor/Mentor Connection will host the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. This will be the 24th since 1994. Our goal is to a) bring programs together for networking and learning; b) find opportunities to increase the quality and availability of programs through collaboration that makes resources more available; c) increase public visibility for tutoring/mentoring in the weeks leading up to the year end charity giving period, so that the individual fund raising efforts of each program will have greater success

We're putting this conference together now and will be hosting a symposium to discuss strenghts, weaknesses, threats and opportunities that are commong to all volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs. You can read more about the conference design at http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com

We're looking for volunteers who will help facilitate and who will participate as panelists. We'll also be putting part of this in an on-line forum, so participants can join in an on-line version without coming to Chicago.

Email tutormentor2@earthlink.net if you'd like to know more or just post a comment here.

Dan Bassill, Tutor/Mentor Connection

The next Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference will be held on May 25, 26, 2006 at the Northwestern University Law School in Chicago. Visit http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com to learn how you can participate.

For those who see education and building an expanded network of adults for inner city kids as a strategies for ending poverty, this conference is an opportunity to meet and network with others who share the same goal. An eConference forum is available for those who cannot come to Chicago on these dates.

During May and June the Tutor/Mentor Connection and other organizations that support volunteer based tutoring/mentoring will be presenting a variety of on-line discussions aimed at gathering people from around the world and building visibility for the organizations that participate. Visit http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com/generic54.html to read more.

This is a free event and O-Net members concerned with issues of inner city poverty are encouraged to participate.

The May 2006 conferences have attracted people from around the world to the internet discussions, while 190 people attended the event in Chicago.

Access to funds is a critical issue, so I'm trying to form a team for the Team based funding competition. I wrote about this in another discussion, at http://www.omidyar.net/user/u715126713/news/1/?e=newcomment&page=1#comment1

The International Arts/Mentoring Festival team can be seen in the list at http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/ws/teamsforming/#participants-and-interests

I've revised the focus of this discussion to invite people who already work with at-risk kids to join in a discussion of "tipping points", or actions of a few that could have an impact on thousands.

Please join in if you are leading a youth serving organization, as staff, a volunteer, and/or a donor, or if you are interested in doing this type of work.

In many recent Omidyar.net conversations the question of how to get more people to participate, how to draw help to people doing good, and how to make it easier to find topics of interest are being discussed.

I propose an action.

Anyone who operates a youth serving organization, who is looking for volunteers, donors, or visibility, or just wants to share information about the good work they are doing can post a description of their organization, and a web link to their organization, and/or a place where their organization is being discussed at Omidyar.net, in the comments on this thread.

If we aggregate enough links to various youth organizations, new people coming to Omidyar.net who are interested in helping youth, can find this discussion, and find your description of your organization, and be encouraged to look at what you do and how they might help you.

I lead a tutor/mentor program in Chicago called Cabrini Connections. The web site is http://www.cabriniconnections.net. We connect workplace volunteers with inner city teens in one-on-one tutoring/mentoring and a variety of group learning activities.

Here's a link to YouTube where you can view a music video created by our teens and volunteers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuPfJcCEpsk

Thats's my introduction. If you lead a program, serve as a volunteer, board member or donor, I encourage you to add your own intro, so this can become an aggregator for youth serving organizations within the Omidyar.net space.

On November 30 the Tutor/Mentor Connection will hold a one-day conference at DePaul University's downtown conference center. The theme is collaboration and capacity building. We hope to draw together leaders of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, as well as funders, educators, business, to learn more about what a tutor/mentor program is, vs what No Child Left Behind is, and what challenges need to be overcome in order for comprehensive programs to operate in more neighborhoods with high poverty or poorly performing schools.

While this event is in Chicago, we encourage network leaders from other cities to attend, and to take these ideas back to their own communities.

Finally, during November and December we hope to encourage brainstorming and idea sharing and collaboration in on-line forums like this, so that more people are connected, and more people begin to respond as volunteers, leaders, donors, and/or partners at one, or more, volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in any part of the world.

To participate, just post a message here. Visit http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com to learn more.

great video, dan -- those dude's have some flow! i really like tutormentor exchange's 'place based' approach to finding youth engagement opportunities by zip code. might also be interesting to organize by key words like "spring break" summertime" etc since one of the critical gaps is filling time in between school with meaningful, fun, positive learning opportunities.

speaking of NCLB, a friend recently wrote to me asking about research tools within the educational complex specifically relative to “No Child Left Behind” -- databases, etc. Do you know of any tools or websites that provide information about NCLB and how public schools are collecting, analyzing and reporting out information on their performance?

cheers, dan!

lars

Thanks for the suggestion on categories. At this point, it's challenging enough just to maintain accurate information on the types of tutoring/mentoring programs in Chicago, based on time of day service is provided and age group served. If I add another category it would be technology centered, and arts centered.

In the LINKS section of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org I have some links to NCLB sites that might offer some information on your question.

When we launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 one of our goals was to increase the funding available to tutor/mentor programs operating in Chicago. We recognized that the uneven funding resulting from the way philanthropy and government funding works, makes it almost impossible to maintain key staff and continuity with kids and volunteers, let alone build quality and networking with other programs.

Thus, I feel it is a major Tipping Point that in Nov. 06 the Chicago Sun Times made a $2 million donation to the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association. These funds will be given as grants to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago over the next 3-5 years.

While this is great, it needs to be duplicated in other industries and other cities.

I know many who visit Omidyar.net are involved with youth work, or are concerned with education, or want to help kids move from poverty to careers. Without consistent funding its not likely that many non-school programs will have a long term impact, or that new programs will form where there are now no programs, but great need.

If you'd like to work with the Tutor/Mentor Connection to create more Tipping Points like the Sun Times donation, introduce yourself here, or at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org

Year End Donations to Youth Serving Organizations

I invite the thousands of people who have joined Omidyar to seek out a youth organization, or some other charity that you care for, and make a year-end donation. Some of you lead companies and have a tremendous potential to make donations beyond the average 1-2% of income that most people in America give. Your contributions can make a difference in what these charities can do in 2007 to make the world a better place for the people they serve.

In my Tutor/Mentor Blog at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2006/12/holiday-giving-makes-comprehensive.html I ask for donations to the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Cabrini Connections program that I lead in Chicago.

However, I also post links to a search engine and to a web library that donors can search to shop for charities in the Chicago region who offer youth tutoring/mentoring.

If you're a donor, please choose one. If you're a charity, please add links on your charity appeal to directories that donors who support you can use to support others like you.

In this way those who are receiving donations are also giving help to many others at the same time.

Thank you and Happy Holidays to all.

I've been part of a recent discussion of facilitating connections between people and groups who have ideas or resources that could be exchanged in collaboration toward common goals. I posted a message this morning suggesting that we might want to have a parallel discussion that was not limited to the structure Emerging Futures Network will take. http://www.omidyar.net/group/efn /news/44/140/

Thus, I invite anyone who is already interested in ending inner city poverty in America, Europe, Asia or Africa and South America, to join this forum. The goal is to identify barriers that prevent social benefit organizations from operating in neighborhoods where they need to be (lack of funds, lack of leaders, buracracy, etc) and to also point out innovative strategies that are trying to overcome these obstacles.

As these strategies are listed, provide a web site link to the organization, so that anyone else reading this forum can go directly to these groups and either learn from them, or act with them (as a volunteer, donor, leader, etc.)

These can become "tipping points" that remove the isolation of people doing good in many parts of the world, and provide the resources needed to do good work in more places.

PLEASE ... if you don't agree with the focus of this discussion, don't join it just to debate your theories of social benefit, etc. If you do want to debate, set up a separate thread, so that this one can be focused on connections and actions.

The result of many actions by many talented people over many years is change, hopefully for the benefit of many. Making connections between those who can help and those who might help, is an action that I hope many people will make an effort to take at least once a week.

I created a Charity Badge for Cabrini Connections. Here's the link: http://www.networkforgood.org/pc a/PersonalCharityBadge.aspx?pcai d=103857

If you want to connect people in your network to Cabrini Connections, you can put this link on your own web site.

If you want to support a different charity, create a charity badge, and point to that charity. If you do this, and support youth organizations, post the link here, so others can also support the charity that you are supporting.

If you support different types of social benefit organizations, then I encourage you to set up a discussion just like this, where others who support the same type of organizations as you do, can aggregate, share links, and post charity badges for causes that do that type of work.

In this way we can create a library of different causes, and work in ways that we connect the people we know to those various causes.

The people I know around the world in this area are primarily focusing on city hubs ; the idea of a hub (and I am not an expert so will enjoy being corrected or connected)

a community centre owned by and for the people , ie not governed over people; one that is there for people to come up with projects and needs they want to see experimental projects done on

also one that typically uses open space real conversation circles and connects through thre internet to likemi nded city hubs

often targeted at welcoming a specific sector but across all cultures - so for example if it is a youth hub - the main rule is people of all cultures welcome

run a lot by volunteers as it neds to be open most hours , especially thos emost relevant to those who have the deeepst communal need

There are actually quite a lot of branches even within the species as tyhis openind defintion gas tried to sketch in; Londoners (and a virtual conversation 24 days aimed at reaching 1 million under 30s) are currently collecting references to hubs with a view to publishing their first ever catalogue in a few weeks time

[Edited by author: chris macrae on 17 Mar 2007 09:04 PST: http://top10s.tv/_wsn/page3.html ]

Thanks Chris. Is there a way you can reach out to some of the people who have the responsibility for operating these centers and invite them to join this discussion.

I'm looking for the people who have the daily responsibility of keeping a youth center, or a tutor/mentor program, or a small non profit, operating. These are the people who pay the rent from their own savings if donors have not given enough money. These are people who are the last ones to leave, because they don't have anyone else to lock the doors... Or open them the next day.

These are the people who are the voice for the mission of their organizations.

Are there other places on the Internet where this group of people are connecting and talking to each other, with a goal of identifing common challeges, and innovating creative solutions?

If not here, where?

To try to progress this Daniel - Best you send me an external email to chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk - my confederate sofia http://www.turnupthecourage.com/ in London is likely to be most in this circle of people well known to me; but like most londoners, communities that are all virtual are not her thing (apart from second life which apparently is cool!)

[Edited by author: chris macrae on 18 Mar 2007 07:59 PST: .]

One of the features I appreciate about the Omidyar.net site is the people link. It enables me to see who's introduced themselves, and send an introduction to people who I think have some shared interest with the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

I started using another site this week, called Classroom2.0. It can be found at http://classroom20.ning.com/ />

It also has a place where people are introducing themselves, along with some social networking features that enable people to connect to others. While Omidyar.net has a wide range of people introducing themselves, most focusing on different issues than each other, the Classroom20 site is focused on education and uses of technology for learning.

I encourage any O-net visitors who want to focus more on a single broad issue, or connect with others who have similar interests, to visit the site and see if it's a community you might want to join.

With the annoucement of the impending closure of Omidyar.net I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone working with youth, from a perspective of tutoring, mentoring, workforce development, social justice, poverty reduction, education, diversity, arts, technology, etc. to visit http://www.tutormentorconnection .org and use that space as a meeting place, and a resource, for continuing to be a connected community of purpose.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection can also be found at http://www.aboutus.org/User:Tuto rmentor and in many other social networks with a foucs on education, learning, philanthropy and helping disadvantaged kids.