The project I'd like Li Li to work on is based on this blog article. The article shows how some volunteers become leaders and advocates as a result of the bonds they build with youth, and the coaching they get from the leaders of a tutor/mentor program.
The timing of this project is really good. We're in February when many volunteers are burning out, and programs need to find replacements. If we can get volunteers to network with each other, and think of the reasons they volunteered in the first place, many of them will be re-energized. If we can get some of them to inventory their skills, and think of all the ways they can help make their tutor/mentor program better, we start a process that can grow from now till the end of the year and on into the coming year.
This graphic illustrates the entire process.
This is a cycle that repeats from year to year. As the volunteer grows his understanding and commitment, he does more to engage the people he knows as volunteers, donors, leaders. This not only can help a single program grow, it can help all of the programs serving a single city grow.
My hope is that Li Li can create an animation, such as this, that illustrates this idea in ways that make it easier for volunteers, business leaders and donors to understand, and respond to.
We'll post the finished project on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, and the Tutor/Mentor Conference, and on our blogs, so that more people will see it. Hopefully some people will respond by attending the May 27 and 28 and future conferences, to learn how they can apply this strategy in their own tutor/mentor program, or from their own business and professional group.
I've not discussed this with Li Li yet, so as she reads this she will begin to think of ways to interpret it visually. She may also have other project ideas in mind, based on the other articles she has reviewed on our web sites.
Watch this space over the next few weeks and you can see how we take an idea, add an intern, and create something new that can be used by people all over the world.
If you're at a university, high school or business and you want to create visualizations for the Tutor/Mentor Connection, join in the discussion. More than one person can interpret the same ideas. The result can be many perspectives of the same concept, leading to better understanding and response by more people.
That is a good thing.
Replies
I recorded the animation created by LiLi in 2010 and published it on YouTube so more people would see it and use it. I hope that future volunteers will create more professional versions of this and other animations that have been created by past interns. In addition, I hope you'll share this in your network so more people build a volunteer-support system into their programs that transforms more volunteers into leaders.
This is a screen shot from Li Li's presentation. I hope many people will view this, and show it to others. I hope that creative high school and college students many places will follow Li Li's example, and will create their own versions of these ideas.
Thank you to the Alternative Spring Break Program at the University of Michigan, and to Li Li, for making this possible.
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LiLiproject text.doc
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Here're the screenshots. Please write up the contents you'd like to go with the animation, and I'll add them in. Thanks a lot!
Li
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