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I finally feel as though I pretty solid grasp on what this program can do for people, and I had a revelation on how to graphically represent it.  Whenever I think about the Cabrini Connections or even the Tutormentor Connection organization, I find myself thinking of a Jenga block tower, in which some children have many pieces missing due to  lacking in educational opportunities, positive role modeling, or other influences as a result of living in a neighborhood of low social economic standing.  The more pieces that are missing, the more likely the tower (the child's chance to succeed) is going to topple over.  This is where tutor/mentor programs can come into play, by adding the missing pieces to the child's tower of success.  This process has to take place on every level of the child's life, as even one section missing many blocks can still cause the entire collapse of the tower.  This has to continue onward throughout the child's educational development, so one can envision many different towers for each stage of a child's life towards obtaining a career.

This same concept applies to non-profit tutor/mentor organizations, as they need to work together and funnel the appropriate resources to the appropriate places in the tower that need it.  The organizations themselves may also have pieces missing either in what they provide in services or in basic resources such as funding, volunteers, or networking.  A tutor/mentor program is able to utilize volunteers who will stick with the program for a series of years, and will become more and involved in a child's life as a result of personal commitment and attachment to not only the academic aspect of the program, but in terms of the other factors influencing the child's life.

This is just a first rough draft, and it will be modified to represent the ideas that I am presenting in the above text.  I look forward to any feedback on this project, both positive and negative, so don't hesitate, just be careful not to knock my tower over...JENGA!

This is a graphic that I  posted on my blog last Friday. It's intended to illustrate how we want leaders and volunteers to develop strategies that not only say "we have a problem" but also say "go here" to learn more about the problem, and go here, and here" to choose organizations that you can support with time, talent and/or dollars.

Since most of the 300-plus members of this forum work with non profits and NGOs that need money to operate, the more people who visit this forum to learn what we each do, and to help us with resources, the greater will be our  ability to succeed in our work.

Thus, if every three months you send out an email or some other correspondence pointing to something that is going on in this forum, in Chicago, or in your own city/country, you can increase the number of people who hear this message and respond to it.

If we can teach our friends, volunteers, family, youth and others to also send such messages, we can dramatically increase the number of people who are learning ways to help us.

If we can teach media, celebrities, CEOs, ministers, elected officials, etc. to do this, they can draw more resources into high poverty neighborhoods on a consistent basis, and do more to help effective non profits and social services do good work in many places.

Anyone can take the role of teacher, or evangelist, to spread this message and help others accept it and adopt it. Give it a try.