Monday, November 18, 2013

How do we reach youth with support systems in all places where youth need extra help?

Since 1993 I've been attempting to motivate leaders in business, politics, philanthropy, etc. to use maps (see examples here and here )to identify all of the zip codes where kids need extra help, because of poverty, poorly performing schools, violence, English as a second language, or other indicators.

In the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library I've aggregated links to dozens of articles that show "place matters". Anyone can assess these and include them in building their own understanding and commitment to becoming involved in providing solutions.

The challenge is mobilizing leaders from every industry who will act as Chief Crusaders (a term used by the United Way for CEOs who enlist other CEOS)in on-going efforts to expand the number of people who are working throughout the year to provide needed resources to all of the schools and non-school organizations that need to be operating in every one of these neighborhoods.

While it may be unrealistic to expect 100% participation or 100% market share, it would be nice to find some leaders who are publicly talking about reach and market share when they talk about volunteer and philanthropic involvement in supporting programs that help kids move through school and into jobs and/or into their customer base.

I've created a library of essays that are available on Scribd.com, Slideshare, and in the archives of this blog that teams from any company, college, high school and/or service organization could use to support their growing leadership in building a distribution of resources that leads to a distribution of needed resources. The graphic below is included in this essay, and shows steps required in making sure youth in all places are reached with needed resources.


Interns from various colleges have been looking at the essays and blog articles I've created, then are creating their own visualizations to interpret these ideas. This page is one of several showing work that has been done. Volunteers and youth working in teams could be creating similar visualizations as part of their own effort to mobilize and sustain the flow of resources needed to make constantly improving youth serving organizations available in more places.

If you're interested in doing this work, or if you're already doing it, join the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum and share your work or create new visualizations.







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