Did St.Paul Have a Map of the Road to Damascus?

Throughout the world Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths are celebrating the year end holidays. Many people will be spending time reflecting the meaning of these holidays, and the depth of their faith.

I hope that some will read this article and add it to their thinking. I used the story of St. Paul on the Road to Damascus in my title because, most people who travel, use maps to find their way.

I use maps too. Shown is a map of the Chicago region, with areas of poverty highlighted, and with locations of Catholic Churches shown.



Mike Trakan makes these maps for the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This week he posted three blog articles that show how faith groups might use these maps to build strategic involvement in many places, and for many years, so that the lives of inner city kids living in poverty are transformed, just as the lives of people of faith have been transformed by their beliefs.


Merry Christmas, Christians! Love Thy Neighbor! (Dec. 22)

Christmas Week! Help Us Spread Charity, Kindness, and Love! (Dec. 21)

Happy Hanukkah! How Jewish Faith Leaders Might Rally Against Poverty (Dec. 17)

These articles are not intended to suggest that people in faith communities are not already very generous in the way they help the poor. Our goal is that leaders use maps to build an understanding of where they are having an impact on tutoring/mentoring programs, and where there are programs that need faith partners to help them. Our aim is that there are numerous partnership supporting each of the tutor/mentor programs already operating in the Chicago region, or helping new programs form in areas with poverty, but without programs currently operating. Without mapping where you are involved, it's easy to look at what you are doing and think that this is enough.

Until we reach every poverty neighborhood, with well supported, ongoing programs, we are not doing enough to assure that more of these kids are staying in school and will be prepared for 21st century jobs and careers by the time they are adults.

If you would like help in mapping the current outreach of your faith community, contact the T/MC and we may be able to help you use maps for your planning and evaluation.

I hope that people in faith communities will use these maps throughout the year, not just during these periods of special celebration.

Motivations for Giving

I encourage you to read this article, titled 'Selfish' Giving: Does It Count If You Get In Return?. It's from a NPR report.

Then read this article about Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness philosophy.

Then read the articles on this blog about poverty, workforce development and leadership (see tags at left). Unless donors have tremendous altruism, or tremendous motivations, or both, programs like Cabrini Connections will never have the sustained flow of resources needed to help teens joining us in 7th grade be starting jobs and careers by their mid-twenties.

What motivates your giving?

Can you support Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection with a Holiday Donation?

Can you make a bequest, or support us with a corporate or foundation grant program? Do we fit with your own personal and strategic goals?

Network Building - Understanding T/MC

I've written more than 500 article in the past few years, all aimed at one goal of "connecting people who can help, with places, programs and youth, where help will be needed for many years.

I point to articles written by people who are smarter than I am, and who write better than I do. If you read these articles and apply what you are reading to the articles and ideas I'm sharing, you'll see how powerful the ideas we share can be in helping solve some of the complex social issues facing our country.

Here are two articles that I hope will stimulate your thinking.

Managing the 21st Century Organization, by Valdis Krebs

Social Capital, Glue for Sustainability (a slideshare) by Victoria Axelrod, William Becker, and Jenny Ambrozek

In October 2008, Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, was in Chicago following the beating death of a Chicago teen. He was quote in the newspaper saying

"This is the time to look in our collective mirror and ask whether we like what we see or whether we can do better together." .. Arne Duncan

In the article written by Valdis Krebs, he says "Why not use the power of the network itself to create a solution? Improve the organizational network and then use technology to help people communicate across wide spans of the human network."

The Tutor/Mentor Connection has been connecting people and organizations for more than 16 years, and providing a library of information for people to share the same resources, ideas and their own ideas. We have create maps that anyone can use in their collective work, or their individual efforts, to help build and sustain mentor-rich organizations that constantly learn from the work each other is doing, and constantly expand their impact on the lives of inner city kids.

At Cabrini Connections, we apply this network-building concept directly to our own efforts to help a small group of young people move from 7th grade, through high school, and into college, then jobs and careers. This is a long-term process, which will only be successful as we expand the network of adults who are involved, and committed to this same goal.

Our aim is that when you look at our maps of Chicago, every program that is operating will be using some of these ideas to build their own systems of long-term support for the kids they are working with. When you look at asset maps, showing businesses, faith groups, colleges and hospitals, you'll see a growing number of groups who are providing the resources needed by each of these programs, and Cabrini Connections, to do this work.

This can happen if these organizations and resource providers are applying the ideas we're sharing on this blog.

As you read about networks on this blog, and about knowledge management, innovation, and problem solving, we hope you will include the T/MC in your network, and that you'll also help us find investors and benefactors to stimulate our own role as an intermediary and catalyst for this network building process.

Make your Holiday Donation at http://www.giveforward.org/cabrinitmc

Thank you.

"The underlying issue here is racism and poverty"

The front page story in the 12/18 Chicago SunTimes was Health gap kills 3,200 black Chicagoans every year. In the Chicago Tribune the front page story was Saving Michael: Mom’s efforts to help Son. The report on health disparities was on an inside page of the Tribune, with the title Health Gap Widens between Blacks and Whites.

This "media map" shows how people who our outraged or emotionally connected to these stories can look at research, or competitive intelligence, that the Tutor/Mentor Connection has collected, then build neighborhood, business, or faith based strategies, that become long-term solutions to these programs.

Articles I point to in this map are:

Reframing School Drop out as a Public Health Issue

Supporting volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs as public health strategy

Role of Hospitals – Mt Sinai Map and Strategy

Role of Faith Groups – Woodlawn area map

Tutor/Mentor Birth to Work Pipeline Strategy Map

I've been writing about these issues for 16 years. However, we’re just a small voice, like a Prophet, that very few people are taking time to listen to. I've encouraged others on the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection team to do the same.

The links I’ve pointed to are just a few of the articles that can be studied by any big, or small, groups of people who want to change the headlines by finding solutions. Contact the Tutor/Mentor Connection if you'd like to have our help. We're at 312-492-9614

Network Building for Inner City Youth

This video shows the interaction on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 between teens living in inner city Chicago and volunteers who work in various industries and who live in neighborhoods beyond the inner city. Here's an album with two other videos showing our work.

This would not be happening if Cabrini Connections did not exist, and if donors and volunteers had not been willing to put time and dollars into this organization every year since 1993.



I'm one of the founders of Cabrini Connections, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I've been the leader since 1992. As this photo shows, I'll do almost anything to find the resources it takes to keep kids and volunteers connected to each other.

This has been a tough year. Hell, it's been a tough decade. And it wasn't much easier in the 1990s.

When you look at the maps of Chicago that Mike Trakan makes, how many neighborhoods have places where kids and volunteers have been connecting for the past 16 years? How many have managed to keep connected to many of these youth, and adults, so they are now able to help each other with adult lives and challenges?



Read the mission statement of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. What other organization in the Chicago region has as complete a strategy intended to help every poverty neighborhood have high-quality, mentor-rich programs? Look at the conference maps to see how programs throughout the region are connecting with each other because we spend time, and money, to organize these events.

We need your year-end donations and support in 2010 to continue this work, and to expand our impact. Chicago is too big a city for us to have an impact when we are struggling each month just to pay our rent.

Give me a call at 312-492-9614 if you'd like to talk about more ways to help, or that we can help you.