Cabrini Connections - the past Decade

Below is a chart showing Cabrini Connections students who participated until their senior year and graduated each year since 1997.

This is one of several charts that Dan Bassill, President of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, posted on the Tutor/Mentor Blog.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to keep an organization like Cabrini Connections in business for so many years, or what the strategy is to connect our teens and volunteers?

We posted many of the organizational planning documents on wikis more than 3 years ago with the goal that a growing number of students, volunteers, staff and donors would read them, and begin to share in the effort of shaping the direction and success of the organization.

For us to be a true "learning organization" and share these habits with our teens, we need to find time to look at this information, reflect on it, and share it with friends, family and potential investors.

This 4-part strategy illustrates how the information we collect and share can be used to help Cabrini Connections and its students, and can be used by anyone else to help young people in other parts of Chicago.

Have a safe and happy holiday. I hope you enjoy reading this material.

Showing impact

We feel the best way to judge the impact of Cabrini Connections is by the response of our teens and volunteers. If they show up each week and continue to participate from year to year, that show us we are providing a valuable service.

However, we're looking for other ways to show value and we post reports on the Stats page of the Cabrini Connections web site each week that anyone can review.

This Student Character Survey for 2009-10 has just been posted. It shows "strengths" of our students, which we feel the program helps enhance.

You can few three reports on the Cabrini Connections web site.

2009-2010 Student Satisfaction Survey Analysis Report

2009-2010 Volunteer Satisfaction Survey Analysis Report

2009-10 Student Character Report

As you view these reports and view the videos and blog articles we hope you will become a fan, and a supporter, providing your own time, talent and dollars to help us continue this work.

"I AM ORLANDO CEASAR..."

"Good evening? How are you all doing today," (in the voice of a 7 year old)? "I AM ORLANDO CEASAR!" (in the voice that could be compared to the roar of a lion. This week the Cabrini Connections' program was honored to have Motivational Speaker, Orlando Ceasar, come in to share a little of his history and his life story, but a lot of how the students, volunteers, and staff can reach their many goals in life.

Orlando Ceasar was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago and said that his mother was on the "11 by 30 plan" saying that his mother and father had 11 children by the age of 30. Mr. Ceasar did an amazing job of talking about his youth and the ways in which he used his mind, the values he learned, poetry, and determination to assist him with becoming a very successful man.

One of the activities that he used during his presentation was a decision making tool that ANYBODY can use by using the word KNOW. He asked the group to come up with words that can be produced by using the 4 letters of the word KNOW. A few of the many were the words: won, ok, on, ko, now, ow and several others. Then students shouted out some of the decisions that they will have to make in life. Some students said, picking a college, picking a career, who to date, where will they live when they get older etc... Mr. Ceasar took the words from the word KNOW and explained how these words can be used for all of the Cabrini Connections youth and anybody else that have a decision to make.

He asked how much do you KNOW about the decision you have to make? What are the pros and cons of your decision. Who do you know that is in the career you want to be in, at the college that you want to attend, or how much do you know about the girl or guy that you like. Then asked what does it look like when you WON? He encouraged the group to envision success! He told the students they have to be ON at all times, and said that "when you are ON at all times there will be people there for you, doors will be open, and good things will happen because you are ON." He asked the group what are you doing NOW to reach the goals that you have in life, "You can't say you want to be a doctor in the future, if you are not willing to take the proper steps now to reach that goal." Another word he used was the word NO. He told the group that at some point in your life you are going to have to tell your friends, your family, and even yourself NO in order to reach your goals. Lastly he told the students that life can K.O. you if you are not prepared, so make sure to take advantage of resources and prepare for life.

The entire Cabrini Connections' program would like to thank Mr. Orlando Ceasar for taking out time out of his busy week, driving a couple of hours in traffic and bad weather, and volunteering his time to share some knowledge, insight, and helpful tips so that not just the students of the program but for the entire audience can be successful in life!

"Understanding OUR Youth" Year End Surveys

The Cabrini Connections' staff is always looking for ways to better prepare our youth for not just our program, but for the future. Week in and week out we are providing the resources of a 1-on-1 tutor/mentor relationship, we are proving a variety of clubs to participate in, we are providing assistance through our College Zone, but we wanted to go a step further by trying to understand the strengths and weaknesses our youth individually.

At the November 2008 Tutor/Mentor Networking and Leadership Conference I was able to sit in on a workshop that provided all in attendance with information and resources on how to gauge not only the value of individual programs, but also tools to better understand the youth that participate in programs like Cabrini Connections. Shortly after the conference I was provided with an evaluation tool from the Big Brothers & Big Sisters of America in which I was able to edit the tool in a way that would assist us here at Cabrini Connections with determining possible strengths and weaknesses of our students.

After a couple of weeks of editing the the document to capture the exact information that we are looking for, and having discussions with our President/CEO Dan Bassill, we were able to complete what we feel will be a great evaluation tool for us. This survey which consists of a description page and a second page that requires a little background information on the student and 21 questions, was completed and distributed to three very important entities.

In the past 2 weeks the survey that will assist our staff in determining some possible strengths and weaknesses of our students was sent out to parents/guardians, teachers of our students, and the mentors of our students, along with a letter that not only describes this process, but also thanking each person for being a part of this process. And I am extremely excited to announce that we have already begun to get responses from all three parties!

As we continue to get the surveys in we will begin to process the information and use the information to not only access the individual student, but use this tool to better provide new and returning volunteers with a type of work plan for their mentee for the upcoming year. As staff of Cabrini Connections we can and will use the information to better prepare the volunteer on how to provide the necessary resources to turn weaknesses into strengths and how to maintain the current strengths that the student already posses. And this is also a visual tool that can be used by the individual students themselves to see what areas of weaknesses my need some attention.

This is our first time trying this tool, but we are confident that if used properly and with enough participation by volunteers, parents, and school faculty, this evaluation tool will be a key resource that can and will not only strengthen the individual students, but will further educate the staff, volunteers, and potential donors. And through this process we are hoping to further strengthen this united resources and support front of the schools, our tutoring/mentoring program, and the homes of our respective students.

Good to Great in a Decentralized Organization - The Cabrini Connections Holiday Vision

I've been a leader of a tutor/mentor program since 1974, and every year I feel that I have a greater appreciation for the gifts I've been given, and the lessons I learn from the people I meet through this organization. Last Christmas, Rebecca Parrish gave me the book "The Spider and the Starfish" as a present. As I read it, I realized that this book was describing our organization.

We are a decentralized organization in which each volunteer is the CEO of his/her own tutoring/mentoring business. You individualize your weekly activities based on the needs of your student, your own abilities and time, and the level of experience you have gained. We can support you with structure, ideas, information, but it is your own learning and networking with other volunteers that gives you ideas for what you do.

In a utopian world, our kids would also be growing into CEOs who take charge of their own futures, drawing support from each volunteer, from Cabrini Connections, and from the network of resources made available by the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

While I'm the catalyst that has drawn hundreds of people together each year, our success comes as each of you and many others become the leaders and owners of the vision of Cabrini Connections. If we surround kids with a wide range of adults from different workplace backgrounds, we can expand their experiences, their aspirations, and the network of adults who can help them reach jobs and careers.

If we help make programs like this available in every high poverty neighborhood, we can not only help thousands of kids and volunteers enjoy the same experiences as Cabrini Connections, we can also create teams of volunteers who work in the same industry, and who will work as a group to help programs like Cabrini Connections be more effective at connecting kids and volunteers and mentoring youth to careers.

In another book, titled Good To Great and the Social Sectors, a flywheel effect is described, which is a process of constant learning, and constant improvement, that makes good organizations great.

I hope that over the holidays you'll read these books, and review the goals and mission of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection

We need to be applying this thinking in our own ongoing efforts to help each of us and our kids become owners of their own futures, and to help Cabrini Connections be the type of organization that can support you the way each volunteer and student needs to be supported.

Finally, I encourage each of you to think of yourself as the CEO of our fund raising efforts. As you tell your friends and family about your volunteer involvement, point them to the Cabrini Connections donor page so they can make a contribution to support your involvement, or become a volunteer themselves.

On behalf of our volunteer board of directors, I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season.

Dan Bassill
President, CEO
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Network Building and Mapping Ideas

Over many years of recruiting volunteers and donors, I've found that people over simplify what we're doing as the short term act of tutoring, or homework help, rather than the long-term process of building student aspirations and expanding the network of adults who help kids to careers.

Thus, I've started creating diagrams to illustrate my ideas. The one on this page shows how volunteers, leaders, friends and/or donors can connect people in their network to Cabrini Connections and other tutor/mentor programs, and to information that will help these friends do more to help our kids at Cabrini Connections, or kids living in high poverty in other neighborhoods, or other cities.

This spring I've started using concept maps, a free on-line took, that enables you to visualize ideas. Here's one that illustrates what I mean by a comprehensive, long-term support system.

I'm always learning new ways to express ideas, and new ways to engage students and volunteers. Thus, recently I was showns some concept maps created by youth in middle school and high school. These map out their home school study strategy, and serve as a portfolio (log in as guest) of what they have accomplished.

This is something that individual pairs of teens and volunteers at Cabrini Connections could be doing, or that a technology team could do to map their strategy.

I encourage you to take a look at these links and see how you can apply them to your tutoring, mentoring, and motivation work.

Cabrini Connections Writing Group now has a blog!

Cabrini Connections has a new, hip writing group! They meet on Wednesdays before tutoring from 5 to 6pm. To find out more about this group and what they are doing, read their blog.

Cabrini Connections Writing Group Blog