Dear GKD Members, I'm not sure that Janice Brodman's story about isolated NGOs in Bosnia-Herzegovina trying to find private donors is much different from small non profits in rich countries trying to find private donors. I'm sure there are advantages to being in the US, but small charities still struggle to find donors.
I think the suggestion of creating a database is a good one and I offer the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) as a model that could be duplicated to fill this need. In 1993 when the T/MC was created its founders recognized the following need: a) concentrated, segregated poverty in America's largest cities was the root cause of many social problems, ranging from high costs of health care and prevention services, to high rates of incarceration, high concentrations of poorly performing public schools, and small numbers of minority youth moving from inner-city schools to jobs/careers in industry and in professions such as math, science, engineering. b) while many people talked of the benefits of engaging more adults in the lives of inner city kids, as tutors, mentors, coaches, etc., there was no master database showing what programs were doing this, where they were located, who they served, etc. Without such a database, there was no strategy to help existing programs get the resources they need to constantly improve or expand to reach more kids, nor to help new groups form programs in neighborhoods where there were voids in services. So myself and a few volunteers created the Tutor/Mentor Connection: a) we began creating a database of tutor/mentor programs, as well as of related services. What I mean by this is that getting an adult involved as a tutor/mentor is just one of many ways adults and businesses need to be involved in helping a youth who is starting first grade today, be starting a job/career 20 years later. Thus, our database tries to identify all of the programs involved in this pipeline to careers. b) we began hosting conferences and creating public awareness with the purpose of drawing dollars and volunteers directly to the programs we had in our database, while encouraging those programs to come together more frequently to share ideas, network, and work together to achieve public awareness and increase the flow of resources. We did not have any funding to do this and have relied on volunteers and ad-hoc partners to build and sustain the T/MC for the past 12 years. In 1997 we began to put our information on a web site and now if you search Google for the words "tutor mentor" our web sites come up in the top 10 or 20 of many listings. At <http://msg.uc.iupui.edu/TMC/html/index.php> you can see a new web site that we're launching next month to replace the <www.tutormentorconnection.org> site. This was created for us by the technology department of IUPUI, which is a university located in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm In Chicago, Illinois. All of the components of this web site are open source resources. Many of the maps on this web site were created by a volunteer from Wisconsin who I first met through this GKD discussion forum almost 5 years ago! This illustrates that someone on the GKD List, or a forum such as www.digitaldivide.net, can take a role in building a web site with a links database that could be used to collect information about NGOs working in different countries around the world. If the various NGOs worked together to draw attention to the database, I could begin to draw attention from donors. If it were to include GIS maps, such as those we demonstrate on the T/MC web site, the distribution of resources is more likely to go to more of the countries where help is needed than to just a few high profile organizations or countries. We've built the Tutor/Mentor Connection with very little consistent private sector support , but with the help of many people who shared our concern for kids living in poverty. We're constantly looking for people around the world to help us build the T/MC's tech platform, with the goal of using it in their own country while we use it in Chicago. Thus, you're welcome to look at the T/MC and duplicate its concepts if that helps you build the type of database/web site you have in mind. I think that there must be others who would help you and others in countries like Bosnia-Herzegovina. If anyone would like to know more about the T/MC, or join in its efforts, I'd be happy to talk to you here, or in the discussion area of the new web site. Daniel F. Bassill President Tutor/Mentor Connection Cabrini Connections 800 W. Huron Chicago, IL, USA ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
