Social Networking for Nonprofits 101

In the past I've posted about the importance of social networks in youth development and explained what we do at Cabrini Connections in terms of bridging social capital. Today I want to discuss another very important aspect of social networks, how to utilize them to bring much needed resources to non-profits like Cabrini Connections. As I've said in previous posts, we all have social networks, whether we like it or not. We have people in our lives who care about us and what we do, as a result of the personal relationships we maintain, the groups we choose to affiliate ourselves with or merely by the virtue of us having met them in the past.

As someone who helps coordinate a volunteer-based non-profit, I am constantly working through my social networks to channel resources to our organization. In fact, I'm coming to understand that access to a large, resource-rich personal network is incredibly beneficial to non-profits like Cabrini Connections, whose business model depends on engaging individuals and encouraging them to support us with their time, talents and funds. Beyond the folks I know personally however, lies an even more vast, comparatively untapped network of resource-rich potential supporters. These are the people in my friends networks whom I don't know personally, but am connected to via this mutual friend. Social capital and networking theory state that due to the fact that we share a mutual friend, we are more subject to reciprocity norms that would lead us to support each other to a greater degree than we would if we weren't connected via a mutual friend. When utilized systematically and intentionally, these reciprocity norms can be utilized to the benefit of an organization to draw a variety of resources to them.
For example, I have been working with the Youth Leadership Council to determine a constructive capstone project for them to engage in that will build their leadership skills and self-esteem while also accomplishing an organizational objective of Cabrini Connections. After some discussion, the students decided that it would be good to film a short documentary about the long history of our program. Once that was decided, the next step was for me to find volunteers to assist the 6 students with completing their project.

Not knowing anybody in my immediate network who would have either the time or the skills to volunteer for this task, I thought about the people in my network who might know someone who would be willing to take on this project. So, I ended up reaching out to a woman, Rebecca Parrish, whom I met at the Cabrini Connections Art and Film Festival through her prior involvement with youth filmmakers. Therefore I asked her if anyone in her network might be interested in such a project. She immediately connected me with her friend Matt, who based on nothing except our mutual relationship with Rebecca, trusted me enough to volunteer his skills, time and eqipment to help our youth leadership council film this documentary in time to premiere it at the June 4th Year end Dinner. Check out the above graphic to see a visual representation of how this process played out.

Stories like this unfold every day at Cabrini Connections and effective organizations around the globe as we intentionally utilize our social networks to pull necessary resources towards our non-profits and the causes that we care so passionately about. That's why we try to turn everyone involved with our program, from our interns to our mentors, volunteers and students, into evangelists for our organization. The book "Forces for Good: The 6 Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits" argues that successful organizations "create ways for many people to engage with their organization...and convert them into evangelists who will spread the word among their social networks." Moreover, they argue that the very best non-profits "are particularly strategic about indentifying, converting and cultivating powerful individuals, or super-evangelists." They argue, as we do, that over time this process of identifying and intentionally engaging an ever growing community of potential supporters through social network analysis "can create a powerful community of individual supporters that is ever expanding."

Luckily, social networking tools such as facebook and LinkedIn make identifying and engaging these individuals as easy as typing their names into a search bar or perusing lists of individuals aligned with a given cause and finding mutual friends who can serve as a bridge to connect you. Therefore we encourage everyone interested in helping to pull at-risk youth off the streets and into college and careers to think critically about not only how they can support tutor/mentor programs addressing these issues, but how the people in their networks can help as well using their unique talents and resources.

Engaging Faith Communites

So this post comes fresh on the heels of a very enlightening PIP seminar at Interfaith Youth Core. For those unfamiliar with the PIP program, each Wednesday a couple dozen of us PIP fellows from Northwestern, University of Chicago, Princeton and Colorado College convene at some remarkable organizations office to learn more about what is being done to address issues of social justice around Chicago. This morning we had the unique opportunity to meet with Eboo Patel who has built an organization around the idea of interfaith service--that is, bringing together young leaders of different faith backgrounds to work together, develop skills and mutual understanding through common social justice projects. They work to spread ideas of religious pluralism in the public sphere while at the same time equipping future interfaith leaders to build a movement that promotes mutual respect and understanding on matters of faith while empowering youth to serve others.

For us here at the Tutor/Mentor Connection, we are also concerned with mobilizing people of faith to give back to their communities through structured programs that bring together people of different backgrounds, promoting mutual respect and understanding. Though our primary focus is developing at-risk youth through connecting them with a caring mentor, our pairs do come from unique backgrounds, be they socioeconomic, racial or faith, and through building a relationship, mentors and mentees do often come to understand and respect the other person's background. In fact, when interviewing our volunteers to write my volunteer spotlight articles, they often claim that they get as much or more out of the relationship than the kid due to the fact that through our program, and the structured relationships we facilitate, the volunteers come to understand the unique struggles their students face growing up in a public housing development like Cabrini-Green, in a different socio-economic situation and with a different history and perspective due to their status as young African-Americans in the inner-city. So, it's clear that volunteers value this cultural exchange and that this is a motivating factor for their involvement.

Given that the 4 religions with the most adherents in the US: Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism and Islam all have strong social justice components, it would make sense for communities of faith to rally around a cause like tutoring/mentoring at-risk youth. In fact, many have already done so, for example, youth programs operate out of churches and synagoges across the city. However, given the strength, resources and organization of these faith communities, many of them are equipped to be doing much more to increase their impact and strenghthen their communities. This short document, hashes out a strategy for faith communities to lead volunteer mobilization for tutor/mentor programs. Yet this is but one way that faith communities can get involved. They can host their own community mentoring programs, welcoming youth from the community into their space and connecting them with caring volunteers through structured tutoring/mentoring programs, they can also use their significant human and financial resources to support and build capacity for pre-existing programs. So if you are a member of a faith community, please think about what you and your church/synagoge/mosque/temple...etc can be doing to support efforts around the city to give at-risk youth a chance to succeed. Find programs at www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net or call us at 312-492-9614.

Student Spotlight: Arden Harris

Don't be surprised if you start hearing a lot more about seventh grader Arden Harris in the coming years. She's got the talent, the passion and the dedication to make it big in whatever she applies herself to accomplish. She's friendly, mature and not afraid to put herself in unfamiliar situations so she can grow as a person. For instance, for the past 2 years she has attended a three week long sleep-away camp in Carthage, Wisconsin. Kids of all ages come to this camp to work on developing their theater skills with other students. At the end, they put on elaborate productions such as "You Can't Take It With You" starring Arden herself.

Arden also attends Camp Pinewood, which is a little more rustic. At Camp Pinewood, Arden and a group of other kids rough it in the middle of the woods, building their own fires, practicing their archery and rock climbing while also working on their dance skills and other talents.

As you can probably tell, Arden has a passion for the arts. In fact, she has her own hip hop group, where she sings and dances with 2 friends. Inspired by her favorite artist Ciara, she wants to make it as a performer. To accomplish this goal she practices singing and dancing every single day as well as practices the piano multiple times a week!

Arden also works on her dance skills on the Cheerleading team, which is a lot of work, particularly when they are preparing for competitions as they are now. She'll stay in performing shape this spring by playing soccer for her school team for the second year in a row!

Arden and her mentor Fran Fritzmann work together to ensure Arden's grades stay high and never go below the A's and B's she knows she can work to achieve. She and Fran have been working together for years. They were paired up at Cabrini Green Tutoring Program and have been working together ever since. This stability has permitted Fran to get to know Arden's family and work with her mom to ensure Arden's success in the coming years

Discussing her drive to succeed Arden says: "I've seen what happens when you don't push yourself to success, and if I don't push myself, who's gonna push me? I wanna have a great future and it's never too early to worry about your future.” Congratulations Arden, your student spotlight feature is long overdue!

Volunteer Spotlight: Allen Tyson

This week’s volunteer in the spotlight is long overdue for the honor, in fact, he’s been mentoring youth since the early 1970’s, before most of our mentors were born! Allen (AJ) Tyson first started mentoring youth, when Cabrini Connections was just a gleam in Montgomery Wards’ young advertising director, Dan Bassill’s eye. At the time Dan was a volunteer at the Montgomery Ward Tutor/Mentor Program which served 2nd through 6th grade youth in the Cabrini-Green neighbourhood, which he took over as a full-time coordinator in 1975. They hit it off instantly and Mr. Tyson knew that this was somewhere where he could make a real difference without volunteering full-time and sacrificing his promising business career. Since that day, 29 years ago, he has mentored 13 youth, including his current mentee, Sean Mayfield, whom he describes as one of the most promising students he’s mentored.

During these past 29 years, Allen has done much to sustain and grow our organization beyond his role as a mentor, he continue to support the program financially as can be seen by his current 1st place status in our Fundraising for Quarters volunteer fundraising campaign. If he is able to retain his position on top, he will receive 2 free round-trip airline tickets to anywhere in the United States! In that case, perhaps he’ll decide to fly to one of the coasts with his wife to pursue their shared love of sailing or maybe back to Philadelphia to visit his alma mater, Philadelphia University, where through his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, he cultivated the “volunteer gene” that he got from his mother early in life by, volunteering at orphanages, baseball games, and coordinating reading seminars to promote literacy among underprivileged youth.

Through his extensive mentoring experience he’s picked up a few simple but effective mentoring techniques, one important one being that: “you always have to put demands on your student, they gotta bring their homework, if not, I buy books for the kids I tutor, so when they don’t have homework, we can build vocabulary by reading together.” It’s obvious that Mr. Tyson takes great joy in building relationships with each and every one of his students and helping them achieve to their highest potential. In fact, he’s contemplating becoming a substitute teacher, in addition to the 2 jobs he has already, his import-export button business and his job as a realtor for Caldwell Banker (his fun job). Regardless, it’s certain that Allen is a true asset to both the students he mentors, and Cabrini Connections. Thanks and congratulations!

A Call to Action: Help Protect Our Youth!

Friends and youth advocates around Illinois we have a problem,

It has just been announced that Governer Quinn's Fiscal Year 2010 budget axes the state budget for necessary youth services by 15%. I, along with The Chicago Area Project (CAP) the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY), and Illinois Council of Area Projects (CAP), together representing a coalition of more than one hundred (100) community-based agencies and organizations throughout the State, believe cuts in Youth Services, as proposed in the Governor’s FY 2010 Budget, will seriously erode the ability of community-based agencies to have a meaningful impact on the lives of young people in high-risk situations. With a proposed reduction of 14.80% (higher than in other areas of DHS) the system of community-based youth services is shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden. These programs represent a coordinated continuum that intervenes in the lives of youth in high-risk situations – many of whom are involved in, or about to enter, the juvenile justice or child welfare systems – making our communities safer places in which to live.

Call your legislators attention to the budget pages and “grants” lines that are listed below and asking them to restore funding to youth services.

Youth services programs are less costly and less restrictive forms of support, and are now seriously at-risk due to chronic under-funding. In our current economic condition, budget cuts may be necessary, but disproportionate cuts targeted at youth services are unfair to vulnerable youth and more expensive to taxpayers in the long term.

Community Services: Budget Page 7-26,
Under “Grants” Line “Community Services” Proposed CUT: $893,500

The product of 70 years of cooperation between the State and Chicago Area Project, this program prevents juvenile crime and violence, and diverts youth from the criminal justice system through the development, organization, and operation of grass-roots community organizations that manage programs for youth and families, plan and implement community betterment and development programs, and allow youth to safely pursue constructive and productive activities in economically disadvantaged communities.

Comprehensive Community Services: Budget Page 7-26, Under “Grants”, Line “Comprehensive Community Services” Proposed CUT: $1,661,000

These programs provide shelter and family reunification services to runaway and homeless youth, and accepts 24 hour, seven day a week referral from police and DCFS Child Welfare and Protective staff for youth and families in crisis situations. This program focuses on youth age 10 to 17 that are in danger of entering the Child Welfare System. It seeks family reunification, or the development of independent living capacity for affected youth.

Unified Delinquency Intervention Services: Budget Page 7-27 Line “Unified Delinquency Intervention Services” Proposed Cut: $459,900

UDIS programs provide the last hope for youth about to be committed to the Department of Corrections. Results over the past 28 years have indicated that intensive intervention at this final state has succeeded in redirecting large numbers of youth, and saving the state huge amounts in incarceration costs.

Teen REACH: Budget page 7-27 Line “Youth Programs” Proposed CUT: $2,450,000

This program funds intensive educational assistance programs for at-risk youth in danger of failing or dropping out of school. Programs are provided after school and during other out-of-school times, thus giving youth alternatives to gangs, violence and the risk of substance abuse.

Juvenile Justice Reform: Budget Page 7-27 Line “Juvenile Justice Reform” Proposed CUT: $550,800

These programs divert youth from the Juvenile Court, and refer them to intensive counseling and other psychological services, support services, and community advocacy and basic community support activities. Juvenile Court Judges and State’s Attorneys in number counties have recognized the effectiveness of these efforts as opposed to traditional involvement of identified youth in the juvenile justice system.

Since youth cannot vote and can't afford to make generous campaign contributions to those in power to influence policy, those of us with some political power need to advocate on their behalf. Please stand up for our at-risk youth by calling or writing your Legislators in the Illinois House and Senate. Thanks for your support.

Student Spotlight: Cazimir (Cazzy) Ozuruigbo, Kaylin Patton, Donald Stewart and Elijah Wilson

This year, the Cabrini Connections tech club has benefited from the influx of some young and enthusiastic students, 6th and 7th graders Cazimir (Cazzy) Ozuruigbo, Kaylin Patton, Donald Stewart and Elijah Wilson. Though Kaylin heard out about our program first, he quickly spread the word to his friends and soon all 4 had joined and have had nearly 100% attendance at Tech club ever since. Over the past few months since the boys first started here at Cabrini Connections, they have learned enough HTML, which is a language used to describe web pages that web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox can understand, to build their own personal websites from scratch. That is, through working with Steve and Vjeko they are learning to read and write this complex markup language used by web designers all around the world.

Though they have only been at it a few months, they have already used their knowledge to build functional websites, which contain everything from Cazzy’s Views and Rates, which allows users to watch and rate a wide variety of videos, to Donald’s site which contains videogame ratings and movie clips. At this point Elijah is working on a chatting website that is inspired by facebook. Kaylin on the other hand is more concerned with having a one-stop-shop for the best and most up-to-date videogame cheat codes. Regardless of the content, it’s clear that through their participation in our tech club, these youth are engaging with technology in a way that few other inner-city youth can. In tech club, students are closely advised by professional video game developer Steve Pawlick and our expert eLearning and Technology Coordinator Vjeko Hlede, who through one-on-one and group instruction, work with the youth to build their skills and familiarize them with principles of web design and content management systems, such as the ones used at colleges around the world. All the students agree that if it weren’t for their participation in tech club, they would not be designing their own websites or thinking about future careers in web design, a growing and very lucrative career field.

Now the students are putting their skills to use by creating a website to advertise our Annual Year-End Dinner, which will be held on June 4th at 1111 N Wells. This website will help us to maximize attendance at our year end culminating event that brings together past, present and future students, volunteers and staff along with their families for an evening of celebration and entertainment. Thanks Cazzy, Kaylin, Donald and Elijah for all your hard work and your help in making this year’s Year-End Dinner the best yet!

Volunteer Spotlight: Michael Abers

22 year old Michael Abers is our youngest mentor at Cabrini Connections, he’s also been one of our most motivated and enthusiastic. Coming to Northwestern University from sunny Ft Lauderdale, Florida, he knew immediately that he wanted to get involved in the lives of at-risk inner city youth. He had participated in a youth tutoring program through his high school, Pinecrest School, known as Breakthrough. During his involvement with this program he tutored/mentored a middle schooler named Jessie, which turned him on to the idea of making a difference in a child’s life through youth tutoring and mentoring. Thus when he came to Chicago to study biochemistry, he also got involved in a handful of community service groups on Northwestern’s campus. In fact, upon arrival to Chicago he had the idea of starting a youth tutoring program in Cabrini-Green, which he had heard was a very high need area, and after doing a little research, Michael was pleased to discover that there were already organizations like ours putting his idea into action.

Seeking to make a difference, Michael spread the word about our organization at the fall activities fair and sought to put together a vanload of students who would volunteer weekly at Cabrini Connections. After a couple months of frustration, being matched up with a student with very erratic attendance, he was paired up with Aarion Woods, who attends Von Steuben Magnet School. They have been working together ever since, building a trusting and supportive relationship. Recently they have been focusing on ACT prep, since Aarion is a Junior and will be taking the ACT in less than a month. Michael has been making his own worksheets and creating lesson plans to work on with Aarion to introduce new concepts and review old ones, always giving Aarion something to take home and work on between sessions. Working with Michael has inspired Aarion to enroll in a free supplemental ACT prep course led by Cabrini Connections Volunteer Thomas Reuter. Michael is convinced that Aarion will be well-prepared come test-time and that his primary obstacle will be his lack of confidence, which they are working to address.

By the way Michael and Aarion have been able to get to know each other and quickly build a constructive mentoring relationship, it’s clear that Michael has a knack for working with youth. Fortunately, his postgraduate plans involve going to medical school to study pediatric neurology. In the meantime we’re glad that he’s decided to share his talents with Cabrini Connections, which he calls “is a great program with great facilities, good resources, good mentors and tutors, good people running the program and good students.” Thanks Michael for all you do and keep up the great work!