Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago (BBBSChi) helps children realize their potential and build their futures. As Metro Chicago's largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, BBBSChi makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers ("Bigs") and children ("Littles") from age seven through high school graduation. Our programs nurture children and strengthen communities across Cook, Lake and DuPage counties in Illinois and Lake County, Indiana. Our mission is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.

Our vision is that all youth achieve their full potential.

Goal One: Reaching 5,000 youth served throughout Chicagoland

Goal Two: Increasing diversity within our volunteer pool

Goal Three: Investment in new innovative programming

After a careful review of the agency’s overall employee relations practices, and receiving feedback from current staff and exit interviews, a decision was made to design a professional development series for middle managers to support and strengthen their management style, and edify leadership skills. This 6-month mandatory development was attended by all middle management and was well received. As a result, this learning opportunity has had a positive impact on BBBS’ middle management and their desire to remain with the organization. To date the agency has retained 80% of its middle managers. BBBS has invested additional resources via The Bridgespan Group to teach its senior leadership how to develop its future leaders. As a result, each leadership team member has co-partnered with their managers to design an individual leadership development plan that has been instituted.

Some external changes/challenges and the steps taken to adapt to those changes include: • Cost prohibitive match outings - Match outings can sometimes cost the volunteer more money than they were expecting to spend when entering the program. Knowing this, BBBS offers a plethora of ideas for free match activities, agency sponsored match events, free tickets to sports games and cultural events, and a donor-supported Match Enrichment Fund. The Match Enrichment Fund is available for matches to enhance their match relationship and to provide assistance and additional support to the Littles we serve. Matches can apply for and receive funds for enrichment activities related to the Little's academic achievement, the development of healthy behaviors in and out of school, and improved attitudes and competencies. We continue to seek advice from our Bigs and families through our Bigs Networking & Discussion series, match support calls, and our Family Advisory Council. • Recruitment needs for mentees/Littles and mentors/Bigs vary by each location, community, and neighborhood we serve. We use community resources and partnerships to recruit necessary volunteers and youth but are still working with challenges presented by COVID-19, such as losing mission advocates at schools and partner organizations. We are working on many strategies to increase and sustain both youth and volunteer outreach, including but not limited to 1) Volunteer Representation Series - events focused on increasing diversity of our Bigs; 2) New outreach office locations throughout our service area and new, intentional partnerships through each location; 3) Increased brand awareness and social media presence; and 4) Web resources such as family, teen, and volunteer newsletters, trauma support, trainings, and supports for LGBTQ+ youths.