National Mentoring Partnership Incorporated

Product and program developmentone of mentor's core objectives is to identify, promote, and drive the implementation of evidence-based practices combined with community wisdom to increase the quality of mentoring relationships for young people. Mentor pursues this work by ensuring that leading-edge research, evidence from the field, community insights, and effective training converge to increase, sustain, and evaluate the quality of mentoring relationships for young people. Through this work, mentor also partners with key thought leaders in the youth-services field to build the evidence base and support for mentoring as a systemic solution for improved youth outcomes in america. A few examples of 2024 accomplishments in this work include: 1) led the national mentoring resource center to provide more than 14,000 hours of technical assistance to mentoring programs serving young people across the country; 2) launched the newly updated elements of effective practice for mentoring 5th edition which details research-informed and practitioner-approved standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs, and serves as a foundational and guiding resource for the mentoring programs and staff that design and deliver quality mentoring services to youth across america; 3) launched the retail technology e-commerce industry toolkit to explore best practices in structuring a mentoring program within the retail/technology workplace; and 4) offered monthly collaborative mentoring monthly webinar series which brought together 2,017 participants with an avg. Of 94% of attendees reporting that they gained beneficial knowledge.

Promotion, public education & policy mentor promotes the youth mentoring field by motivating civic leaders, employees, and individuals to prioritize and invest in ensuring all young people have access to mentoring relationships. In 2024, mentor promoted the use of the mentoring connector, the single national database of quality mentoring volunteer opportunities. In 2024, there were 19,947 searches for local mentoring opportunities through the mentoring connector. Mentor hosted the annual capitol hill day during national mentoring month in january, bringing together over 300 youth development and mentoring program staff, advocates, researchers, youth, and others to share with congress the value and positive impact mentoring has on young people and their respective communities.in 2024, mentor was awarded $2,564,332 in funding by the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention to continue operating its national mentoring resource center, offering training and technical assistance from the mentoring field. Mentor also continued to co-lead advocacy efforts to successfully increase key federal funding for youth mentoring to $104 million in fy24 for the youth mentoring grant (the only mentoring-specific line item in the federal budget).

Mentor annually hosts the national mentoring summit in washington dc, the only national convening of youth mentoring professionals, researchers, corporate partners, and government and civic leaders focused on strengthening and expanding quality mentoring relationships for young people nationwide. In january 2024, mentor hosted the national mentoring summit, which welcomed 1,342 people from 48 states and territories and 10 countries.