iMentor Blog

Last week, we received this thank you email from Julio, a mentee in our program who has just graduated from George Westinghouse High School, one of our Partner Sites in Brooklyn. We loved this email so much that we thought we'd share it here. (Julio was writing to his Program Coordinator, Hannah Peck.)

This is Julio, Andrew's Mentee. I am here to greatly thank you for the card I have received from you. I thank you very much for attending my graduation, it made me feel like all my hard work is valid and that I can count on people like the ones from iMentor, including you, for support. I thank you very much for being able to reach out to me about the program and linking me with a mentor who I can relate to in my life about my career and my hard work and effort I have put into the days I have gone through with school, from the beginning till the present. I really hope to accomplish my goals and keep up the good work and also when I am in college too. I have to give you big thanks for letting me unlock the skills I thought I didn't have, but thanks to you I now see that I can reach out to others to work together and be a team, or work by myself and still be successful. I also thanked Andrew over the phone. I am really happy to have Andrew as my mentor because he has given me some of his examples about his life and how I can be also successful in life and pursue my career. I am thankful to have the iMentor team next to my side.

June 22nd, 2008

iMentor Mentees @ the Prom

This week, the New York Times is profiling one of our Partner Sites, the International High School at Prospect Heights. This school works exclusively with recent immigrant students who have been in the US four years or less and iMentor is providing a mentor for every senior in the school. The New York Times piece follows these pairs as they prepare for their first prom. See the NYT article and video below.

June 10th, 2008

1,000 Mentors. Mentor Recruitment Begins!

This year, iMentor will connect 1,000 young people in New York City’s underserved communities with 1,000 volunteer mentors. Join us in making a HUGE difference in the lives of young people today!

(2) Sign up for a training in June or early July to be given priority in the matching process. To do so, go to the iMentor calendar once you have completed your application and RSVP.

June 8th, 2008

Work @ iMentor: New Job Openings

Want to work at one of the fastest growing and most innovative youth-development programs in the country? iMentor is currently hiring for the following positons:

Please check back often, as more positions will be posted soon. In the meantime you can:

April 1st , 2008

iMentor Launches Online Donor Drive

It takes less than 10 minutes to sign up and participate in the Online Donor Drive!

iMentor's Online Donor Drive is a fundraising initiative that allows mentors and other supporters to tap into their personal networks to raise (crucial) funds to fuel iMentor's growth. Our goal is to create a personalized webpage for each of our mentors to send out to their friends, family, co-workers, and entire network. What that allows us to do is collect small online donations from all over the country and increase the amount of people that know about the program.

Kenny was one of the first mentors to sign up for the Online Donor Drive and has already raised $900!

March 14th , 2008

iMentor Online: YouTube & Facebook

iMentor recently launched two exciting new online initiatives to help spread the word about the program and expand our network of supporters. Please check out our new YouTube Non-Profit Channel and Facebook Cause, sign up to join us in these new spaces and invite everyone you know.

Each of these online spaces offers great information about iMentor, ways to sign up to become involved and a place for online donations. Join now!

March 6th , 2008

96% of Mentees Graduate!

It’s troubling but true, only 60% of all New York City high school students graduate. That’s why we were so proud when we received the following information: 96% of iMentor's senior class graduated high school last year!

We’re so proud of these mentor-mentee pairs. Last year’s graduating class represents students from four high schools in three New York City boroughs. These pairs have worked together, often in multi-year matches, to lay the foundation for mentee’s personal, academic and career success.

But the work does not stop here. 87% of last year’s mentees began their college career this September, and many are still in touch with their mentor through iMentor’s Alumni Pairs program.

What’s the impact of graduating high school? No small thing. Recent studies show that the average annual income of a high school graduate is $6,500 more than that of non-graduates. That’s $120,000 over a lifetime.

A big congratulations to all of last year’s senior class. We couldn’t be more proud of what they accomplished together and can’t wait to see where they go from here!

March 6th , 2008

Teacher Feedback: iMentor's Impact

This month, iMentor launched a new partnership with the Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports. As with all new partnerships, our mentors traveled to the school this week to meet their mentees for the first time at the iMentor Kick-Off Event. The event was a huge success and when we came into the office the following morning, we were greeted by an amazing email from a Careers in Sports teacher, Sharon Aiuvalasit. This email made us feel so good we thought we'd share it here.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to once again thank you for the wonderful event you and your iMentor team organized for our students last night. It was such a rewarding and educational experience for me to see my students interact with their mentors in such a positive way and for such an extended period of time.

As teachers, we often pigeon-hole students into categories based on their attitudes and behaviors in our class and it was so refreshing to see their personalities blossom outside of the classroom! It was such a great reminder not to judge students based on one setting.

Not only that it was just a fun, fun, fun evening! The quality of the character and commitment displayed by each of the mentors was inspiring and I thank you for bringing each of them into the lives of our students. I am so hopeful for the future of this program and how much of a more comprehensive and quality education the students at the Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports will receive as a result of their participation.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for all of your hard work each day for our students. See you on Thursday!

February 20th, 2008

Arjenis (mentee) was matched with a mentor this year through iMentor’s partnership with Queens Vocational and Technical High School. Arjenis is a senior in high school and is matched with volunteer mentor Jon Levy (a 1st time mentor).

Arjenis wants to improve in school and is a very bright young man; Jon is very driven and he challenges Arjenis in emails to be better and achieve greater things. He pushes Arjenis with intelligent conversation and helps him define his goals. Since the beginning of their mentoring relationship, Arjenis and Jon have shared ideas on everything from the college admission process, sports, books, and a variety of socio-political topics. Through their work with the iMentor program, Arjenis and Jon have developed a strong mentoring relationship They often speak and email more than two times a week!

February 13th, 2008

On February 13th, iMentor was featured as a part of the keynote address during the Salesforce Foundation annual summit: Innovation for Non-Profit Success. iMentor's CEO, Mike O'Brien, addressed a crowd of over 200 attendees and discussed iMentor's evolution from a small New York City start-up working to develop a new kind of mentoring model to an emerging national leader in the youth mentoring field.

January 25th, 2008

Mentee Profile: Keshia

There's no better way to learn about our program than to hear our mentees and mentors talk about their experience. In Novemeber of 2007, Keshia, an iMentor mentee from International High School Prospect Heights gave a speech at the Urban Hero Awards to more than 300 attendees, sharing her moving story of assimilating to life in the US and the impact her mentor and iMentor has had on her future academic and career goals. A special thanks to Keshia's mentor Deborah, for being such a supportive presence in Keisha's life.

January 24th, 2008

iMentor Receives BBBS NYC Mentoring Award

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of their Mentoring Supervisor Certificate Program , Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City hosted a Celebration Luncheon and Alumni Awards on January 23rd. iMentor was selected from among BBBS’s 900 alumni for the Longevity Award, granted to an outstanding mentoring program that has provided long-term, quality mentoring in New York City. BBBS’s Julia Schwartz, Education and Legislation Manager, spoke to a large audience of NYC mentoring professionals about iMentor’s innovative, technology-based approach to mentoring and our enormous success in creating 5,000 matches over the past 8 years.

iMentor would like to thank Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City, in particular the Center for Training and Professional Development, for their long-standing commitment to youth development agencies who seek to develop and implement mentoring “best practices” and quality programming. Accepting on behalf of iMentor was Managing Director of Programs, Kimberley Ednie, a 2007 alumna of BBBS’s acclaimed Mentoring Supervisor Certificate Program.

January 24th, 2008

Where Our Mentees Come From

People ask us all the time how we select mentees to enroll in the iMentor program. This is a crucial decision for mentoring programs and there are several approaches. Some organizations allow mentees to “opt-in,” to nominate themselves or to be recommended for the program by family members, teachers or community leaders. iMentor takes a different approach.

We believe strongly in serving the New York City youth that can benefit the most from mentoring and work hard to assure we are connecting our volunteer mentors with high school students living in communities other mentoring programs cannot reach. We feel that the students who need mentoring the most are not necessarily the students that will ask for a mentor, or have an advocate who will connect them to a mentoring program. To this end, iMentor’s selection process begins by:

(1) Identifying the communities in New York City that are the most economically and geographically isolated (traditionally the same communities that have the most difficultly finding and engaging mentors); and

(2) Finding dynamic schools and after school programs to enroll a cohort of students and to assist us in facilitating the program.

Each of our partner sites enrolls 50 - 100 students and integrates iMentor into the school’s culture. Partner Sites allow us to assure that all mentees have regular access to email and the internet, as well as support for their participation in the program. Each partner sites provides a volunteer teacher to work closely with out staff and one-to-two hours per week in a computer lab where students can read emails from their mentors and compose a reply. This model allows iMentor to establish a “culture of mentoring” in these schools and after school programs, creating a feeling shared of engagement among mentees as they embark on this new experience as well as a network of working professionals that can become advocates for our mentees’ schools and communities.

These partner sites are integral to iMentor’s success and we thank all of our 2007-08 partners for their dedication to the program.

January 23rd, 2008

iMentor Invited to the White House

iMentor has been invited to the White House! On Wednesday, January 23, 2008, iMentor will participate in a Compassion in Action Roundtable, titled “Faith-Based and Community Mentoring that Changes Lives.” convened by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Hosted by OFBCI Director Jay Hein and keynoted by America's Promise Alliance Chief Executive Officer Marguerite Kondracke, the roundtable brought together government officials, policymakers, business leaders, foundation representatives, philanthropists and faith-based and community leaders to highlight innovative and effective policies and partnerships in mentoring and ways President Bush’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative is working to transform lives. President Bush proclaimed January 2008 as National Mentoring Month and called on all Americans to recognize the importance of mentoring, to look for opportunities to serve as mentors in their communities, and to observe this month with appropriate activities and programs.

Learn more about this series of Compassion in Action Roundtables and the Office of Faith-Based and Community Issues HERE.

January 19th, 2008

iMentor Joins the America's Promise Alliance

In January, iMentor was asked to join the prestigious America’s Promise Alliance. The America’s Promise Alliance is the nation’s largest multi-sector collaborative dedicated to the well-being of children and youth. The Alliance leads the way in forging multi-sector partnerships, bringing together:

Alliance Partners dedicate themselves to work jointly for the success of our young people, using the Five Promises framework to shape their efforts and improve the odds for youth. Together, Alliance partners are working on our National Action Strategies to deliver more of the Five Promises to 15 million children in the next five years.

iMentor will be leveraging its iMentor Interactive national program to collaborate on the America’s Promise Alliance work around integrating mentoring into its National Action Strategies.

December 20th, 2007

Mentors & Mentees Give Back

Last week, iMentor sponsored four community service events, attended by 180 mentor-mentee pairs. The community service projects allowed pairs to reflect on the meaning of community, service, and mentoring.

Pairs crafted community murals for iMentor partner schools, created over 300 holiday cards for homebound elderly clients receiving holiday dinners through the City Meals-on-Wheels Program, and created 300 Goodwill Bags which will be donated to the students of The Door.

In the spirit of giving and community service, our mentor-mentee pairs offered their time and generosity to helping others. In the process, they continued to cultivate their relationships by sharing their own stories of celebration. Thank you to all of our mentors and mentees for making such an important act of kindness, generosity, and service so successful!

We’d like to send a special thank you to our corporate partners at Morrison & Foerster, Credit Suisse, and UBS for their generous donation of event space.

December 7th, 2007

iMentor Featured on WNBC

Last night, WNBC news correspondent Perri Peltz ran a feature on iMentor as part of the New York Nightly News.

The piece profiled two of our phenomenal mentor-mentee pairs, both matched in multi-year relationships, both committed to working together until their mentee graduates high school. Click on the video below to see Deborah Mason (from Goldman Sachs), matched with Keisha through our partnership at International High School Prospect Heights and Antonia Townsend (a new Young Executive Board Member ) matched with her mentee Pincess-Joy (at Bronx Prep). See below for iMentor's big night in the news!

December 5th, 2007

Kick Off's Kick Off

It's our favorite time of year here at iMentor, Kick-Off season, the months of November and December where mentors travel to their mentee's home community, to visit their mentee's school, and our pairs meet in person for the first time.

This year, we have seen more pairs meet in the first six weeks of being matched than any year in iMentor's history. With an estimated 80-90% Kick-Off attendance city wide! We thank our mentors and mentees for taking this important first step and iMentor's Program Coordinators for making it all possible!

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July 2007 - November 2007

iMentor Blog

July 8th, 2008

End of Year Reflections

June 22nd, 2008

iMentor Mentees @ the Prom

June 10th, 2008

1,000 Mentors. Mentor Recruitment Begins!

June 8th, 2008

Work @ iMentor: New Job Openings

April 1st , 2008

iMentor Launches Online Donor Drive

March 14th , 2008

iMentor Online: YouTube & Facebook

March 6th , 2008

96% of Mentees Graduate!

March 6th , 2008

Teacher Feedback: iMentor's Impact

February 20th, 2008

February 13th, 2008

January 25th, 2008

Mentee Profile: Keshia

January 24th, 2008

iMentor Receives BBBS NYC Mentoring Award

January 24th, 2008

Where Our Mentees Come From

January 23rd, 2008

iMentor Invited to the White House

January 19th, 2008

iMentor Joins the America's Promise Alliance

December 20th, 2007

Mentors & Mentees Give Back

December 7th, 2007

iMentor Featured on WNBC

December 5th, 2007

Kick Off's Kick Off