iMentor Blog

New National Partnerships Are Spreading the iMentor Model to Help Students Succeed

iMentor Posted on December 22, 2011 - 6:42pm

What do Admission Possible, City Year, and Miami Dade Community College/Single Stop USA have in common? They all share a commitment to helping students from low-income communities graduate high school college-ready and succeed in college. We’re proud to have launched partnerships this fall with these three results-driven organizations to ensure more students have the support they need not just to succeed in school but also to build a bright future.

Leveraging the best-practices and resources from our successful program in New York City, iMentor provides each of these organizations with the tools they need to effectively implement the iMentor model, including: curricula, consulting services, and a proprietary online platform to manage and evaluate all aspects of the mentoring program.

Notably, iMentor is helping all three organizations launch formal mentoring programs for the first time. Each program addresses the specific needs of youth in their communities as they work toward college graduation:

Admission Possible in the Twin Cities supports 100 high school seniors in its college-preparation program to provide them with mentors for five years, until they reach college graduation.
City Year in Philadelphia is pairing 100 sophomores with mentors who are City Year alumni in three-year matches focused on college readiness.
Miami Dade Community College/Single Stop USA in Miami is matching 150 students with mentors from their first year of college through graduation to support them as they complete community college and engage in subsequent academic and career pursuits.

iMentor has spent twelve years refining a model for mentoring that has helped more than 10,000 kids from low-income communities in New York City graduate high school college-ready and successfully transition to college. Through these national partnerships, we are able to ensure more students across the country benefit from the one-on-one support of a mentor to help them achieve their goals.

These partnerships are part of our iMentor Interactive Program. Learn more and find out how to become a partner.

Give the Gift of Mentoring

iMentor Posted on December 16, 2011 - 1:31pm

This holiday season, we are excited that there is a new way to give the gift of mentoring to more students in 2012--iMentor has the honor of being included in Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s Gifts for Good catalog.

Donations we receive this holiday season will help us provide 2,400 students from low-income communities with college-educated mentors who will help them graduate high school college ready and succeed in college. Gifts from our supporters are vital to our work and help us host events for our students to work one-on-one with their mentors and provide technology resources that help our pairs work through the iMentor curriculum.

iMentor is proud to be among the 20 organizations chosen for inclusion in the catalog and to be recognized for our accomplishments this year. Douglas Ketterer, managing director and head of US Morgan Stanley private wealth management, said that the organizations featured in the catalog “have differentiated themselves from other nonprofits and have become best-in-class leaders in their charitable areas.”

With the support of our mentors and donors, in 2011 iMentor has achieved great things:

83% of mentees graduated from high school
87% of mentees feel positive about their future after participating in iMentor
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded iMentor a $500,000 grant
We launched national partnerships with top national organizations, including Admission Possible, City Year, KIPP through College, and Single Stop at Miami Dade Community College
We won Google's inaugural Best New York City Non-Profit Award

We have big plans for 2012, and look forward to expanding the iMentor community to include more students, schools, nonprofits, and supporters who are committed to mentoring. You can join us by giving a holiday gift of mentoring.

Posted in Impact, iMentor Interactive, iMentor NYC
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iMentor Wins Top Honors at Google’s First NY Nonprofit Awards

Posted on December 12, 2011 - 1:06pm

Google

Thirty-nine New York-based nonprofits gathered for Google’s inaugural NY Nonprofit Awards, a competition that awarded grants to the winning organizations. iMentor was selected for the top prize—and a $15,000 grant--from eight finalists that included City Year (an iMentor partner), New York Needs You, Teach for America, and Global Health Corps.

Google employee and iMentor volunteer Ashley Gushue nominated iMentor for the award, and drew support from the other Google volunteers with the program. At the event, Ashley also spoke on iMentor’s behalf to a panel of Google executives about how mentors are helping high school students in New York City graduate high school college-ready and succeed in college. Ashley shared her own story about her mentee, Yocasta. Ashley says, “Everyday, I continue to see the positive effects [iMentor]…has on our community, and the positive effects I am having in Yocasta's life. Working with iMentor is truly one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.”

iMentor’s partnership with the Google began in 2010, when employees from the company first began mentoring underserved students. Since that time, Google volunteers have provided vital support in to help mentees improve their performance in high school, navigate the college application process, and understand financial aid. Only 1 in 7 students from low-income backgrounds will receive a college degree, indicating that the need for role models is increasing. This year, 14 Googlers like Ashley volunteered with iMentor by committing one to four years to their mentees. Dave Mogenson, a three-year mentor with the program, shared, “[Mentees] love folks from Google because the kids all know and love the brand. Also, a lot of the students are interested in going into the tech industry, so engineers would be particularly great mentors in the program.”

The partnership effects positive change in the lives of iMentor’s mentees as well as their Google mentors. When asked about her experience, mentor Tanya Brown said, “I am learning as much from her-- if not more--than I hope I am able to teach her. iMentor is an exceptional program.”

Thank you to all the mentors from Google for their commitment to their mentees and to iMentor.

For more information or to become a mentor please visit: www.imentor.org/become-a-mentor.

Posted in Impact, Partners, Recognition, Supporters
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Can Communities Work Together to Improve Student Achievement?

iMentor Posted on December 7, 2011 - 10:43am

A recent article in the Huffington Post asked: What if schools didn't have to work alone to improve student achievement? The article sites a new study by the Education Sector, an independent think tank, explores what would happen if entire communities took responsibility for the educational outcomes of students.

The study outlines potential roles for every sector—government, business, nonprofits, and foundations—and the measurable contribution each could make to prevent high school dropout, prepare kids for college, and increase college graduation rates. Mentoring is highlighted as an important tool in this type of holistic model, and the authors point to key measures of student success that a mentoring program could uniquely influence: “The annual goals or metrics for a mentoring provider, for example, might include improving the mentees’ attendance, reducing the number of times they get in trouble, and following them to track whether they are graduating from high school and enrolling in college.”

These are precisely the types of measures that iMentor tracks as part of its program goals—and areas where we have found our community of volunteers have a strong positive influence on the students they work with. Because the iMentor program has staff working in the schools we partner with, we are among the first to know when students start to have attendance problems. Our program coordinators are able to work with mentors to encourage attendance and track students’ progress. The iMentor curriculum is designed so that mentors can work one-on-one with students for one to four years on emotional and social issues that improve behavior in school and progress toward high school graduation and college enrollment.

It is vital for entire communities to get involved in the education of our students and the life of our schools. Our 2,400 mentors in New York City—professionals and graduate students from a range of industries and communities in the city—are doing just that with iMentor.