In February and March, mentors again took to the web to go above and beyond their role as volunteers by participating in our annual Online Donor Drive campaign. With the help of the Crowdrise.com, our amazing mentors went viral, creating personal fundraising pages with stories and photos about their mentees. Over the past few years, the Online Donor Drive has become a growing force in helping to raise funds and awareness to the iMentor program. This year was no different, raising more than $60,000 from more than 800 donors in 33 states and from three countries!
Mentors from every one of our 15 partner schools got involved by creating pages. Mentors at the Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports and the Brooklyn Academy of Letters took top prizes for “Most Mentors Participating” and “Highest Mentor Participation” respectively. Both schools will be acknowledged and rewarded at our upcoming iMentor Extravaganza in June. When the page results were tallied, Sarah Tomolonius, a mentor at the Urban Assembly School for Performing Arts, won the honor of being our top fundraiser by successfully raising $8,008. Sarah, who is also a member of iMentor’s Young Executive Board, urged others to support her page by writing, “It's been a phenomenal match, it's incredibly rewarding, and I would be grateful for your support of a program that has a really profound impact on the lives of mentees--and mentors.”
Some of our mentors motivated their networks to give to iMentor with generous incentives. For example, Gordon McKemie personally matched all gifts made to his page over $100 and raised an amazing $4,121. Kenny Eng leveraged social media and his own talents, enticing his Facebook followers to support his page by promising a home cooked, three-course meal to everyone who donated more than $100.
In the end, the true impact was not simply in dollars raised, but also, in stories told. Each mentor who created and shared a page has helped raise awareness about the iMentor program and contributed to our growth.
Thank you to all the mentors that chose to participate! Click here to see all the amazing pages created for this year’s Donor Drive.
