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Our blog features posts on new program developments, profiles of our mentor-mentee pairs and news from the mentoring and youth-development fields. Check back often to see what we've been up to or sign up to receive email updates.

(Not Really) Saying Goodbye to iMentor President Caroline Kim Oh

Posted on January 9, 2013 - 4:38pm

Today marks the end of an era for iMentor—our president, Caroline Kim Oh, is concluding her 12-and-half-year tenure with us. “I’m so grateful to have been part of the evolution of iMentor over the past 12 years from four people in a tiny, borrowed office to a national organization,” said Caroline. “I’m proud of what iMentor has already achieved, and the organization is poised to realize even greater success for its students, volunteers, and partners in the future.”

Caroline joined iMentor in 2000 as its first Program Director, mere months after John Griffin, Rich Buery, and Matt Klein founded the organization. With no permanent office and just a handful of mentors and mentees, iMentor consisted of a small, committed team that shared an ambitious vision for how mentoring could help young people on their path to success. In 2002, Caroline became iMentor’s Executive Director and successfully expanded the organization by hiring top talent, securing major funders, and launching iMentor Interactive, a national partnership program. In these roles, Caroline helped transform what started as a small pilot project into a successful youth mentoring program that served more than 1,000 mentor-mentee pairs annually.

Assuming the role of President in 2007, Caroline began focusing on board and leadership group development as well as special strategic projects. Recently, she spearheaded iMentor’s annual benefit and launched a successful Women’s Committee. As Caroline moves on to pursue new challenges in the nonprofit sector, she can take pride in the fact that she played a pivotal role in helping iMentor realize—and exceed—its early ambitions. Today, iMentor boasts a staff of more than 80 people serving 2,400 mentor-mentee pairs in New York City, and 15 nonprofit partners across the country.

Caroline has been more than an employee at iMentor—she is an embodiment of the spirit of the organization itself. Staff, mentors, board members, and mentees consider her their own mentor, friend, and fairy godmother. In recognition of her leadership, iMentor Board Chair John Griffin recently created the Caroline Kim Oh Mentoring Award. This award, which includes a $2,000 stipend toward a student’s education, will be given each year to one graduating mentor-mentee pair who has demonstrated a commitment to developing a strong mentoring relationship, overcoming obstacles, and working together to ensure the mentee is poised to succeed in college. 

Confident that iMentor will always be a part of her life, Caroline will continue to lead iMentor’s Women’s Committee and volunteer as a mentor. “Anyone who knows me understands that I’ll never really ‘leave’ iMentor,” said Caroline. “I’m happy I can stay involved with our students, mentors, supporters, and staff in the coming years.”

At iMentor, we will miss Caroline’s daily presence but will benefit from her lasting legacy and continued contributions to the iMentor community. The entire iMentor staff joins our CEO, Mike O’Brien, and our board in wishing Caroline well in her next adventure.

Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of iMentor’s 100 Mentor Pledge

Posted on January 4, 2013 - 1:45pm

This January, just in time for National Mentoring Month, iMentor is celebrating the anniversary of our 100 Mentor Pledge, a corporate mentor-recruitment initiative that Mayor Bloomberg announced in his 2012 State of the City Address. Through the Pledge, 10 leading companies committed to recruit 100 of their employees to serve as mentors for high school students in low-income communities.

In the first year of the pledge, our partners have reached their recruitment benchmarks on the path to securing 100 mentors each. Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have already reached or surpassed the 100-mentor goal. We’re proud that this school year, one-third of our 2,400 mentors are employees from our Pledge companies.

Joan Steinberg, Head of Community Affairs at Morgan Stanley, shared her excitement about the Pledge last year: “We are so proud to have helped iMentor get its start more than a decade ago. Then as now, our employees have embraced the opportunity to share key skills with New York City students, positioning these young people for greater academic and professional success.”

We are pleased to recognize the efforts of the 100 Mentor Pledge Companies over the last year, without which our work would not be possible: Accenture, Barclays Capital, Bloomberg, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Ernst & Young LLP, Goldman Sachs, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Morgan Stanley, and UBS. We are thrilled to watch the inspiring results of their involvement unfold in the lives of our mentees for years to come, who benefit each day from their mentors’ positive reinforcement and unwavering support.

iMentor Presents at the 2013 National Mentoring Summit in Washington, D.C.

Posted on January 2, 2013 - 12:15pm

iMentor is proud to be a supporting organization at the third annual National Mentoring Summit, convened by MENTOR: the National Mentoring Partnership, in Washington, D.C. this January 24 and 25. As part of National Mentoring Month, iMentor will be joining more than 650 leading youth development organizations and civic, corporate, government, and philanthropic leaders who will come together at the Summit to share best practices, examine new research, exchange ideas, and discuss innovative developments in the field of youth mentoring.

iMentor’s own CEO Mike O’Brien and Managing Director of iMentor Interactive Adrienne Kupper will each be presenting on panels at the two-day event to share what makes iMentor’s college success program as successful as it is in New York City—and explain how we’re leveraging that results-driven model to help youth in 12 other states receive the mentorship they need to get into and graduate from college through our partnerships with 15 nonprofit organizations this year.

Hosted by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Harvard School of Public Health, United Way Worldwide, and nearly 20 partner organizations, this important event provides mentoring organizations from across the country with the opportunity to convene, collaborate, learn from each other’s successes, and leverage new, innovative approaches to enhance mentoring opportunities for more of America’s young people.

We look forward to collaborating with corporate, government, nonprofit, and philanthropic leaders in the effort to further national mentoring outcomes at the 2013 National Mentoring Summit!

Support from Michael & Susan Dell and The Morrison & Foerster Foundations Helps iMentor Match Grant from Social Innovation Fund

Posted on December 27, 2012 - 12:59pm

iMentor is thrilled to announce that generous grants from two new iMentor funders, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and The Morrison & Foerster Foundation, have helped us reach the $1.1 million we are required to match in order to receive continued support from the federal Social Innovation Fund. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) combines public and private resources to support high-impact organizations that are dedicated to finding and implementing solutions to social challenges in the areas of economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development.

A subgrantee of the Social Innovation Fund since 2011, iMentor is using the funding, which totals $1.1 million each year until 2016, to scale and evaluate our programs in New York City and nationwide. In the first year of the SIF grant, iMentor successfully expanded its New York City program to three new New York City high schools and expanded to new cities by forming partnerships with three national nonprofit organizations. iMentor also utilized the funding to launch a six-year independent study of the iMentor model to identify its most effective components and gain greater insight into the impact of individualized support on college readiness.

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and The Morrison & Foerster Foundation, whose recent investments in iMentor total $1.25 million, join a group of notable funders that are supporting iMentor as a part of SIF, including New Profit Inc., Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Robin Hood Foundation, Blue Ridge Foundation, Tiger Foundation, Altman Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, JP Morgan Chase, Kresge Foundation, Open Society Foundations, SeaChange Capital Partners, and State Street Foundation.

Through the support of each of these foundations, iMentor is looking forward to expanding our commitment to more students in New York City and across the country who are working toward realizing their college dreams. Specifically, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation grant in the amount of $1 million is allowing us to support 3,000 mentor-mentee pairs in iMentor’s college success programs for the next two years. The Morrison & Foerster Foundation grant in the amount of $250,000 made it possible for iMentor to launch our College Ready Program at three additional New York City public high schools in the 2012-2013 academic year, bringing our total served to 2,400 students citywide. In conjunction with SIF funding, these new grants will also support the ongoing evaluation of iMentor’s model in the largest study ever conducted on mentoring.

iMentor Volunteers Mentor the Next Generation of Software Engineers at the Academy for Software Engineering

Posted on December 19, 2012 - 6:07pm
AFSE students leaving their marks on Facebook's "wall" during a recent trip to the company's New York office.

The Academy for Software Engineering (AFSE), located just off Union Square in New York City, opened its doors for the first time this past September to a group of 126 9th graders. Offering an innovative curriculum of standard Regents-prep courses paired with computer science classes, the school aims to prepare students with the core competencies for not just college—but also future careers in New York City’s growing technology and entrepreneurial community. Through the school’s new partnership with iMentor, every one of these freshmen has been matched with an iMentor volunteer—many of whom hail from careers in software engineering themselves—in a four-year mentoring partnership to help them build these crucial skills.

Interim Acting Principal Seung Yu, says that in just a few short months, iMentor’s College Ready mentoring program has already been woven into the fabric of the school.

“The type of coordination that iMentor has—it’s seamless. Our program coordinator, Primo Lasana, comes in to implement the program, and our kids see him as a staff member,” said Yu.

“We thought iMentor would be a tremendous asset for us because, for kids in an urban environment, the more adult, professional role models they have the more they know that they have a number of support networks,” he added.  

In addition to learning computer programming as a fundamental part of their studies, AFSE students attend a weekly iMentor class in which they e-mail their mentors to discuss their progress toward academic and personal goals. They also meet their mentors once a month at an iMentor event, which takes place in the school’s cafeteria. Both in person and through e-mail, pairs work on iMentor’s college success curriculum to help students develop skills for college and their careers.

Michael Halloran, a new mentor who works in the technology and data division at Morgan Stanley, was excited to meet his mentee, Eliezer, for the first time – and was very pleased to hear about his interests in the field of technology when they had the chance to sit down together.  

“Eliezer told me he wants to learn programming language and develop more technical skills, and I have a lot to share with him in those areas,” said Halloran, who heard about the opportunity to volunteer through Morgan Stanley’s corporate partnership with iMentor.

“When I heard about what the program was during a team meeting at Morgan Stanley, it immediately seemed like something I wanted to sign up for and do,” Halloran added. 

Mentors and mentees at AFSE also have access to special tech-geared learning opportunities through iMentor. Mentors were recently invited to Google’s offices in New York City for a discussion on the growing importance of computer science skills in America’s changing marketplace, and mentees took a field trip to Facebook’s offices to hear a panel of Facebook employees discuss their roles within the company. In fact, one mentee said the trip gave him new ideas about potential professional development opportunities.

“We learned about the internships Facebook offers and what kind of work the interns do,” said freshman Diante Singleton. “They aren’t regular old internships—the interns actually get to work on projects that last three months. After hearing about it, I would love to intern there.”

We’re excited to see the new iMentor class at the Academy for Software Engineering flourish throughout the year as they continue to develop and work toward their college aspirations and career goals! We know that the support of their mentors will be especially helpful as they learn more about careers in software engineering.

Employees of Blue Ridge Capital Make a Generous Gift to iMentor in Memory of Alice Griffin

Posted on December 18, 2012 - 11:54am

iMentor is humbled by generous donations from employees of Blue Ridge Capital made in memory of the late Alice Griffin, mother of Blue Ridge Capital’s president and iMentor’s board chair and founder, John Griffin. Mrs. Griffin, a former professor of literature, drama critic, and author of eleven books on theater, is remembered by her family, friends, and colleagues for her love of teaching and learning and her accomplished career as an educator.

Blue Ridge Capital employees said in a statement, "Alice Griffin was a wonderful lady and a lifelong mentor to John [Griffin] and therefore to every member of Blue Ridge. Her passion for learning, strong moral compass, and unwavering commitment to teaching have shaped the firm's culture and ethos. To honor Alice, every employee at Blue Ridge has made a donation to iMentor in her memory."
 
The Blue Ridge Capital Employees who generously donated to iMentor in memory of Alice Griffin are: Jeffrey Alvarez, Richard Bello, Robert Bottali, Grant Bowman, Dean Brown, Alisa Butchkowski, Michael Cairo, Zachary Canonico, Jada Carlson, Yuqing Chen, Molly Conlin, Angelo Crupi, Nicholas Danaher, Peter Daneker, Maria De Leon, Natalie De Munnynck, Sean Dobson, Gerard Falcone, William Ente, Joel Florian, Kimberley Foreman, Jessica Gebhardt, Christopher Golden, Meri-Leigh Hollowell, Lauren Hallam, Rachel Humphrey, Igor Kaplan, Helen Kim, Sergio Lagunes, Michael Leighton, Johnny Liu, Jeanine Lombardi, James Loughlin, David MacPhee, Steve Marks, Andrew Marks, David Marshall, Sharon Martin, Trina McCray, Brian Murray, Tery O'Malley, Stephen Pakutka, Diana Petrassi, Deborah Quarless, Heather Rosenberg, Tony Ryan, Christina Salvatore, Tom Scully, Richard Selsky, Jonathan Seltzer, Adam Shooshan, Roni Silver, Carter Brooks Simonds, Brian Smith, Homer Smith, Patricia Stevens, Katie Wenner, Eric Wong, Christopher Woolford, and Joanie Zeng.

iMentor is honored to receive Blue Ridge Capital employees’ tribute to Alice, which will go toward furthering iMentor’s commitment to ensuring more students city- and nationwide have access to higher education.

Wi-Mentor Unites Youth Interested in Medicine with Healthcare Professionals

Posted on December 11, 2012 - 5:54pm

Dr. Frank Scifo, a well-known local physician in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is a veteran to Wi-mentor, an iMentor Interactive partner program. Dr. Scifo has been a mentor with the program for three years, and was recently inspired to renew his commitment to the program after a remarkable year with his mentee throughout the 2011-2012 school year.

In 2011, Dr. Scifo was matched with Gerald, a student at Wi-mentor’s newest partner school, Central High School, in Bridgeport. Wi-mentor partnered with iMentor in 2007 to implement a mentoring program to help underserved high school students prepare for and succeed in college and beyond. iMentor provides Wi-mentor with curricula, technology tools, and consulting so they can implement their own effective mentoring program in the iMentor model in Coastal Fairfield County.

Students at Central participate in the Wi-mentor program as part of their Medical Careers class. Central’s Medical Careers teacher, Cathy Chimini, thought an in-person and online mentoring program would be an innovative way to link her students with professionals working in the medical field, which her students also aspire to work in. Dr. Scifo, who works at Saint Vincent’s Medical Center, had volunteered in the Wi-mentor program before, but was excited about the new opportunity to mentor a student who shared an interest in the medical field.

Dr. Scifo and Gerald hit it off instantly. Gerald, a senior, had his mind set on becoming a nurse, just like his mother. Meeting and working with Dr. Scifo only made Gerald’s desire to join the healthcare arena that much more great, as Gerald was able to hear first-hand accounts of Dr. Scifo’s experiences in medicine and ask questions about the field. And Dr. Scifo’s experience with Gerald was just as rewarding. Through in-depth weekly emails, the pair discussed everything from school to their personal lives, and Dr. Scifo suggested different paths Gerald could take in the nursing profession and encouraged him to stay motivated through his college application process. Over the course of the year together, the pair developed a mutual respect for each other and also had a lot of fun.

Dr. Scifo, the host of a local radio show, Health Talk, about news in healthcare, invited Gerald to be a guest on his show. Gerald was very nervous at first, but Dr. Scifo helped put those nerves at ease and by the end of the show, Gerald was a natural. The pair talked about their relationship, their experiences, and the Wi-mentor program. The show was a great public speaking opportunity for Gerald, and the pair also had a chance to share information about Wi-mentor with the community.

As a result of their hard work together, in June, Gerald and Dr. Scifo won the Wi-mentor Match of the Year award at the End of Year Banquet. Gerald has since moved onto Northeastern University in Boston and is doing very well in his freshman year of college. Due to the positive year with Gerald, Dr. Scifo signed up to be matched with another student this year at Central and is continuing to impact the lives of youth in Coastal Fairfield County.

iMentor Welcomes Eight New Members to the Young Executive Board

Posted on December 7, 2012 - 3:02pm

This year, iMentor is pleased to welcome eight new members to our Young Executive Board (YEB), a select group of more than 35 young professionals from diverse fields across New York City who volunteer their time and expertise to iMentor. Our YEB members do it all, from recruiting volunteers, leading fundraising efforts, to donating themselves. Their dedication is helping us grow our network of supporters so that our college-focused mentoring program reaches more students in New York City and across the country. Since 2001, iMentor has elected new members to the YEB annually. 

As part of their involvement, YEB members act as advisers and thought partners to iMentor’s senior leaders and participate in brainstorming sessions focused on expanding iMentor’s impact. Our YEB members have proven themselves to be all-star mentors in our programs. Through their own mentoring relationships, they have developed valuable insights about iMentor’s work in the communities we serve. They support their mentees every step of the way as they diligently work toward their college aspirations, and report back to us about how to make our programs even better.

Membership to the YEB also provides professionals who are rising leaders in their industries and interested in philanthropy with the exclusive opportunity to help shape various iMentor initiatives.

We congratulate our eight newly elected Young Executive Board members on assuming these important roles at iMentor.

Are you a member of the iMentor community and interested in joining the YEB? Contact Celine Patel, Corporate Partnerships and Individual Giving Manager, for more information.

Highly Anticipated Moment Arrives for Mentees Eager to Meet Their Mentors

Posted on November 30, 2012 - 5:08pm
Mentor Stevi Petrelli and her mentee Andreina pose for their first picture moments after meeting.

After a few hesitant moments looking across the crowded school cafeteria, a broad smile broke across one student’s face as she recognized her mentor walking through the door. Up until now, they had only exchanged a few emails, and both were a bit nervous to meet in person for the first time. This is the experience that newly-matched students and mentors at iMentor partner schools across four New York City boroughs are having.

At Manhattan Bridges High School, Stevi Petrelli, a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, said that talking over e-mail with her mentee Andreina in the days leading up to the first iMentor event made her even more eager to meet the teen, who is a freshman at the school.

“I feel like I already know a lot about her so it’s exciting to put all the details and background to a face,” she said.       

Xavier Segura, an account director at AppNexus and mentor to Ojay Virgo, a junior at the High School for Service Learning at Erasmus, said that he is looking forward to working with Ojay to define the smaller steps he needs to take in order to achieve his larger goals, one of which includes becoming a doctor.

“I was fortunate to have a lot of role models who could help me get to where I wanted to be,” said Xavier. “I hope that I can help Ojay with tactical ways to get to his big aspirations—and what that means on a day to day basis for him.”  

Latisha, also a junior at the High School for Service Learning at Erasmus, and her mentor Aura Posner, a senior manager of Global Finance Training at Morgan Stanley, discussed Latisha’s academic interests and what they might translate to in college.

“Latisha has interests in music and writing, so we’ll be doing research on schools with strong performing arts or English programs,” said Aura. Latisha, who was unsure about whether to apply to college before being matched with Aura, now knows it’s the right path for her.

“I was really excited to meet my mentor Aura,” she said. “I want her to help me learn more about the outside world, and my options.”

Mentees also had the opportunity to ask their new mentors about their lives and careers. Michael, a freshman at Manhattan Bridges High School, wanted to know how his mentor Andrew Barbaccia decided to become an engineer, and how he got into undergraduate and graduate programs. Mentors, in turn, got the chance to ask their mentees how classes are going and suggest a few positive study habits that worked for them in high school.

We warmly welcome the 4,800 participants who have recently joined our program and are just starting the multi-year relationships that will allow them to work together toward outlining and achieving these goals. iMentor is proud to be hosting more than 170 mentor-mentee events across four boroughs in New York City this school year.

Mentor Helps Teen Overcome Barrier to Graduation

Posted on November 20, 2012 - 7:13pm

Last year, in Trevon’s senior year at Civic Leadership Academy, there was only one thing standing between him and high school graduation—his grade in gym class. Over the previous months, he and his mentor, Greg, Vice President of Risk Management at Citigroup Information Technology, had worked closely together to draft a strong college admissions essay for Trevon’s application to Alfred State SUNY College of Technology. And both were ecstatic when Trevon received his acceptance letter. So when Trevon told Greg that he was in danger of failing one class and repeating the 12th grade, the pair decided that they weren’t going to let this roadblock thwart Trevon’s path to college.

“We couldn’t let the fact that he wasn’t able to get to this one class on time be the reason he wasn’t able graduate,” Greg said. 

Trevon requested a meeting with his guidance counselor and principal to discuss his options. He was given the opportunity to complete two 10-page essays, and he accepted. With the deadline approaching quickly, Trevon traveled to Greg’s office in Manhattan so the two could brainstorm and conduct research for the essays, one of which was about childhood obesity and the other the Olympic Games.    

“Greg encouraged me and helped me find primary sources to include,” Trevon said. “We were working on the essays until about 11 p.m. one night.”  

“It’s Trevon’s persistence and initiative that shows how much he’s growing as a person,” noted Greg.

That persistence paid dividends—Trevon was able to pass the class and receive his high school diploma last spring. “It was a close call—without Greg’s help, I probably would have been in high school for another year.”

As Trevon readied himself for his move to Alfred, New York, Greg stopped by iMentor's office to drop off extra suitcases and a printer for him to take to college. Now, halfway through his first semester as a college student at Alfred State, Trevon is glad to be earning B’s in most of his classes. With Greg, he has set a goal to raise his GPA by half a letter grade each semester. With one year left in iMentor’s program, the two are keeping in touch through Skype and phone calls, and they continue to exchange e-mails once a week through iMentor’s online platform.

Greg, whose youngest daughter is currently going through the college application process and eldest daughter is a college student at Rutgers, says that he was glad to be able to pass on to Trevon much of the same advice he’s given his own children.

“I learned how to navigate the college process with my kids, and I compared his process to the challenges my daughter is facing,” he said. “I tell him to try for everything he wants—because the more you want, the more you get.”

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