Mission and Vision

Improving the lives of young people from underserved communities

Mission | Vision | What We Do | Our Programs | History

Mission

iMentor's mission is to improve the lives of high school students from underserved communities through evidence-based, technology-enabled mentoring.

Vision

iMentor envisions a nation in which all youth are connected to college-educated mentors who can provide the support and guidance they need to graduate from high school and succeed in college.

What We Do

iMentor leverages the power of mentoring to help youth in low-income communities graduate high school college-ready and succeed in college. Students and mentors work one-on-one through iMentor’s online and in-person curriculum to navigate the college application process and build critical skills linked to high school and college success. In New York City, iMentor partners with public schools to ensure every student in the school receives a mentor. Since 1999, iMentor has connected 7,000 students in New York City with mentors, and is serving more than 1,800 mentor-mentee pairs this year. iMentor also provides its curriculum, technology, and best practices to more than 30 nonprofits in 20 states to help them run effective mentoring programs. iMentor has been recognized through funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, New Profit, and the Robin Hood Foundation, and is a subgrantee of the federal Social Innovation Fund.

Our Programs

iMentor NYC is a school-based mentoring program matching public high school students in New York City in one-to-one relationships with college-educated mentors. iMentor partners with public schools to ensure every student receives a mentor and augment existing guidance and college counseling programs. Mentor-mentee pairs are matched for up to four years and exchange weekly emails and meet monthly in person.

iMentor Interactive is a national partnership program that brings iMentor’s mentoring model to communities nationwide. iMentor Interactive provides programmatic support, curricula, technology tools, and consulting to non-profits so they can implement their own effective mentoring programs in the iMentor model.

History

Created in 1999 by John Griffin, founder of Blue Ridge Capital, and two public interest lawyers, Richard Buery and Matt Klein, the program began with 49 students in a single school in the South Bronx. This year, iMentor’s New York City mentoring program will serve more than 1,800 students. In 2007, iMentor launched iMentor Interactive (iMi) to help non-profits and schools implement high-quality mentoring programs in the iMentor model. iMi has partnerships with 30 organizations (including Admission Possible, City Year, and Single Stop at Miami Dade Community College) in 20 states.