Lumina Foundation for Education
In January 2012, the Lumina Foundation for Education chose iMentor as one of six recipients of its "Next Generation of Student Supports" prize. The prize recognizes organizations that leverage the power of digital technology to promote new and innovative ways to support students on their pathway to college. Lumina awarded iMentor a $200,000 planning grant to support research and development for its online student mentoring platform.
Through its “NextGen” prize, Lumina has awarded more than $1.1 million in planning grants aimed at helping develop the “next generation” of college-access supports and services. “Increasing the number of Americans with high-quality degrees is critical to our nation’s future economic competitiveness, and these grantees are assisting in that effort by finding better ways to connect with students and support informed decision making during critical phases of their lives,” said Lumina Foundation President and CEO Jamie Merisotis.
iMentor will use the Lumina funds to support research and development for its proprietary online mentoring platform. In New York City, iMentor connects thousands of adult volunteers with young people in multi-year mentoring relationships focused on college-readiness. The platform allows iMentor to screen mentors, match mentor-mentee pairs based on common interests, facilitate guided online communication, and track program participation and effectiveness. Funds will allow iMentor to develop new applications for improved mentor-mentee interaction and expand data capacity to enhance program analytics. Investment in technology is essential to allow iMentor to achieve its goal of expanding its programs to reach 10,000 students annually by 2014.
“iMentor and the Lumina Foundation share a commitment to helping students from low-income communities, particularly first-generation college students, prepare for and succeed in college,” said Mike O’Brien, CEO of iMentor. “This grant will allow us to improve our mentoring technology platform, which will help us expand our program to reach more students in New York City and provide proven, cost-effective technology tools to more nonprofits across the country.”
The “NextGen” project is part of Lumina’s broader mission to achieve a single overarching “Big Goal”—to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025. Other recipients of the prize are College Forward, Educational Policy Improvement Center, EduGuide, San Francisco Education Fund, and Southern Region Education Board.
