EY and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership (MENTOR) together released a report “Mentoring: at the crossroads of education, business and community,” at MENTOR’s 2015 National Mentoring Summit, taking place from January 28 to 30 in Washington, DC. 

The report examines how top US businesses collaborate with the public and non-profit sectors to connect youth in their communities to transformative mentoring relationships and the value gained by the business and its employees.  According to MENTOR’s report, The Mentoring Effect, released last year, youth with mentors are more likely to be successful in school, leaders in their communities, and to enter young adulthood with opportunities for ongoing education and career choices. And yet, 16 million American youth—one in three—will reach the age of 19 without having had a mentor of any kind, according to MENTOR. The joint report examines the private sector role in addressing this mentoring gap and provides effective practices and case studies from local businesses and Fortune 500 companies.

The report’s call to action for companies to increase efforts to support youth mentoring is reinforced by key benefits that engagement in youth mentoring provides for participating companies. 

“Corporate volunteers not only strengthen their communities and contribute to the personal growth of young individuals, but I have witnessed firsthand how working with youth also makes EY mentors stronger leaders within the organization,” said Nancy Altobello, EY Global Vice Chair of Talent. “I have seen many EY College MAP volunteers, transformed by their efforts to mentor underserved high school students to pursue higher education, become more inclusive managers. That in turn makes EY better, and helps us build a better working world.”

College MAP (Mentoring for Access and Persistence), provides support to underserved students as they consider the dream of higher education. The program helps students navigate the application and financial aid process, provides access to resources, and exposes them to the benefits of higher education.

The report offers the following best practices for businesses looking to start a mentoring effort or enhance the results of an existing program, including examples from the companies interviewed. 

• Align mentoring engagements with your corporate strengths.  In order to have a successful mentoring program, businesses should consider how potential programs would fit with their broader corporate mission, as well as their values and capabilities. 

• Collaborate with a non-profit expert or school for maximum impact.  By establishing relationships with non-profit experts or educational institutions, your program will benefit from your partners’ experience, robust systems, processes and standards, investment in talent development, and materials and methodologies. 

• Foster employee engagement through an open understanding of where and when mentoring takes place, as well as ongoing support. Employers must realize that mentoring happens in many different ways, and that flexibility is key to encourage, facilitate and support participation. Employers should clearly illustrate which mentoring options are available to employees – short- or long-term, online or in-person, at the worksite or a school – and work with their non-profit partner to provide training, a curriculum, relationship tools, and ongoing support. All 18 organizations interviewed by EY and MENTOR allow employees to volunteer during working hours. 

• Facilitate increased peer learning and idea sharing among service providers and private sector actors focused on mentoring. Corporate funders and partners are uniquely positioned to bring together programs to exchange best practices, explore partnership opportunities or share data. Those with technology platforms can build online environments where practitioners can share case studies and advice. The private sector can also invest in intermediaries that help scale effective programming and provide professional development and mentor training. 

• Invest in proven, evidence-based programming. The private sector is well-positioned to foster broad demand for quality programs that follow evidence-based standards. Companies can support two national efforts to advance rigor in practice, including the recently launched National Mentoring Resource Center, a partnership between the Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and MENTOR, as well as the National Quality Mentoring System (NQMS), which provides a structured, systematic process for evaluating how effectively mentoring programs are implemented.

“The investments in quality youth mentoring made by the 18 companies profiled are representative of the variety of investments being made by many more companies. They are direct contributions to the future strength of our communities and our country. They connect young people to the powerful asset that is mentoring, to opportunity, and to success,” said David Shapiro, President and CEO, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership. “We are committed to using this report to make the case for more businesses big and small to engage in youth mentoring.”

Methodology

Eighteen companies participated in the interview process. These companies represent a broad range of industries, including the financial and professional services sectors, technology, entertainment, manufacturing, communications, health care, retail and hospitality. In addition, more than a dozen mentoring programs and youth-serving organizations were interviewed, as were MENTOR’s affiliate Mentoring Partnerships. The following are the 18 companies that were chosen based their existing engagement in youth mentoring, which is representative of the diverse range of approaches the private-sector is taking:

About MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership

MENTOR is the unifying champion for quality youth mentoring in the United States. MENTOR’s mission is to close the “mentoring gap” and ensure our nation’s young people have the support they need through quality mentoring relationships to succeed at home, school, and ultimately, work. To achieve this, MENTOR collaborates with its Mentoring Partnership Network and works to drive the investment of time and money into high impact mentoring programs and advance quality mentoring through the development and delivery of standards, cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art tools.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP, an EY member firm providing services to clients in the US, and MENTOR.

MENTOR

MENTOR

MENTOR is the unifying champion for expanding the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships across the United States. 30 years ago, MENTOR was created to expand  opportunities for young people by building a youth mentoring field and movement. The result: a more than 10-fold increase in young people in structured mentoring relationships. Today, MENTOR is the expert voice representing a movement that meets young people everywhere they are – from schools, to workplaces, and beyond. MENTOR operates in collaboration with 25 local Affiliates across the country. For more information, visit mentoring.org.

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