Project Profile:

MENTOR

Mentor Michigan originally began as a pilot program in 1999, started by then-Attorney General Jennifer Granholm to help kids stay out of the juvenile justice system and reach their full potential. With the support of former Detroit Piston Isiah Thomas, and the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, the initiative impacted over 4,000 youth in its first few years.

In 2003, Mentor Michigan became a signature program of the Michigan Community Service Commission, the state’s lead agency on volunteerism. First Gentleman Dan Mulhern spearheaded the Mentor Michigan program, together with then-Program Director Paula Kaiser VanDam.

In its current capacity, Mentor Michigan is a network of mentoring and youth development programs. By serving as a convener, Mentor Michigan connects mentoring programs with other supports and resources that youth need to be successful. By collaborating the efforts of businesses, faith-based and nonprofit organizations, schools, colleges, universities, and state and local government, Mentor Michigan is able to strengthen and further cultivate the mentoring field.

In addition, Mentor Michigan works to ensure that every young person has a safe and beneficial mentoring experience by developing and promoting the use of Quality Program Standards for Youth Mentoring. Mentor Michigan also strives to build public awareness about the need for mentors by urging caring adults to “Pass It On.”

Beginning in 2015, Mentor Michigan is part of a targeted cradle to career initiative to improve youth development by helping secure mentors for young men of color through My Brother’s Keeper-Michigan.

Within the state, Mentor Michigan has partnered with various programs, such as Volunteer Centers of Michigan and Michigan Campus Compact, to strengthen local mentoring programs and recruit volunteers.

Mentor Michigan is affiliated with the national partnership, MENTOR, which has worked since 1990 to build the infrastructure for youth mentoring to national scale.

• Impacted the lives of 30,000 youth and 17,000 adults through supported mentoring relationships
• Created the Mentor Michigan Directory, providing an open online resource and comprehensive list of mentoring programs in Michigan
• Raises public awareness of the value of mentoring for young people and adults alike. Each January, Michigan Mentoring Month is part of a national celebration of mentoring
• Developed Quality Program Standards for Youth Mentoring so that youth and adults receive the most positive results from a mentoring relationship. Mentor Michigan provides training and technical assistance for mentoring programs to help them meet these standard
• Supported a number of AmeriCorps programs focused on youth mentoring initiatives
• Collaborated with the Michigan Department of Human Services on the Mentor Michigan Foster Care Initiative to provide mentors for youth in foster care.
• Hosted mentoring professionals from across the state at annual conferences, giving them an opportunity for training, networking, and learning from each other and from national mentoring leaders
• Gathered research on program needs, and the overall status of mentoring in Michigan during waves of the Mentor Michigan Census/Survey