Our Vision
All youth have agency and power at home, school, community and in the workplace.
Our Mission
Fuel the quality and quantity of equitable and inclusive developmental relationships for MN young people by building and elevating the capacity of programs, systems and policies.
What We Do
MENTOR Minnesota supports and collaborates with more than 200 mentor programs that serve approximately 130,000 youth of all ages (primarily 8-18) in mentoring relationships across Minnesota. While growth is a vital component of connecting more young people with mentors, we are dedicated to making sure those connections are quality matches, made through quality mentoring programs.
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Assess quality and support continuous improvement efforts for all mentoring experiences.
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Identify, collect and synthesize research and best practices within the mentoring and youth development field.
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Disseminate tools, knowledge, and best practices from mentoring and youth development practitioners and researchers.
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Develop and enhance capacity within mentoring programs, systems and infrastructures.
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Provide policy platform/advocacy alignment with all youth development community partners.
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Enlist broader community and funding support for mentoring programs
Why We Do What We Do
Mentoring works! Young people who have mentors have a better chance of succeeding and are more likely to make positive choices. Yet, in Minnesota, there are an estimated 250,000 young people who need and could benefit from an adult mentor.
Our Guiding Principles
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Champions for youth: We believe that young people are fully capable of thriving and reaching success in their lives. MPM celebrates and recognizes the many strengths and assets that youth possess.
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Excellence: We promote best practices and embraces high standards for quality, innovation, and continuous improvement.
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Collaboration: We leverage and extend our work through community partnerships and collaborations.
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Servant Leadership: We encourage and support others through participatory leadership and serves as a unifying voice to strengthen the mentoring field.
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Mentoring Mindset: We are dedicated to creating a culture where youth are supported through a web of mentoring relationships.
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Inclusivity: We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all areas of our work.
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Accountability: We operate at the highest level of integrity to ensure donor funds are used as entrusted.
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Sustainability and Relevance: We advocate that mentoring is a critical youth development strategy that supports increased access and support in education and employment while decreasing youths’ involvement in the juvenile justice system.
PILLARS OF WORK
ENGAGING LOCAL LEADERSHIP
Convene, connect and support the field to enhance mentoring
ELEVATING QUALITY
Support capacity building and quality of programs by activating, leveraging and disseminating evidence based research to promote best practices in mentoring
INFLUENCING SYSTEMS
Advocate for and foster shared youth power across a range of environments (school, work, community, etc)
EXPANDING THE MOVEMENT
Scale the impact of mentoring by leveraging positive outcomes and the transformative impact of mentoring relationships
HIRE PROGRAMMATIC LEADER
Provide additional support in creating and delivering training based on research. This hire will support and host program convenings and oversee consultant work, which will create paid opportunities for BIPOC leaders in the mentoring/youth development fields.
BUILD MEMBERSHIP MODEL
Create infrastructure to support expansion, data collection, potential
pass-through funding, and organic opportunities for connection among professionals.
Feedback loop
DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT STATE-WIDE MENTORING SURVEY
State evaluation would allow MMN to speak to the state of mentoring and allow programs in network to better describe their mentoring landscape and impact
DIVERSIFY AND EMPOWER MMN BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Build out our Board of Directors and future youth council with support of Program Services Council to provide equal opportunity for youth leadership and learning/participation in process of sharing youth power