Organizations for volunteering to mentor students
Was wondering if anyone has experience with or is part of any non-profits that give you the opportunity to mentor young students in their academic and professional pursuits. Would love to give back next year through my experiences so curious to hear if anyone has any recommendations for organizations to check out!
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couple of ideas
1. pseudo religious organizations like YMCA will usually have programs, whether it's this, Hillel, or something else you will have fellowship/mentorship opportunities, reach out to your local leaders for more on this
2. local colleges, be they community colleges or 4 year institutions. reach out to them and see if they have a volunteer mentorship program, my alma mater's business school did this and all of the mentors were people from the community looking to do exactly what you're talking about
3. boys & girls clubs, big brother/big sister will have mentorship programs
4. gifted/charter schools will sometimes have leadership academies for middle & high schoolers and they often seek mentors from the community
5. if you're not looking for 1:1 mentoring, you can make a significant impact by being a volunteer instructor for something like junior achievement. they're all over the country and basically they have programs to teach financial literacy, leadership, job skills, etc., and are always looking for volunteers. it's very ad hoc so works well with busy schedules
6. Google. just google "youth mentorship city state" and you will find results. my city even has a database of all 501c3 organizations and you can sort by religious/secular, location, time commitment, focus, and so on.
7. sports. even though it's not specifically professional or academic, being a good coach can have WAY more positives for a kid than you telling them about investment banking
best of luck. as you go down this path, know that you will change lives, even if you never know it, and to keep the faith. I've been doing this sort of thing for nearly a decade now and early on I got incredibly frustrated because I'd see kids come and go, never hear from some, or see others fall back into their old behaviors. I had the occasion to speak to a NFL coach who's also known for being a good mentor, and he said "you can't save everybody, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try" and those words stuck with me. just like hustling for jobs and then finally getting one, you will do a lot of helping that falls on deaf ears, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. if you change just one kid's trajectory, the world is a better place than it was yesterday, and volunteering will teach you patience, and you pass that on. if enough people do that, the impact can be staggering.
good on you for asking this question, now GET AFTER IT
Extremely helpful, thank you so much for this response!
happy to do it. I wish more people did stuff like this.
feel free to ask more questions as you go through this journey
BUILD seems pretty cool. Don't know too much about them but knew a couple board members a while back who really stood by it. Once COVID is over I would like to find the time to work with them, if they turn out to be good like I think they are.
Im part of a program called America Needs You. Its a program where you help first generation college students throughout 2 years in college (sophmore year until graduation). Really well structured, and really well-known if your ever applying to business school. Alot of the other mentors all work at top banks, tech companies, and you build a great network. The mentees usually come from really humble backgrounds but are all really ambitious and bright. Definetly recommend it.
This looks promising! Do you meet weekly with your mentee? How is your involvement structured?
Its a great program. Its supposed to be a 2 year commitment. The first year you meet about every other weekend with your mentee and with the overall group, and the second year its only about once a month, but you usually have contact during the week just to catch up. During the first year your mentee is a sophomore and will be mostly working on things like resumes, cover letters, networking, academics, and landing internships. Essentially you guide them through graduation where they eventually get a job. The program is pretty competitive to get into for the mentees so they are all really ambitious and easy to guide. They all go to state schools in the city, but a lot of them end up getting jobs at the best companies in the field their looking for.
There’s a program called minds matter in most major cities that helps low income high school students prepare for college apps
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