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1. NPI Evaluation of iMentor
NPI Rating: BUY
Rating as of 10/7/2011
Analyst: Jonathan Tran
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2. NPI Rating: BUY
In the last 10 years, iMentor has affected over 20,000
lives by cultivating relationships between young
mentees and volunteer adult mentors through an
innovative combination of e-mail correspondence and
in-person meetings. To-date, iMentor has matched over
10,000 mentor-mentee pairs, partnering with 30 NYC
schools and after school programs in four of New York
City's five boroughs and programs all over the country
through iMi.
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3. iMentor: Strengths
▲ iMentor program successfully attracts more mentors because of
its flexible online and in-person model. Many potential mentors
are excluded in a traditional model because 1x1 meetings are often
set at inflexible after-school times and are typically in-person.
iMentor’s program provides more flexibility: mentors email mentee
once a week, pairs meet in person once a month, mentors devote
6-8 hours a month to mentee on their own schedule.
▲ Mentors are carefully screened, matched, and trained. Mentors
must apply via an online application process, undergo criminal
background and reference checks, and a phone interview. It seems
like the application process is more of a way to screen out obviously
egregious applicants vs. “qualified” candidates. Selected mentors
attend an initial 2 hour training session and are provided a specific
curriculum/checklist to adhere to during mentoring process. The
entire process takes 2-4 weeks in total to complete.
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4. iMentor: Strengths (Cont’d)
▲ Partnerships with corporations and schools are designed to be long-
lasting and heavily involved. For whole-school partnerships, iMentor
partners with the entire school by enrolling every single student,
eliminating self-selection among students. This creates a long term
relationship between mentor/mentee/school with the common end goal
of high school graduation and college attendance. This partnership
addresses the problem of under-resourced in-house guidance programs.
For corporate partnerships, iMentor targets leading companies’
employees to build positive and lasting impacts on their communities.
100% of the current 16 corporate partners renewed with iMentor last
year, which demonstrates powerful participation stickiness.
▲ iMentor fundraising programs are diverse and community engaging.
Events seem to be well-planned out, diverse, and fun. A few event
examples include Twestival NYC, 4 Under 40 guest speakers, wine tastings,
galas, happy hours, workshops. iMentor has done a good job building its
brand and reputation, especially in the New York City community.
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5. iMentor: Strengths (Cont’d)
▲ Recent statistics demonstrates directional effectiveness of iMentor.
During 2009-2010 program year, 83% of mentees in NYC graduated from
high school while citywide graduation rate was just 63% (65% for 2010 per
Mike Bloomberg). 75% of teachers say students benefited academically
from participation in iMentor, while 92% of teachers witnessed mentees
becoming more confident in talking with adults and building relationships.
▲ Online interactive mentoring program (“iMi”) helps to address the
sizable mentoring gap and is scalable. Of the 17.6mm youth considered in
high need of mentoring, only 2.5mm adult mentors exist, leaving ~15mm
young people still waiting for mentors. To address this, iMentor created
iMi, a multi-year, structured research-informed mentoring curriculum on
an online platform for managing all aspects of the mentoring program.
Currently, there are 50 iMi partnerships in 20 states across the country.
iMi’s technological infrastructure allows for the monitoring of mentor-
mentee relationships and provides an easier way to track participation
statistics, which may help with competing for government grants.
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6. iMentor: Strengths (Cont’d)
▲ Funding sources are diverse and help provide free program services to all
mentors, mentees and partnering schools. iMentor receives its funding
from 5 sources: 1) corporate partners, 2) individual donations, 3)
government grants, 4) online donor drives and 5) fundraising events. The
majority of iMentor’s funding comes from contributions, gifts and grants.
For a more detailed analysis, please see “Financial Overview”.
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7. iMentor: Cautions
● Quality of mentoring is difficult to gauge and current monitoring
controls may not be very effective. iMentors volunteers are not
youth development experts, so the level of impact will vary
significantly across each mentor-mentee pair. The background,
education and qualifications of the individuals who developed
iMentor NYC and iMi’s programs are undisclosed. Although all
mentor-mentee emails are logged and can be searched, it seems
difficult to accurately grade how effective mentor-mentee
conversations are progressing. Some statistics are released on
website to summarize results, but much more details are needed in
order to gauge and validate effectiveness. Some important metrics
and data releases that would be helpful to know from company
may include: 1) % mentees who graduate high school, 2) % mentees
who get accepted into college, 3) % of mentees who graduate from
college, 4) parent/teacher/counsellor testimonies and 5) level of
improvement of average grades.
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8. iMentor: Cautions
● Financials and program data points are very limited. Company has
only made available their financials for select years (2007, 2008 and
2009) and details are limited. Financial information before 2007
would be helpful to more accurately assess growth and efficiency of
corporation. The release of 2010 financials will provide extremely
important data in judging how effective iMentor has been in
deploying the company’s rapidly expanding level of funds.
● Inconsistencies exist between iMentor’s NYC based program and
iMi interactive model. Mentor screening standards are different
between these two programs, which questions how the company
will control quality of mentoring. iMentor NYC has the burden of
responsibility to screen their mentors, while iMi outsources the
screening and employment background checks to the partner
organizations.
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9. More Information
• Access the full research report for free here:
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