MENTOR California will create a Coalition of Youth Leaders, training ten boys and young men of color from multiple organizations across California to conduct outreach and engage a broad mix of youth voice and perspectives to inform the Racial Equity Plan for Mentoring Black Young Men of Color (BYMOC) in Schools. In addition, the Coalition of Youth Leaders will identify ways to interrupt the dominant narrative by building the capacity of black youth to be authentically themselves, realize their strengths, and create a BYMOC: We are ALL Beautiful digital media campaign centered around visuals that combat the typical narrative of BYMOC and are inclusive of all boys and young men of color.

The Governor’s Prevention Partnership, Connecticut’s MENTOR Affiliate, will engage the mentoring community in Connecticut to implement trainings that promote racial justice, equity and inclusive mentoring practices. The project will develop additional resources and tools to disseminate information about diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the state. The Partnership staff will convene and host five roundtable meetings in collaboration with each regional mentoring collaborative that focus on 1) recognizing and responding to microaggressions; 2) addressing intersectionality in mentoring practice; 3) mentoring in the wake of community violence; 4) racial differences in school suspensions and expulsions; and 5) the intersectionality of gender and race among mentees.

As the unifying champion of youth mentoring throughout the state of Colorado, MENTOR Colorado is committed to using its position of privilege and power to dismantle systems of oppression. MENTOR Colorado will: Plan and facilitate a second cohort of MENTOR Colorado’s Anti-Racist Working Group (ARWG) for white-identified practitioners, funders and volunteers, which completed its pilot program; Provide formal support for the Alumnae of the ARWG pilot as they begin their own anti-racist working groups; Host an Open Space event around the theme of racial equity in youth programming.

MENTOR Greater Milwaukee (MGM) will be partnering with Milwaukee Public Schools, Department of Black and Latino Male Achievement (BLMA) First Thursday Mentoring Program. MGM will be working to help train BLMA Ambassadors in the mentoring program to expand the reach of the BLMA Department Guiding Principles work, in particular training and expanding the Ambassadors Mentors to mentor Middle school and Grade school youth around mentoring and Guiding Principles around Socio-Political Awareness, Community and Leadership. MGM will work with BLMA to help train the Ambassadors on mentoring strategies with a Cultural Humility and Racial Justice perspective. Youth will have the opportunity to not only share and create the strategies alongside racial justice trainers, but then share messaging with other students to create a communal voice within the school district, while providing mentorship to other students to empower them to succeed in their academics and community as well.

MENTOR Indiana, hosted by Indiana Youth Institute, will work with My Brother’s Keeper communities to provide trainings, data, and support to help drive positive changes in the lives of boys of color. Through this work, program participants will better be equipped to identify key indicators for determining success, analyze data for patterns of disparities, and build shared understanding across sectors, all part of the Eight Elements of Success in the MBK's Equity Framework. In addition, MBK communities will work together and locally to share and use relevant data and resources to improve practices and decision-making to ensure boys of color have equitable opportunities to thrive.

Iowa Mentor will host community conversations focused on advancing social justice and youth centrism through mentoring, designed to network with youth mentoring programs in the Des Moines Metro Area. Strategic mapping using SWOT analysis will be conducted in these sessions to identify the service gaps that exist in serving Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) youth in the Des Moines Metro Area. From these sessions, Iowa Mentor will develop DEI resources to support local mentoring programs in the Des Moines Metro Area and partner with youth mentoring programs to engage youth as movement leaders within their own communities. This grant also allows Iowa Mentor to enhance its efforts of increasing the mentoring mindset by training workplaces and education partners in adopting best practices to bolster youth mentoring with a focus on advancing social, racial, and economic equity.

Mentor Kansas proposes establishing a Young Leaders Council core team that will inform and guide strategic initiatives. The Young Leaders Council core team will be a one-year term to build the foundations of the council. These young people will serve across the state and will be recruited from varying mentoring models. Mentor Kansas prioritizes black, indigenous, persons of color, youth voices, and leaders to help create the first youth-led council in organizations 15-year history.

MENTOR Maryland|DC will launch the second cohort of their antiracism, equity focused youth serving organization learning cohort experience called Moving Towards Liberation (MTL). The 10-month long cohort is designed to take organization leaders through a series of experiences and learnings that will force individuals and organizations to examine themselves, organizational practices and to create a roadmap forward that centers principles of race equity, antiracism/anti-oppression and, ultimately, liberation for the young people we serve and support. The cohort features local and nationally renowned speakers and facilitators, in addition to MENTOR MD DC staff, who are each subject matter experts in particular areas of emphasis in order to present cohort participants a high quality and challenging learning experience.

The Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) Youth Leadership Council (YLC) is comprised of a cohort of young activists that engage in legislative advocacy to help shape and inform Mass Mentoring Partnership’s public policy agenda which includes bills that address issues that disproportionately impact youth of color.  YLC helps prioritize policies primarily serving low income BIPOC youth, addressing school funding inequities, school discipline, and mentoring for system impacted youth. YLC members are engaged in learning about the underlying causes of the school-to-prison pipeline, work with youth empowerment organizations, are trained in effective advocacy strategies, identify key stakeholders in government, and timelines of budget and bill filing processes. In the program's culminating event, Youth Advocacy Day, these youth leaders turn knowledge into action by recruiting, training, and preparing their peers for meetings with state representatives and senators, creating public awareness campaigns and planning youth-led workshops. MMP will expand the YLC program allowing for more BIPOC youth to utilize their life experiences and perspectives into collective action and activism and to break down systemic barriers.

Following the social unrest of 2020, the Memphis Grizzlies organization made a bold statement in its

stance against racism and injustice. Since, the organization has committed to working with community

partners to facilitate and amplify open, honest conversations around social injustice. From this

commitment, the Grizzlies CommUNITY Conversation Series was birthed as a collaboration between

MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies, the Grizzlies Foundation & the Grizzlies Organization. While the series proved to be impactful, MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies sincerely believes we can amplify that impact through increasing our reach and depth in the social justice space. Therefore, MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies will implement a 3-day Mentoring Summit focused on eradicating social injustice and elevating the importance of youth leadership.

Mentor Michigan will provide space for youth to explore social justice and equity through a mentoring matrix, Integrative Mentoring (IM.). Integrative Mentoring employs three tiers for reciprocal mentor and mentee learning and engagement, including experiential learning, cultural curriculum, and a webinar and speaker series. The Integrative Mentoring project will assist programs with creating a safe space for youth mentees to express their aspirations, concerns and concepts to help achieve social justice and equity for themselves and their respective communities. Mentor Michigan will utilize the creative energies of artist and consultant Mike Ellison to create, develop and implement the Integrative Mentoring project that will include a series of equity and social justice presentations for mentor programs, mentors, and mentees.

MENTOR Nebraska created and piloted Youth Initiated Mentoring (YIM) and has demonstrated it as a promising model for increasing access to mentoring for underrepresented populations, outside of typical mentoring programs, and in some cases including those with juvenile justice involvement. In YIM, mentor programs provide support for youth to identify and recruit a mentor from their existing social networks.  Building on successful program development and engagement of community partners from Black- and Brown-led organizations with deep community ties and culturally responsive practices, MENTOR Nebraska will expand the scope of YIM approaches, create a toolkit with differentiated resources for diverse youth populations, offer technical assistance for partner organizations serving boys and young men of color, and provide a framework for replicability of YIM across the MENTOR Affiliate network.

MENTOR Newark will partner with two Newark Board of Education high schools (Eagle Academy for Young Men of Newark, Newark Leadership Academy) to create the Newark Boys and Young Men of Color (BYMOC) Mentoring Project. Schools will partner with MENTOR Newark and other local stakeholders to identify 16 10th grade students to participate in the project. As part of a broader strategy with the Newark Board of Education, MENTOR Newark will also provide extensive professional development, training and technical assistance in creating a “self-sustaining” mentoring strategy for the district that includes introducing the “relationship school model” in the city of Newark.

MENTOR New York created a Racial Equity Framework (REF) to guide the deconstruction of systems that perpetuate racist practices within the work of the mentoring movement. The REF addresses the top concerns of mentees, mentors, and program leaders and encompasses the core principles of elevating youth voice, deconstructing systems, and creating spaces of joy and wellness that support the social and emotional development of black and brown youth who have experienced trauma. The REF which will be converted into a toolkit that can be leveraged by program partners across New York and with other MENTOR Affiliates to implement practices to foster racial equity. This toolkit will consist of an interactive online tool outlining the pillars of the Racial Equity Framework, training materials and templates for program implementation. This toolkit will be developed with the assistance of mentoring, DEI experts, and BIPOC voices and expertise. In the second year, the REF will inform the launch of pilot initiatives with New York based youth mentoring programs and up to three MENTOR Affiliates to facilitate their own cohorts. The New York based mentoring programs and Affiliates will participate in training sessions as well as round table and feedback sessions to share learnings and further refine the REF.

As the catalyst and leader for quality mentoring in Ohio, MENTOR Central Ohio is uniquely positioned to work with local organizations to increase their capacity, effectiveness, and provide relevant and customized evidence-based training, technical assistance, and support. With this funding, MENTOR Central Ohio will deliver our Understanding Bias training to mentors and program staff affiliated with three local mentoring coalitions; Provide two trainings on Combatting White Saviorism to mentors and program staff; Provide two trainings on The Essentials: A Curriculum for People Who Mentor Black Youth to mentors and program staff. In addition, staff will be trained to offer these trainings in the future.

MENTOR Independence Region (MIR) is proposing to increase training and technical assistance to mentoring programs seeking resources and training with a DEI focus. Specifically, MIR will finalize curriculum development on a new training titled Social Identity, Power, and Empowerment. This training empowers participants to examine their own social identity and the social identities of those to whom they provide support. Participants will also practice (youth) empowerment strategies including reflective listening and sharing power.

MENTOR Rhode Island is pursuing a multi-pronged approach to engage stakeholders from all levels of the Rhode Island mentoring field in their Diversity, Equity, and Belonging (DEB) work. The DEB committee will include: Mentor Program Coordinators, MENTOR RI staff, MENTOR RI board members, and youth. By engaging Mentor Program Leadership in our Racial Equity Conversations, we will deepen our shared knowledge, expand our thought partners, and create a safe space for honest and authentic conversations in order to develop an action plan to incorporate learnings into the design of next year’s focus and deliverables for continued racial equity and social justice work.

Over the past year, the Mentoring Partnership of Southwest Pennsylvania has undertaken a more intentional commitment around education and awareness of racial equity and would like to continue this and complete an organization-wide review/revision of their policies, practices and services. Their project will include professional development and education for staff, board, and network including continued education; gathering feedback from their network of mentoring providers on their current DEI efforts; and the launch of a Task Force of the Board to review and develop strategic objectives to advance their DEI efforts. They will draw on internal and external (consultant) leadership to help them continue to learn and ensure that they integrate DEI throughout all aspects of their strategic plan, goals, mission and more.

In collaboration with youth mentoring programs and other community partners that are doing parallel work, MENTOR Vermont will establish a program-led DEI committee that will collaborate closely with a DEI consultant to define the committee’s role, determine how to best represent all stakeholders (with a focus on youth and BIPOC voices), share DEI resources, and develop and implement DEI trainings and events to support the field. Additionally, MENTOR Vermont will pursue a new missioning and visioning process, develop a detailed internal history of MENTOR Vermont’s previous DEI work, and evaluate and adjust policies, marketing initiatives, and materials to better recruit and support mentors and mentees from traditionally marginalized populations and re-center the work through a “Critical Mentoring” framework.

MENTOR Virginia will advance racial and social equity by implementing trainings that promote racial justice, equality, and inclusive mentoring practices; hosting community conversations focused on advancing youth centrism through mentoring; and developing DEI resources to support Virginia mentoring programs as they adopt inclusive mentoring practices. MENTOR Virginia has employed a consultant whose role is to develop, design, and train the highest quality content that aligns with MENTOR Virginia’s current and future training goals through a lens of equity. MENTOR Virginia will also convene partners and stakeholders for monthly Community Coffees. Various topics will include asset-based language when speaking about mentees that have been historically excluded from opportunities in schools, the workplace, and the community.

MENTOR WA is working closely with MENTOR Minnesota to co-design this initiative, based on the similarity of their regional demographics. Though often well-meaning, mentoring programs have the power to reinforce most stereotypes and systems of oppression. In this series of trainings, participants will investigate the legacy of mentoring and explore how these harmful assumptions of mentoring programs impact young people from intersecting identities, their families, and communities. Couple that with the shifting dynamics of school aged children are now predominantly youth of color, and the over representation of white middle class educators, there needs to be a large shift in our approach to supporting youth, and youth development organizations. Participants will walk away with clearer view of their program’s blind spots and provide practical next steps toward an asset-based liberatory mentoring model.