MENTOR Maryland | DC’s Top 10 2018

December 29, 2018

2018 was certainly an exciting year for us! Since our relaunch in January, we’ve hit the ground running as one of the newest affiliates of the National Mentoring Partnership. Our commitment to the youth and the programs that serve them, have been the driving force in our work. 2019 will be even better!

#10- MOST/MENTOR State Advocacy Day in Annapolis

Getting a chance to host several youth development organizations (OST and mentoring) at our State House in Annapolis was amazing! For many of the young people who were there, it was their first time in Annapolis! Several legislators participated and were overwhelmed by the excitement and energy of the young leaders present. We need everyone to get on board for our youth!

#9- MENTOR Maryland | DC’s participation in Global iWomenLead Conference Symposium

#8- Forming MENTOR Maryland | DC Board of Directors

The success of any non-profit or service-oriented organization is largely dependent on not just the Executive Director, but also on the leadership of the Board of Directors that support that Director and organization. We at MENTOR Maryland | DC are excited to call our Board of Directors the best ever! Please read more about them and all they bring to the table here!

#7- Leading the Pilot of the National Mentoring Project in Baltimore!

MENTOR Maryland | DC and Baltimore City were selected to participate in a national pilot partnership initiative to provide additional support, training and resources for opportunity youth, in the form of the National Mentoring Project. A collaboration of the National Mentoring Partnership, Center for Promise and fully funded through the Schultz Family Foundation, MENTOR Maryland | DC recruited three dymanic youth case management/workforce readiness partners — Urban Alliance Baltimore, Center for Urban Families and HEBCAC — and trained 50 opportunity along with recruiting and training 50 community based mentors for the first phase of the initiative. Through administering several highly engaging trainings, all 50 opportunity youth were matched with 50 awesome community-based mentors to support the young people on their journey to becoming employed and retained. This project was a true example of the type partnership that is the future and one that it is innovative enough to meet our young people where they are and still be highly impactful.

#6- Facilitating the Mentoring Matters: Expanding Social Capital for Foster Youth Congressional Briefing

This Congressional Briefing explored the impact mentoring relationships can have on expanding social capital for youth involved in the foster care system and highlights examples from organizations that are leading in this effort while providing policymakers with the tools they need to support them. This briefing was also facilitated by our own Executive Director, Sadiq Ali.

#5- Baltimore City Mentor Recruitment Fair

As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting programs through all their phases, we hosted our first Baltimore City Mentor Recruitment Fair at OpenWorks in Baltimore City. With almost 20 different mentoring programs and organizations present, they engaged with several potential volunteers and even had young people present to speak about the programs!

#4- Upholding the Covenant: The State of Mentoring in Maryland 2018

Directly based on the findings from our Listening Tour, MENTOR Maryland | DC was excited to release Upholding the Covenant: The State of Mentoring in Maryland 2018 report this past Fall. Truly the most comprehensive look at community-based mentoring work happening in Maryland, Upholding the Covenant gives great insight as well as actionable steps those advocates of mentoring can take to further empower and strengthen the field. To invest in mentoring is to invest in our young people.

#3- Conducting our first Statewide Listening Tour

This year we had the pleasure of visiting with programs from around Maryland and based in almost all of the 24 different counties and Baltimore City in the form of our Statewide Listening Tour. Over the course of Summer 2018, we conducted 15 mentoring townhalls across the state, including several in Baltimore City, Prince George’s County, and Montgomery County, going as far as Western Maryland and even a couple on the Eastern Shore! We learned a tremendous amount from those program leaders and additional mentoring stakeholders who came out interacted with us, leading to an even greater rollout of services for the program field because we based it all on what those programs directly said they wanted and needed! Our entire intent was threefold: to listen, connect and share with programs. This process was especially important for us as a new organization to ensure we approached our program partners with respect and from an assets based perspective instead of the flip side, which is solely from a deficit perspective.

#2- Hosting our first Community/Funder Conversation & Panel

In September of this year we had the pleasure of hosting our first Community/Funder Conversation & Panel, featuring foundation/philanthropic leaders from Annie E. Casey Foundation, Under Armour Global Philanthropy, Knott Foundation & T. Rowe Price Foundation. With close to 100 community-based organization leaders from youth mentoring and beyond, it was a wonderful event where important and practical information was shared. Click here to see the recap video!
#1- Administering over 500 hours of technical assistance in 2018!
One of our proudest accomplishments this year was being able to directly support the programming field by administering over 500 hours of technical assistance to over 40 programs in Maryland! We received amazing feedback from programs all over the state that the technical assistance was just what they needed to take their programs to the next level and be able to engage more young people and volunteer mentors than ever before. We’re also extremely proud of the amazing consultant team we assembled to be able to handle this massive amount of support. Our TA Consultant Team serves as an extension of our home office team and our boots on the ground and we couldn’t be luckier to have them. Learn more about our amazing consultants here! Also, click here to apply for FREE technical assistance today for your mentoring program or organization. Read about how our program partner, Talbot Mentors has benefited from TA as well! In 2019 we look forward to doubling the amount of TA we administer! Get on the quality train!