About Us

MENTOR Maryland | DC is the statewide affiliate of MENTOR in Maryland and DC. Our shared mission is to increase both the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships. This is accomplished through support to on-the-ground mentoring programs to improve their quality, effectiveness and scale, while coalescing stakeholders to expand engagement and investment locally.

MENTOR Maryland | DC serves as the catalyst and leader for quality mentoring in Maryland and DC. We are uniquely positioned to work with local organizations to increase their capacity, effectiveness and provide relevant and customized evidence-based training, technical assistance and support. We are intent on making progress towards closing the mentoring gap and ensuring that all mentoring relationships in Maryland and throughout DC are safe and effective.

The need for our work is clear. Mentoring, at its core, guarantees to young people that there is someone who cares about them, assures them they are not alone in dealing with day-to-day challenges, and makes them feel like they matter. Research of programs with strong youth outcomes has shown that the consistent use of quality standards and training for youth workers are key to delivering the high-quality programs that all youth need and deserve.

Young people who were at-risk for falling off track but had a mentor are:

• 55% more likely to enroll in college
• 52% less likely than their peers to skip a day of school
• 78% more likely to volunteer regularly in their communities
• 90% more interested in becoming a mentor
• 46% less likely than their peers to use illegal drugs
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists mentoring as one of four strategies that holds the most promise for youth violence prevention

Despite these critically important documented benefits, finding quality mentors for our young people is a tremendous challenge. Young people can only access mentoring where programs are available and have the capacity to accommodate additional youth. This challenge only increases when steps are taken to ensure mentoring program practices meet quality standards that are safe and effective, including recruiting mentors and mentees, training them, matching and supporting them and consistently evaluating and refining efforts. Programs need to have both the capacity and ability to understand and apply best practices to effectively deliver mentoring services that positively impact youth.

This role of unifying hub and clearinghouse is one that MENTOR Maryland | DC will serve to ensure resources and best practices are available to those organizations serving our most vulnerable young people!

Our Vision

Every young person will have the supportive, caring adult relationships they need to grow and develop into thriving, productive, and engaged adults.

Our Mission

MENTOR Maryland | DC’s mission is to fuel the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships for Maryland’s and DC’s young people and to close the mentoring gap.

Our Guiding Principles

• Champions for youth: We believe that young people are fully capable of thriving and reaching success in their lives. MENTOR Maryland | DC celebrates and recognizes the many strengths and assets that youth possess.
• Excellence: We promote best practices and embrace high standards for quality, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Collaboration: We leverage and extend our work through community partnerships and collaborations.
• Servant Leadership: We encourage and support others through participatory leadership and serves as a unifying voice to strengthen the mentoring field.
• Mentoring Mindset: We are dedicated to creating a culture where youth are supported through a web of mentoring relationships.
• Inclusivity: We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all areas of our work.
• Accountability: We operate at the highest level of integrity to ensure donor funds are used as entrusted.
• 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.

Our Statement on Racial Equity

As MENTOR Maryland | DC, we wish to declare, for our local region and the world to see and know that we condemn racism and oppression in all its forms: interpersonal, institutional, internalized and ideological. This includes condemning actions to silence or ‘other’ those who speak up or lift up instances of racism and oppression in this organization or others. We declare our intention to not only become but also BE an anti-racist organization, as we believe no person or organization arrives, but rather must remain in a perpetual state of learning, growth, intentional forward motion while interrogating our beliefs constantly. MENTOR Maryland | DC strives to contribute to the as yet to be realized future state of racial equity, whereby societal repair has occurred for and on behalf of those marginalized by their racial identity. In all this we wish to also acknowledge the racist roots of mentoring in America and the still all too present legacy of these roots manifested by ongoing attempts to save, rescue, civilize, fix, acculturate or otherwise render young people other than what they are – powerful, beautiful, intelligent, members of many different communities who deserve love and respect, just as they are.

We also believe the following:

• We have a duty to lift up culturally affirming, anti-racist and critical mentoring best practices to ensure ALL our youth feel seen, heard, and valued
• Our organizational values must translate to our relationships with program partners, our board, vendors, young people, stakeholders and reverberate throughout every space we find ourselves in
• NO othering can be tolerated, including by ability, gender/gender identity, culture, race, socioeconomic status, religion, immigration status or any other identifying factor, visible or invisible
• Mentoring has racist roots, but with care, intention and training, ALL young people can benefit from affirming relationships that bring the best out of them and everyone involved in the formal or informal mentoring relationship

We will continue striving to ensure our youth are heard. We will continue striving to ensure our lived values are in alignment with our stated values. We will strive to continue producing programming that is consistent with all that has been stated above. And most importantly, we will continue working internally to ensure our organization walks its talk and continues learning and growing until justice is truly realized by all.