About MENTOR California

MENTOR California is an Affiliate of MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, the unifying champion of youth mentoring across the United States. MENTOR California has a mission to increase both the quality and quantity of youth mentoring in California and close the mentoring gap for the one in three youth growing up without a mentor outside of their family. MENTOR California achieves this through elevating the mentoring field by providing training and technical assistance to mentoring programs, leading statewide recruitment efforts, advocating for increased local, state and federal investment in mentoring, leading research on the youth mentoring field, and fostering collaborations to transform systems. MENTOR California was founded in 2020 following a funded feasibility period facilitated by MENTOR and seeks to build on a long history of commitment to and capacity building for mentoring in the state of California.

MENTOR California Theory of Change

As we fulfill our work, MENTOR California seeks to create a culture of thriving for the state’s young people, one caring relationship at a time. Building this culture through our values will allow us to invest in our community in a way that allows all members of the mentoring community to feel inspired for change, ignited for our youth and informed by our work. Through our capacity building and advocacy efforts, we envision ​ a time when mentoring is an on-going and central part of state discussions related to youth and is adopted in all school wide, community based and statewide strategic plans. We are working to ensure that ​ all ​ young people have someone they can call a mentor.