Capitalizing on a time of year when many people in the community are focused on the school system and our youth, Mass Mentoring Partnership's Back-to-School recruitment campaign runs from September to October. Our second annual campaign, held in 2011, was sponsored by State Street. We were able to work with five program partners, and they received more than 530 new mentor inquires with more than half of them placed as mentors. Our program partners were Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, East End House, Everybody Wins! Metro Boston, Minds Matter, and Quincy Asian Resources Inc.

MMP added a new component to the campaign this year. Thanks to State Street's generosity, programs were able to apply for $1,000 in grant money. The introduction of grant money gave programs flexibility with their recruitment strategies and provided programs the ability to recruit mentors according to their own needs. Many programs used this grant money to print new materials; others took advantage of social media and created Facebook pages. One program increased its staffing levels in order to attend local events.  Seven tabling events were attended by programs and MMP, including College Day at Fenway, Bunker Hill Community College Get Involved Fair, and the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival. 

In an effort to increase awareness surrounding mentoring, MMP ran our first-ever MBTA ads. These ads ran on the Red and Green lines as well as the Albany bus route. The ads had more than five million impressions during the run time, and there was an increase in views to the Become a Mentor web page of 43% in September and 124% in October.

Four op-ed pieces were written by local government officials, including State Sen. Michael Rodrigues, State Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, and State Sen. Katherine Clark, to advocate on behalf of mentoring. These op-ed pieces emphasized the importance of mentoring and the difference that it can make in a child’s life. The legislators invited community members to get involved in mentoring, stressing the impact mentoring has on developing youth into productive, contributing members of our society.  

Thanks to the efforts of all the participating programs and State Street's support, MMP’s 2nd Annual Back-to-School Campaign turned out to be a great success in promoting the growth of mentoring. If you have any questions about the campaign please contact Johane Alexis-Phanor at jalexis-phanor@massmentors.org.