Youth Mentoring - History of U.S. Mentoring Movement

History of U.S. Mentoring Movement

The origins of the mentoring movement in the U.S. can be traced to 1904. Ernest Coulter, formerly a journalist, took a job at New York City’s first juvenile court, and was distressed to observe the harsh fate of children in the court system. Recounting one child’s story to a group of businessmen and professionals at a 1904 meeting of the Men’s Club of New York City’s Central Presbyterian Church, he said: "There is only one possible way to save that youngster: to have some earnest, true man volunteer to be his big brother, to look after him, help him to do right, make the little chap feel that there is at least one human being in this great city ... who cares whether he lives or dies." Coulter recruited 39 volunteers at that meeting, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program was born. Over the years, it grew to 500 chapters nationwide, and became the largest and best known mentoring program in the country.

In 1987, New York State First Lady Matilda Raffa Cuomo established the New York State Mentoring Program, the nation’s first state-wide, school-based mentoring program.

In 1990, businessmen/philanthropists Geoffrey Boisi and Raymond Chambers co-founded MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership to serve as a national resource and advocate for the expansion of mentoring.

In 1991, MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership and the United Way of America convened The National Mentoring Working Group, a representative group of both national and community-based not for profit organizations with significant experience in running mentoring programs. A task force of The National Mentoring Working Group drafted the Elements of Effective Practice to provide rigorous guidelines that mentoring programs can follow to help ensure safe, effective high-quality efforts.

In 1995, Public/Private Ventures, a leading social science research group based in Philadelphia, published a landmark study evaluating the impact of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. The study demonstrated that high-quality mentoring can have tangible and important effects on the lives of young people.

In 1997, General Colin Powell chaired the Presidents' Summit on America's Future to encourage the growth of volunteerism and civic engagement to provide support for at-risk youth, with President Bill Clinton participating along with former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford, and with former First Lady Nancy Reagan representing her ailing husband. Although the Summit’s focus was broader than mentoring, it had a tremendous galvanizing effect on the mentoring movement. As a follow-up to the Presidents’ Summit on America’s Future, its organizers created America's Promise, with General Powell as its chairman, to sustain, and build on, the momentum generated at the Philadelphia gathering.

In 1997, the Harvard School of Public Health launched the mentoring movement’s first national media campaign, mobilizing all the television networks and Hollywood studios to fuel the growth of mentoring.

1999 marked the first-ever White House event devoted exclusively to mentoring, hosted by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

2000 marked the first-ever State of the Union Address to cite the importance of mentoring, delivered by President Bill Clinton.

2001 marked the first-ever Presidential Inaugural Address to cite the importance of mentoring, delivered by President George W. Bush.

January 2002 marked the first annual National Mentoring Month, led by the Harvard School of Public Health and MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership with the formal support of President George W. Bush and the United States Congress. Repeated each January, National Mentoring Month has become a national tradition, attracting the involvement of prominent celebrities and recruiting large numbers of volunteer mentors.