Institute For Youth Success

Quality-Based Mentoring (QBM)- Oregon Mentors offers in in-depth continuous improvement process for youth-serving nonprofits by which Oregon Mentors' staff partner with nonprofits to examine their current practices, make recommendations for improvement, develop work plans and provide targeted training and coaching to achieve pre-determined goals. QBM examines a program's operations and organizational sustainability to encourage the ultimate use of evidence-based practices that result in measurable improvements for youth. Seven nonprofits from across Oregon and SW Washington completed QBM in 2013 and 19 were enrolled.

Advocacy & Volunteer Recruitment - Oregon Mentors works to increase the success of youth-serving organizations in Oregon and in SW Washington by uncovering new resources to enable more children to succeed. Oregon Mentors advocates to public and private parties to encourage increased financial, political and social resources for youth development programs and to educate the public on the benefits of youth mentoring. In 2013, Oregon Mentors built or participated in 16 collaboratifve groups, associations and government initiatives to advocate for support to youth development programs. In addition, we provided more than 3300 new activities and experiences for mentors and their mentees. Our statewide mentoring referral portal, the only one in Oregon, received nearly 22,000 visits from individuals looking to mentor or find an opportunity for a youth.

Training, Technical Assistance and Professional Development - Oregon Mentors works to increase youth success by educating staff at nonprofits on best practices in youth development. Using the nationally-recognized Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring (TM), the organization increases the use of evidence-based practices in youth development programs by providing training, technical assistance and professional development. Oregon Mentors connects nonprofit staff with critical research and support, including an online evaluation toolkit and resource library, annual field report, funding opportunities, monthly e-newsletter, Good Deals for Good Deeds perks for active mentors, pro-social activities for youth and mentors and invaluable partnerships. In 2013, Oregon Mentors provided 55 trainings, hosted a conference on equity and co-hosted the Southern Oregon Symposium on Youth Mentoring. Through these trainings and conferences,110 youth advocates were educated on equitable practices, 668 youth program staff were trained on a variety of topics and more than 1800 people were engaged in best-practice webinars nationwide, from 140 different nonprofits, schools and churches. These organizations support 60,000 youth and 22,000 mentors.