MENTOR 35th Anniversary Highlight: Public Elevation Partners
October 28, 2025
As MENTOR celebrates its 35th Anniversary our team took a look back at some of our partnerships throughout our existence who helped to build and shape MENTOR into the national profit organization it is today. These partnerships range from collaboration on events to the creation of ongoing programs supporting mentors in corporate and nonprofit companies.
Let’s take a look at some of MENTOR’s public elevation partnerships throughout the years.
The Players’ Tribune
In 2018, MENTOR partnered with The Players’ Tribune and PeacePlayers International to hold “A Night of Unity”, a signature joint fundraising awareness event held at Canoe Studios located in the heart of New York City. The late, great Hall of Famer, Bill Russell, one of MENTOR’s founding board members, and legendary collegiate basketball coach, Jay Wright, served as honorary co-chairs for the event, and both were presented awards in their names to deserving youth programs. The evening brought together new and existing supporters of MENTOR for an evening of entertainment, networking, and inspiration. The event also featured an online raffle hosted by Omaze.
My Brother’s Keeper Alliance
MENTOR, along with the U.S. Department of Education and the John Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, partnered to support the 30 My Brother’s Keeper Alliance Success Mentors districts ranging from Baltimore to Seattle through the National Success Mentors Initiative, which had a goal of connecting over one million students with dedicated “Success Mentors.” This initiative was the country’s first-ever public-private effort to use an evidence-based and data driven mentoring model. The program was implemented during the 2016-2017 academic school year and the goal was to create a student support system to tackle chronic absenteeism.
This partnership also connected MENTOR, President Barack Obama, the NBA, the National Basketball Players Association and the Legends of Basketball for a cross-sector partnership looking at the impact positive adult role models who forge a consistent presence in the lives of young people have. The organizations found that young people with mentors were better prepared to overcome obstacles and accomplish their goals. The core message of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance Task Force mentoring campaign was “Be Someone Who Matters to Someone Who Matters.” Individual NBA teams followed suit on the campaign and rolled out programs that amplified the NBA’s overall commitment to mentorship. NBA franchises like the Memphis Grizzlies started a special Mentor Night and launched the player PSA initiative “I Was That Kid” campaign. President Obama and Steph Curry also released “The Mentorship” video promoting the fact that you don’t need all the time or all the answers to be a mentor.
Starbucks & LinkedIn
Starbucks in connection with LinkedIn partnered with MENTOR to launch a nationwide campaign aimed at connecting more than 10,000 mentors and mentees, with an emphasis on young adults who were seeking mentoring support to jumpstart or grow their careers. To engage local communities, Starbucks, LinkedIn, and MENTOR hosted various events across the nation at different Starbucks stores and other community pillars for relationship-building, career mentoring, and inspiration in collaboration with partner mentoring organizations. MENTOR has been a featured cause during Starbucks national MLK Week for Good annually in January. MENTOR was also featured on Starbucks social media channels during their Black History Month celebration. MENTOR’s current partnership grant with Starbucks includes supporting MENTOR Affiliates with capacity building, developing the The Mentoring Program’s Guide to Youth Participatory Action Research: Integrating Meaningful Research Opportunities into Mentoring Services, training on revamped Black boys and young men training in addition to elevating youth and the support of a disability mentoring certification. The Starbucks grant also supports essentials for Black and Brown girls power summits.
Nike
In 2017, MENTOR was recognized as one of two nonprofit partners as part of Nike’s EQUALITY campaign. The partnership was forged to help engage Nike employees in mentoring relationships in the workplace and in the local community. Nike employees registered in the Mentoring Connector managed by MENTOR, which helped them get connected to mentoring opportunities at local community programs. Through this partnership, MENTOR’s “Mentoring Flipped” video series featured Nike athletes like Aaron Gordon, Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Al Horford, and Karl-Anthony Towns. Nike continues lending its passion and voice to fuel the mentoring movement to ensure all American youth receive the support they need to succeed in all areas of life.
NBA
MENTOR’s signature In Real Life campaign partnered with NBA Voices, with a goal of assembling a small group of powerful influencers to help increase mentor recruitment efforts and to secure caring adults for 9 million youth growing up without a mentor. The campaign helped to secure 46, 210 mentor signups through MENTOR’s Mentoring Connector between mid June 2017 and June 20, 2018. This partnership also included MENTOR’s signature Mentoring Flipped video series that highlighted NBA players involved in mentoring, which garnered over 2.9 million total video views.
Harvard University/The Harvard Mentoring Project
The Harvard Mentoring Project, led by the Center for Health Communication of the Harvard School of Public Health, was a national media campaign to recruit adults to serve as mentors for youth from underprivileged backgrounds and to help promote the growth of the mentoring movement. The late General Colin Powell served as the campaign’s lead spokesperson. Alongside other nonprofit organizations and leading U.S. media companies, the campaign included: advertising, entertainment programming, and news coverage. All the major broadcast television networks along with 45 national and regional cable networks and leading Hollywood studios participated. The initial idea for the project was conceptualized in 1997 when MENTOR co-founder Raymond Chambers, a businessman and philanthropist, encouraged the Center to launch the Project. The Project involved a community-wide planning process between mentoring groups. Select local nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies helped to coordinate local campaign activities. In January 2002, the Harvard Mentoring Project in collaboration with MENTOR established the month of January as National Mentoring Month.
MENTOR thanks all its partners over the years who have helped to advance “relationships empowering opportunities” for your young people. Stay tuned for more stories from our 35th Anniversary campaign, including more highlights of our cherished partners that have assisted with knowledge building and a spotlight on our corporate partners.