Mentoring Movement Agent of Change Highlight: Mass Mentoring Partnership
August 21, 2023
Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) recently secured $1.8 million in state funding for the Mentoring Matching Grants Line Item. MMP is grateful to the Governor and the State Legislature for their support and continued investment in youth mentoring programs across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Initially created in FY99, the Mentoring Matching Grants line item is the only state investment solely dedicated to expanding quality mentoring across Massachusetts. Over the last five years, MMP has successfully advocated to double the line item funding, increasing it to the highest level to date.
In partnership with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, this money is awarded through a competitive RFP process, which includes a community review. Funded programs must provide a dollar-to-dollar match and are supported with training and capacity building, based on the latest research and effective practices, and must meet high levels of quality to ensure that outcomes are maximized.
There were many steps involved in the process of successfully advocating for this funding, but the most important thing to understand is that it takes the same amount of time and effort to secure $1.2M, $1.5M, or $1.8M. Further, advocacy from the local programs in your network is critical; MMP truly couldn’t have it without them.
There were crucial steps that were taken in order to get this success:
- Financial investment: MMP made the commitment to have a full-time staff position dedicated to advocacy, as well as a contract with a lobbying firm. MMP thanks Charles Group Consulting for their continued partnership over the years. Their patience, guidance, and knowledge have been essential in maintaining and increasing the line item.
- Plan ahead: There are certain important deadlines, such as when the Governor releases her budget and when the Legislature debates and votes on the budget, that are important to plan advocacy around. Planning ahead gave MMP the time to organize our communication efforts and mobilize our networks.
- Identify and recruit legislative champions: These lawmakers should be individuals who commit to making the line item one of their top three budget priorities. It is also important that they have significant political influence and can speak to the impact of mentoring.
- Strategic outreach: Identifying and reaching out to key decision-makers at specific points in time greatly increases the likelihood of success for any form of advocacy. For MMP, this included meetings with the Governor’s office, the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, the Senate President and House leadership, the House and Senate Ways and Means Committee, and the Education Committee.
- Mobilize your network: Connect directly with the programs in your network and communicate the importance of advocacy. In addition to providing advocacy training, everyone on our team maintains consistent relationships with our program partners. MMP’s Youth Leadership Council puts together Youth Mentoring Day at the State House where 200 programs, mentors, and mentees attend and meet with their legislators (that’s why MENTOR’s Capitol Hill Day is such an important day, shameless plug!)
- Follow-up: Last but not least, follow-throughs and follow-ups are key. Provide program evaluation data and statistics proactively so the legislators can share how mentoring programs are responding to the needs of the young people in their community. And thank your officials formally as an organization, and also ask for your advocates to thank them as well. Considering that most of the correspondence legislators receive are complaints or requests for some type of support, they love to hear from constituents when they are doing well!
- A little bit of luck!
If there’s one key takeaway from what is shared in this blog, it’s the importance of collective advocacy efforts with programs in your area. Securing their support for your advocacy is critical to demonstrating the need and potential impact of the funding you’re advocating for.