Fueling a Relationship Movement: The Critical Role That Employers Play in Growing and Supporting Youth Mentoring in America

In the summer of 2017, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership and its partners at AT&T set out on an ambitious data collection and research project intended to capture the perceptions, beliefs, and activities of American adults about the topic of youth mentoring. One core objective of this first-of-its-kind project is the focus of this report: a deeper understanding of how American businesses facilitate the engagement of working-age adults in youth mentoring opportunities. While the Power of Relationships survey, as it came to be known, ultimately surveyed 1,700 American adults over the age of 18, many of the results presented in this paper are based on a subset of 1,002 working Americans, including an oversampling 221 American adults who were both currently employed and also engaged in youth mentoring activities that were supported by their employer in some capacity. In examining this group, the authors are able to not only isolate the impact that employer engagement has on the mentoring attitudes and behaviors of their employees, but also build understanding about how employers support mentoring and the impact that serving as a mentor has on employee morale and a variety of other outcomes.