New York Charity Makes Its Software Available to Groups That Provide Mentors to Youngsters

Founded a decade ago, the New York charity iMentor pairs adults and children to meet in person and to intensify their ties through online communications.

High-school students in the New York City nonprofit program meet with their mentors once a month, but weekly online messages that adults and students send to each other are a critical part of helping the relationships grow.

Early in its life, iMentor realized that it needed to build an online system that would allow for safe, guided communication, says Dana Saxon, director of partnerships at iMentor Interactive.

“We needed to know how to track those e-mail messages, and really importantly we wanted to be able to monitor the communication,” she says. “Since the majority of the students are under 18, it’s important for their safety.”

In addition to allowing staff members to monitor the electronic conversations going on between students and their mentors, the system provides prompts — that help the pairs keep the conversation going and build deeper bonds.

“Very shortly after they first meet, they run out of things to talk about, so it’s very important for the mentors and mentees to have guided communication,” says Ms. Saxon. “Our program is focused on academic, career, and personal growth, so we have writing prompts that are targeting those specific topics.”

Soon after iMentor developed its software system, the organization began to receive requests from other mentor programs that wanted to use the software too.

So in 2007, iMentor began to offer the Web-based software to other charities. The cost to use iMentor Interactive, which groups can tailor to their specific program goals, depends on the size of the organization and the number of people who will be using the system.

Ms. Saxon, who is giving a presentation at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, talked to The Chronicle about the software’s conversation prompts and how they have helped students in iMentor’s program improve their writing skills and develop closer bonds with their mentors.