Impact

Mentoring Works!
Young people need multiple caring adult relationships in their lives to weather adolescence.  Research shows volunteer mentors can play a powerful role in reducing drug and alcohol abuse and youth violence, while greatly enhancing a young persons prospects for leading a healthy and productive life.  Today, too many young people do not receive enough of the guidance and support that mentors can provide. 

Mentoring helps young people overcome challenges by reconnecting them to broader society. Fortune magazine states, the number one indicator of success for a child is a good relationship with a caring adult.

Based on MPM's 2007 Social Return on Investment (SROI) study of mentoring programs in Minnesota, it is clear that programs can produce some or all of the following direct benefits: 

  • Improved school attendance and performance – leading to increased graduation rates, increased post-secondary education, and higher lifetime earnings
  • Reduced truancy – resulting in reduced school costs and, ultimately, reduced high school dropouts and increased lifetime earnings
  • Improved health outcomes – including reductions in teen pregnancy, reduced or delayed use of tobacco, alcohol, or illicit drugs
  • Reduced juvenile crime (both violence and property crimes) – saving victim costs, court costs, and costly treatment of juvenile offenders
  • Reduced costs of adult crime – both the crime losses of victims and the societal costs of prosecuting and incarcerating adult offenders
  • Reduced needs for social services – both near-term costs of counseling and long-term costs of public assistance

Estimates of our SROI study reveals:

  • Based on conservative assumptions about outcomes and valuations, our representative program returns benefits of $2.72 for every dollar of resources used.
  • The program returns $2.08 for every dollar of cost if the value of mentors’ time is excluded from the estimated benefits.
  • The program returns $1.87 of public benefits (public cost savings and increased tax revenues) for every dollar actually spent on the program.

Links