E-mentoring has, until recently, constituted a fairly small niche of the programmatic mentoring landscape. But nothing has spurred the adoption of virtual mentoring services more than the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. Almost overnight, the nation’s mentoring programs faced an uncertain future in which their main objective — bringing adults and youth together for quality time — was prohibited due to social distancing regulations and closed schools and other facilities. Many programs pivoted to e-mentoring solutions, and noted there were benefits, such as the potential for more frequent mentor-youth interactions, and that e-mentoring was a capacity they wished to keep.

But what does it take to transition to e-mentoring, either as an additional programmatic offering or as a permanent approach to program scaling? What was learned from these past two years of trial and error? These questions were top of mind when we set out on a series of research studies, generously funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, designed to explore what could be learned from these years of emergency virtual mentoring. The three studies funded under this project are all detailed in the report, followed by conclusions about how these findings can inform quality e-mentoring work in the future, pandemic circumstances or otherwise. We also offer two tools for mentoring programs developed under this initiative that can help any mentoring program think about how to switch to, or start offering, effective online mentoring services.