Who Mentored You? is an expansive research report on the mentoring movement in the United States. Utilizing data from over 2,600 Americans, the study offers a fresh multigenerational look at the mentoring experiences of all Americans and explores the questions:

• What is the scope and impact of mentoring relationships?
• Who is finding the mentoring they need?
• Who is being left behind?

MENTOR started trying to answer these questions almost a decade ago with the 2014 publication of The Mentoring Effect, a study that revealed not only the benefits of mentors, but also the inequities in who gets mentoring — this is where we first defined the “mentoring gap” of one in three young people growing up without a mentor.

Who Mentored You? was commissioned by MENTOR, with support from EY, and created in partnership with the Custom Insights Team at Pacific Market Research (now Olympic Research and Strategy), Dr. Sam McQuillin of the University of South Carolina, Shaun Glaze and Kathleen Perez at Inclusive Data, Cecilia Molinari, and Jenni Geiser. Designed to reexamine the mentoring gap, this report found that, while today’s young people are more than twice as likely to be mentored through a program compared to young people thirty years ago, the mentoring gap still exists and has actually grown larger, particularly for key groups of vulnerable youth.

The study also reaffirmed the importance of mentoring relationships in promoting a strong sense of self and feelings of belonging, building community, encouraging exploration, and driving mental and physical well-being. Given the proven effectiveness of mentoring, we must turn up our impact as individuals and a movement to bring mentoring to all young people.