MentorNet Growth

Not surprisingly, MentorNet is perceived as a particularly exciting opportunity for students at many colleges and universities globally. In our first six months, we were contacted by more than 75 different colleges and universities interested in having their students participate, as well as by countless individuals. Our ultimate goal is to create a program which can be tapped by any eligible student, regardless of location.

At the same time, we must chart a path for growth which is responsible and in keeping with our available resources. As we develop and test new systems and new program features, it is better to test those on a smaller group, and perfect them, before attempting to use them with a much larger group. As we anticipated from the beginning of our planning for MentorNet, the two primary limitations to growth are the pool of mentors and financial resources to support the program's growth. Fortunately, once they hear about MentorNet, many industrial professionals are interested and willing to mentor students by email. Our challenge here is to tap as many outlets as possible to recruit mentors, and it is more time-consuming to recruit mentors than students. As we spread the word more widely, through many different networks and organizations and a wide variety of media, new mentors sign up reasonably quickly.

Financial resources are critical to MentorNet's continuation and growth. We are actively seeking sponsors among corporations and government agencies, as well as applying for grants from foundation and government programs.

The following numbers represent our growth since inception. We expect that continued careful and thoughtful development of our program and its related systems and infrastructure will allow us to achieve considerable economies of scale in operations over time.

*Note that beginning with the 2003-04 program year, MentorNet substantially revised the application and matching processes for the One-on-One program to accommodate year-round operation of the program so that students can search at any time during the year to identify a mentor, and initiate an eight-month long mentoring relationship.