Mentoring Matching Grants Line Item Funded at $750,000 in Massachusetts FY 2019
Funding Marks $250,000 Increase from FY18; Largest Increase Since FY02
BOSTON – Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP), a statewide organization dedicated to expanding empowering youth-adult relationships in Massachusetts, announced today an increase in support for mentoring programs across Massachusetts following the signing of the FY19 Massachusetts budget. The new budget includes $750,000 in the Mentoring Matching Grants line item, which serves as the only state funding dedicated to mentoring. The line item is a competitive grant program managed by Mass Mentoring Partnership, designed to create and support mentoring programs and young people across the Commonwealth.
Since 2009, MMP has awarded more than $3 million in Mentoring Matching Grants to youth serving organizations throughout Massachusetts. This year’s grants will create and support more than 2,000 high-quality mentor and mentee matches. The line item leverages private funding through a dollar-for-dollar match requirement. On average, grantees spend a minimum of $1,250 to screen, train, and match a young person with an adult mentor for a school year.
“We are grateful to Senator Brendan Crighton of Lynn and Representative Aaron Vega of Holyoke for serving as our legislative champions this year,” said MMP interim CEO, Beth Fraster. “As programmatic and personnel costs rise at an exponential rate, these increased funds will give MMP the ability to provide even greater support to our program partners as they create critical relationships for youth in Massachusetts.”
In addition to building the capacity of mentoring programs across the state, the funding increase will also enable MMP to develop a dropout prevention pilot program in schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism utilizing developmental, mentoring relationships.
The money is awarded to programs through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process and community review, and programs are supported with training and capacity building from Mass Mentoring Partnership based on the latest research and effective practices. 95% of this funding goes directly to programs, with Mass Mentoring Partnership holding 5% for administrative costs.
In recent Mentoring Matching Grant programs reports, programs demonstrate improvements in academic-related goals for the year, such as attitude towards school, improved test scores and grades, and improved classroom behavior- critical steps in improving Massachusetts’ schools. In addition, these programs also report significant increases among youth served in self confidence, self efficacy and positive attitude about the future, building a strong foundation for our economy.
As a recipeient and advocate for this increase, Springfield School Volunteers is proud to continue fostering postive mentoring relationships in Springfield, Massachusetts. We are very excited about this budget increase and are looking forward to a productive new school year! Thank you to all who help us achieve our goals in this wonderful community!
