Mentoring

Overview

There are over 75 million children in the US, and nearly 10 million of them are at risk. What if every child fulfilled his or her potential? When you donate money or time to Big Brothers Big Sisters, you Start Something™.

As the nation's largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers ("Bigs") and children ("Littles"). Research has shown that positive relationships between youth and their Big Brother and Big Sister mentors have a direct and measurable impact on children's lives. By participating in Big Brothers Big Sisters' youth mentoring programs, Little Brothers and Sisters, compared to their peers who did not participate in the program, are more confident in their schoolwork performance, able to get along better with their families, less likely to begin using illegal drugs, less likely to begin using alcohol, and less likely to skip school.

This campaign demonstrates that whether donating time or money to Big Brothers Big Sisters, it is the start of more success stories, more role models, and changed perspectives. Donations help recruit new volunteers, help Big Brothers Big Sisters make the perfect match and provide ongoing supervision and support for every volunteer, child and child's family.

This campaign urges people to "Start Something™" today at BigBrothersBigSisters.org, where they can see the impact of their donation through Real Life match stories and donation starter suggestions, as well as learn more about volunteer and mentorship opportunities.

This phase of work builds upon the successful volunteer recruitment campaign, which began in October 2002. Following that launch, applications from potential mentors to Big Brother Big Sisters soared from 90,000 a year to 620,000 in nine months.