Insights Into Recruiting Male Mentors: Motivations, Concerns, and the Role of Payment

The study produced several insights into recruiting male mentors. The finding highlighted in this report is that the offer of a stipend for mentoring is not an effective strategy in itself. Other findings are that mentoring agencies mining their own administrative data can provide insight for recruitment; e.g., an analysis of administrative data showed that age difference between mentors and youth was a significant predictor of match length (i.e., greater age difference was associated with longer matches). Another finding is that a major incentive for men to become mentors is the potential to make a difference in a child's life. Overall, the findings are important in helping mentoring programs to understand what is effective in recruiting male mentors. The findings presented in this report are based on the following four components of the research design: 1) analyses of BBBS-T youth outcomes and strength of relationship administrative data; 2) mentor motivation and concerns survey; 3) a national telephone survey of men; and 4) an economic study. 27 tables, 27 exhibits, and 17 figures