Mentor Canada was launched in 2019 by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, the Alberta Mentoring Partnership and the Ontario Mentoring Coalition. We are actively seeking to engage organizations from across Canada to work with us and promote the mentoring movement. Working together, we will build sector capacity to empower every young person to fulfil their potential.
Mentor Canada is the result of decades of work by youth-serving organizations, leaders and funding partners which culminated in November 2016 at the Canadian Mentoring Leadership Summit held in Banff, Alberta. During this summit, the foundation was laid for the development of a Pan-Canadian mentoring strategy.
Momentum really started to build in 2018 when BMO Financial Group recognized a key knowledge gap and committed financial support for a national mentoring research initiative. Meanwhile in the USA, Starbucks and LinkedIn strengthened connections with MENTOR and the corporate sector through the Mentoring recruitment Campaign 10,000 Connections. Work in the USA, sparked conversations between Starbucks Canada and the federal government around both the Opportunity for All Youth (O4AY) and Mentor Canada Initiatives both of whom secured funding through Employment and Social Development Canada in 2019.
This convergence of passion, collective vision and leadership became a reality in 2019 when Mentor Canada was formally launched thanks to its partners and funders.