Our History

Understand how Youth Mentoring Collaborative came to be, with all the bumps, peaks, and valleys we experienced along the way.

2016

Movement of Youth (MOY), an award-winning youth development agency founded by Atrayus O. Goode, was commissioned by MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership to explore the possibility of relaunching a MENTOR Affiliate in the Carolinas.

2017

Throughout 2017, MOY conducted a multistate feasibility study to determine the feasibility and areas of focus. Organizations accounted for approximately 4,700 total youth served in 2016.

2018

Based on summary findings from the data, mentoring agencies reported opportunities in which their programs could benefit from additional capacity-building support. These include:

Mentor recruitment
Fund development
Program evaluation
Professional development for staff and Board members.

As a result, MENTOR North Carolina was launched in 2018. Through no-cost technical assistance, MENTOR North Carolina engaged 55 mentoring agencies impacting approximately 13,000 youth across North and South Carolina in a variety of training and technical assistance services, including board governance, strategic planning, survey tools, program observation, data interpretation, focus groups, racial equity assessments, and other program-related needs.

"...mentoring is also enormously rewarding and a gift—to the students, to the guild, and ultimately, I would submit, to the mentors themselves." - Mikeal Parsons

2022

Following a formal separation from MENTOR at the end of May 2022 due to a misalignment of organizational values at the local and national levels, MENTOR North Carolina emerged as the Youth Mentoring Collaborative (YMC).

While the core work remains the same, the YMC brand represents an explicit commitment to increasing the number of youth in identity-affirming mentoring relationships while working to dismantle the systemic barriers that youth and their families face daily.

We believe that doing work that matters in ways that prioritize human dignity, in its most basic form, is a responsibility that all of us hold to ensure our collective survival.

We invite you to join us on this important journey.

Our Partners

We believe working well with others is essential to building a more just and equitable society. Learn more about what it means to partner with YMC.

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Meet Our Team

Our team of multidisciplinary practitioners offers a wide breadth and depth of knowledge and experience when working with clients. Learn more about our backgrounds and expertise.

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Our Guiding Principles

Learn more about what we believe and how that drives our organizational behavior.

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