There is one kind of online volunteering that is highly sought after but, unlike other virtual volunteering, quite hard to find: online mentoring. Because of this, until March 2020, a comprehensive list of such programs in the USA was maintained here on the Virtual Volunteering wiki. The list continues to be maintained, however, because of the global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus / COVID-19, there was an explosion of virtual mentoring programs for youth, as traditional programs pivoted to online. There are so many now, it's impossible to try to list them all anymore.

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook has detailed information on how to set up, sustain, grow, evaluate and improve an online mentoring program.

Online mentoring, a subset of virtual volunteering, takes MANY forms, everything from one youth or person matched with one mentor, to a group of students from one class matched with a group of mentors from one company for a specific curriculum-based activity. It can be a program of just a few weeks or one that lasts an entire school or program year. It may mean an online volunteer sending one or two e-mails a week, or spending several hours a week reviewing a student's project for class. It may be email-based or video-based. It can be school-based and curriculum-focused, or conducted through a nonprofit organization that serves young professionals.

The authors of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook and this wiki were frequently asked about where to find online mentoring programs - from media outlets, from organizations wanting to set up an online mentoring program, and from individuals wanting to participate in such. That's why we devoted so much guidance in our book about how to set up such a program and why we provided this list. But we emphasize that, if you want to create an online mentoring program, you need to delve deep into how all mentoring works, including offline. For instance negative and ineffective mentoring HARMS children - negative mentoring experiences can have negative effects on the youth mentored. An ineffective program can actually do harm instead of doing good. Youth who were in relationships that lasted a year or longer reported improvements in academic, psychosocial, and behavioral outcomes; youth who were in relationships that terminated within 3 months reported drops in self-worth and perceived scholastic competence. (Fulop, Mark, Summer 2003. The Mosaic of Faith-Based Mentoring. National Mentoring Center Bulletin, Issues 12). Quality online mentoring is so much more than a mentor talking TO a youth.

In the late 1990s, one of the authors of the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, Jayne Cravens, then the director of the Virtual Volunteering Project at the University of Texas at Austin, met Shayne Schneider, founder of Mentors Inc., a pioneering nonprofit organization that matched Washington DC public high school students with mentors. At that time, Shayne was one of the USA's leading experts in mentoring - if not THE leading expert. As Jayne notes on an earlier blog:

When I was brought in by the National Mentoring Partnership and America Online back in 1999 to help them design standards for online mentoring programs and start a pilot program of their own, I was urgently warned that Shayne (pronounced "Sheh - nuh") was "old school" and "traditional", that she had deep skepticism about online mentoring, and that I needed to tread very gently. I didn't tread gently, and Shayne and I were kindred spirits in about 60 seconds, when she quickly realized that all of the standards for traditional mentoring that she worked so hard to promote were all standards I deeply believed in for online mentoring. We found ourselves on the same side of various arguments that ensued during the consultation, as we pushed for quality controls and youth-focused program design. She said things I was thinking before I could get them out of my mouth. For me, she was the best part of the experience, an absolute a pleasure to work with. I can still hear many of her comments in my head, particularly one about Charlton Heston that I won't repeat here...

That encounter and Jayne's recognition of Shayne's expertise regarding what works, and what does not, regarding mentoring, influenced Jayne's work in virtual volunteering for years to come, and was a foundation for the advice regarding online mentoring that's offered in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

Note: programs come and go frequently. Programs that still have information online (not just through archive.org) are also provided. Also, we in no way endorse or can speak to the quality of these programs merely because they are listed here. We will say that the best programs involving youth are the ones that following the principles of the National Mentoring Partnership. Ask the program if they following that organization's guidelines - if they have never heard of the partnership, you might want to look for a different program to model yours after.

Ability OnLine Support Network
An online community that connects young people with disabilities or chronic illness to disabled and non-disabled peers and mentors.

Bpeace
a USA-based nonprofit that recruits business professionals to help entrepreneurs in countries emerging from war, like Rwanda and Afghanistan, to create and expand businesses and employment (particularly for women). You will need a particular area of expertise regarding business development or project management, or know where to recruit American-based businesses who will host entrepreneurs who travel to the USA for the program, and pay the annual membership fee, in order to volunteer with BPEACE online. The work and experience of Bpeace with online volunteers is noted inThe Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

CricketTogether
Cricket Media, an education media company, launched CricketTogether, an online mentoring platform, in 2017. "Students are paired with employees of partner companies to read intriguing articles and exchange thoughts about the content, and life, building one-on-one Virtual Learning Friendships in a safe, collaborative environment that promotes education equity... Mentors, especially those who come from the business community, provide the catalyst to build student literacy, critical thinking, and real world problem-solving skills, as well as increase student understanding of careers and the world beyond their classroom." A pilot program to test the platform was recently completed. Regarding that pilot, "Employees remark that their student pen pals help them be better parents, friends, and aunts and uncles. They are more aware of what kids think and how they express themselves. Employees see their own communications skills enhanced as they think more deeply about what they’re reading and how to best to communicate their ideas... " Students in the CricketTogether pilot said they felt empowered and motivated to push their communication skills to higher levels in order to engage with the program. One student said, “I love that I can be honest with my pen pal and tell him my dreams.” Another commented on the access to remote experts and role models, remarking, “I like that you get to talk to other people, not just classmates, friends or family. Sometimes they are even in other states.” Here is the press release they released about the program in June 2017.

Cherie Blair Foundation's Mentoring Women in Business Programme
"We match women in developing and emerging countries with male and female mentors around the world. Using our online platform, they spend 12 months working one-on-one to achieve key business goals. Participants build their business skills and digital literacy through our trainings, and become part of a global community of committed, ambitious entrepreneurs who are invested in each other’s success."

Distance Teaching and Mobile Learning (DTML) is a nonprofit organization that recruits online volunteer mentors and tutors to help students around the world. The organization pairs students with pre-vetted mentors for a long-term partnership and collaborative relationship meant to support students through adolescence and into adulthood. "The program is designed to deliver more than just an educational service – mentors and tutors are equipped to provide personal support when any student is in need." DTML partners with local institutions and schools for its online mentoring and tutoring program. As of July 2017, they have just expanded their work into Uganda and Ethiopia.

Educurious
"We want to make sure that every student benefits from this kind of connection so they can build networks for the future. The Educurious Expert Network provides an effective way for professionals to share their expertise and form online mentoring relationships that engage students in authentic work and inspire them to stay in school... Experts are professionals who guide and advise students in their career paths to help them succeed. A expert's role is to inspire, encourage, and support their students."

Endapt, Electronic Networking to Develop Accomplished Professional Teachers.
For experienced teachers working in a U.S. elementary, middle, and/or secondary school to mentor the next generation of teachers.

icouldbe.org
Meant to connect the energy and expertise of mentors from various professions with the most vulnerable students in the US educational system - those that are most at-risk or most in need.

Infinite Family
Brings together South African teens with mentors in the USA for intensive, long-term, very supportive relationships. The work and experience of Infinite Family with online volunteers is noted in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

IntoBooks
An online mentoring program where students and their adult mentors read the same books and then discuss them online. It's part of the ePals program.

Junior Achievement still has its traditional, face-to-face, onsite mentoring of young people, but it also has online mentoring programs since 2014, and drastically increased this in 2020 because of the global pandemic. They also published a free guide in 2014 called Taking It Digital: New Opportunities for Volunteer Service to show their strategy for expanding into online mentoring (it notes that it used The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook and this wiki as a key reference in the development of the strategy). Per the novel coronavirus pandemic, its online mentoring programs have been expanded even further.

MicroMentor
Matches small business owners with business mentors. If you want to be a volunteer mentor, you should have three years of business ownership experience, or five years of management experience, or several years of professional experience in a specialized skill, such as marketing, web site development, accounting, financial planning, etc. The program is part of MercyCorps

Read United. Launched by the United Way of the Greater Clarksville Region and the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System in Tennessee, a program designed to enhance early literacy for local elementary school students by creating opportunities for online volunteers to read with students virtually over video software. For thirty minutes each week, volunteers and students will read back and forth to each other using video conferencing technology. “We hear from many in our community who want to lend their time and talents to make a difference, but are challenged by time and location constraints. The program takes away those barriers while providing a unique learning opportunity to students.” - Ginna Holleman, local United Way CEO. This program has evolved into the United Way / Vello online mentoring program. United Way agencies use the Vello platform to bring together corporate-based teams of online volunteers to tutor students in classrooms in their area. A company sponsors a classroom at a school in its area and forms a volunteer tutor team to support students at that school. Vello undertakes the background checks for the volunteers, trains them and provides support. Tutors login to the classroom schedule and sign up for a 30 min reading session. Volunteers commit to one session each week. Through the Vello platform, which provides screen sharing and audio, tutors and students read e-books, complete comprehension quizzes and write summaries.

Service Corps Of Retired Executives (SCORE)
A resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration, dedicated to aiding in the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. SCORE offers an online and face-to-face counseling at no cost (for U.S. citizens and resident aliens only).

StreetWise provides young adults and skilled immigrants who are unemployed or working in low-wage, low-growth jobs with critical mentorship to unlock careers traditionally unavailable to them. StreetWise has shifted its in-person mentorship approach to a series of virtual programs that engages volunteers and clients in one-on-one employment support and emergency needs; virtual mock interviews; and a 13-week remote workforce mentoring program. How a face-to-face mentoring program, StreetWise Partners in New York City, is transitioning to virtual volunteering during the Covid-19 pandemic is a case study by Gallup, one of the program's funders, about this transition during COVID-19, from March 2020.

Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnerships Online Mentoring. "We are a leading East London-based charity that bridges the gap between education and the world of work. Working in partnership with schools and businesses for almost 30 years, we provide fair and equal opportunities that enable young people to broaden their horizons and help them fulfil their aspirations." This is one of many traditional onsite, face-to-face mentoring programs that pivoted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Business Mentors are professional people in the UK at all stages of their career; from recent graduates to CEOs, all volunteers have valuable experience and professional skills to share with young people considering further education or making their first steps into the exciting world of work. Through this scheme, a volunteer meets with a small group of up to three pupils in Years 10-13 (aged 14-18) at least once a month and they work together on a series of useful topics such as interview techniques, CV writing and presentation skills.

Defunct online mentoring / ementoring programs:

For any web site that no longer works, cut and paste the URL into archive.org, and you can usually find the complete archived web sites.

Sanchez Elementary School Online Mentoring Program
This program brought together online mentors from all over the U.S. with fourth graders at this elementary school in Austin, Texas. Online activities focused primarily on reading and writing, and on establishing a positive, trusting relationship between online adult volunteers and the students. The program also hoped to increase positive feelings about technology from the point of view of all participants -- students, teachers, mentors and parents. The project was designed adhering to the suggestions in the Virtual Volunteering Project. The work and experience of this program with online volunteers is noted in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

Telementoring Young Women in Science, Engineering, and Computing
This was a three-year project in the 1990s by EDC/Center for Children & Technology and was funded by the National Science Foundation, Directorate of Education and Human Resources. This project has been discontinued, but the Web site is still up and includes extensive online resources for both mentors and teachers.

LifeWorks E-mentoring
Was an National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored mentoring program for high school and college students who are interested in behavioral and social science, biomedical research, and healthcare careers. Through this program, students are linked via e-mail communication with e-mentors who provide them with relevant information, guidance and support. A continuous mentoring commitment of at least eight months is expected from all participants. Undergraduate and graduate students, university professors, postdoctoral fellows, independent researchers, and healthcare personnel are encouraged to consider volunteering to serve as mentors in this program.

Electronic Emissary
One of the best known and most respected online tutoring programs, where adult volunteers helped students in a variety of complex academic-based projects. The Emissary preferred professionals or retired professionals as online volunteers, because this was an academically-focused tutoring program, not a feel-good mentoring program. The work and experience of this program with online volunteers is noted in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
MentorPlace
Brings employees of IBM and students together in online relationships focused on academics. You must be an IBM employee to participate.

Also see this list of online mentoring programs compiled by the archive of the Virtual Volunteering Project in the 1990s; most of these programs are now defunct, but the information is an excellent record of online mentoring programs over the years. For any web site that no longer works, cut and paste the URL into archive.org, and you can usually find the complete archived web sites

In addition to the guidebook, other sources for guidelines on online mentoring:

• E-Mentoring Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring (PDF). December 2019. MENTOR, formerly the National Mentoring Partnership, published this set of standards for online mentoring programs, and it includes case studies from various online mentoring programs to support its recommendations regarding screening, recruiting, training, monitoring and closure. Its list of references on pages 24, 81 and 82 cite several case studies, articles and research papers regarding online mentoring.
• the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™ , from the National Mentoring Partnership. All of the suggestions and principles should be considered for any online mentoring program.
• Protocol: E-Mentoring for Improving the Career Planning of Youth (15-24): A Systematic Review. Robyn M. O’Connor, David L. DuBois, Lucy Bowes publication pending
• Bierema, L. L., & Merriam, S. B. (2002). E-mentoring: Using computer mediated communication to enhance the mentoring process. Innovative Higher Education, 26, 211-227. doi: 10.1023/A:1017921023103
• Brightside Trust. Retrieved May 2014, from http://www.thebrightsidetrust.org/what-we-do/online-mentoring/
• Cravens, J. (2003). Online mentoring: Programs and suggested practices as of February 2001. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 21, 85-109. doi: 10.1300/J017v21n01_05
• Ensher, E. A., Heun, C., & Blanchard, A. (2003). Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63, 264-288. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00044-7
• Hamilton, B. A., & Scandura, T. A. (2003). E-mentoring: Implications for organizational learning and development in a wired world. Organizational Dynamics, 31, 388-402. doi: 10.1016/S0090-2616(02)00128-6
• MentorNet. http://mentornet.org/
• Rhodes, J. E. (2003). Online mentoring: The promise and pitfalls of an emerging approach. Retrieved May 2014, from http://www.mentoring.org/downloads/mentoring_1316.pdf
• Shpigelman, C-N. (2014). Electronic mentoring and media. In D. L. DuBois & M. J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring (2nd ed., pp. 259-272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Shpigelman, C-N., Reiter, S., & Weiss, P. L. (2009a). A conceptual framework for electronic socio-emotional support for people with special needs. International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, 32, 301-308. doi: 10.1097/MRR.0b013e32831e4519
• Shpigelman, C-N., Weiss, P. L., & Reiter, S. (2009b). E-mentoring for all. Computers in Human Behavior, 25, 919-928. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2009.03.007
• Single, P. B., & Muller, C. B. (2001). When e-mail and mentoring unite: The implementation of a nationwide electronic mentoring program. In L. K. Stromei (Ed.), Creating mentoring and coaching programs (pp.107-122). Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development.
• Single, P. B., Muller, C. B., & Carlsen, W. S. (2000). "Electronic mentoring: Testing the features of a structured program." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Retrieved May 2014, from http://www.pegboylesingle.com/pdf/2000Single3.pdf
• Single, P. B., & Single, R. M. (2005). E-mentoring for social equity: review of research to inform program development. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 13, 301-320. doi: 10.1080/13611260500107481