The National Mentorship Movement exists to introduce mentorship at scale across the nation in support of entrepreneurs and others in order to create jobs and greater social trust. The organisation mobilises volunteer mentors and connects them to people who could benefit from their support. They work with partner organisations to assist beneficiaries on specific programmes. These include students in a new venture creation project for Da Vinci, and entrepreneurs and others in SME programmes for Standard Bank, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa, Printing SA, Sanlam Investment Group and the Craft & Design Institute. The National Mentorship Movement has also put in place a mentorship platform for innovation entrepreneurs for the Technology Innovation Agency.
They refer to “Mentorship – the Power of Two” both because of the two people typically involved in a mentorship relationship but also because of the international research which indicates that mentorship doubles the likelihood of success by a number of measures. For example, mentorship can double the likelihood of passing university, growing a business and staying in business longer than five years. A total of 1 400 people have experienced mentorship (800 of them currently) through NMM, and 900 mentors are registered on their platform, the largest base of volunteer mentors in the country to their knowledge. 85% of participants indicate they are achieving their goals, over 90% say they are satisfied with their match, interpersonal relationships and mentorship experience, and 94% say they would recommend the programme to others.