International Mentoring Day 2025

At YBI we understand the true (and often overlooked) role that mentoring can play in supporting young entrepreneurs to thrive.

This International Mentoring Day, we’re delighted to shine a light on mentors, highlight some initiatives we champion, and spotlight work being delivered by YBI .

“If everyone around the world signed up to be a mentor today, we would change the world. I believe mentoring is still the most powerful developmental tool in any context. For young entrepreneurs, it’s game changing and often more valuable than financial investment.”

Jo Gray, Director of Member Services, YBI

Mentoring matters beyond business

We’re delighted to see mentorship being used to support young people in non-business contexts too. for example, just this week London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced the successful completion  of a mentoring scheme in the capital which has seen 100,000 at-need Londoners access a mentor since 2019.

As this and other schemes show, mentoring can be the difference between success or failure for a young person (or anyone) trying to navigate changes in their life. Whether for business needs or otherwise.

However, there are ways to harness the power of mentorship, and there are pitfalls that can stop mentoring being as impactful as it could be. This is why, together with our members, we’ve developed tools and programmes to help mentors be the best they can – with our motto ‘take the best and leave the rest”.

2024 was the second year of our popular series of mentoring webinars and online coaching clinics for our members’ Mentoring Programme Managers (MPMs) to train their volunteer mentors. The mentoring training we offer aims to not only build participant mentor programmes with relevant training and align the work with best practices,  but it also acts as a community to share new insights and ideas, learn about volunteer motivation and swap knowledge on effective and quality mentoring.  

What participants say about our mentor training

 “Using the MPM series and manual has made work easier for us and we were able to roll out the applications resulting in more than 100 potential mentors. The process is now seamless since we have a blueprint of all the processes, and we were able to deliver a Train the Trainer for the team doing recruitment.”

 “The impact is positive in our mentoring programme as we have structured the recruitment process and insights on how to monetize the programme for sustainability”.

 “The ideas received during breakout sessions in the webinars presented opportunities we were able to discuss amongst other mentoring managers in our network.”

Mentoring in 2025

In 2025, YBI will be celebrating 20 years of volunteer mentoring to support young entrepreneurs. Watch this space for more mentor success stories and learning opportunities.