Volunteer:

Find Your Way to Make an Impact

Every volunteer role is an opportunity to change a student's life.

Discover the perfect fit for your skills, time, and passion.

Volunteer to be a Mentor

Become the mentor you once needed. Support students through academics, life events, and the path to college.

Commitment: 2-3 hours per week, Saturdays during the school year for 3 years

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Be a Student Mentor

Mentors guide, challenge, and celebrate their student through their three years in the program. As a mentor, you’ll act as a caring adult in your mentee’s life, providing emotional and consistent support while sharing insight from your own journey to college and beyond.

How it Works:

Minds Matter utilizes a 2:2 mentor-mentee model: mentors work with their students alongside one other adult mentor to form a pod. Every week, pods work through Minds Matter curriculum, which guides students through exercises to develop the hard and soft skills they need to succeed in college. Together, pods form the backbone of a student’s experience in Minds Matter.

Key Responsibilities:

The mentor role is all about strong relationships. In order to effectively guide, challenge and celebrate their mentee, mentors exhibit and develop a few key characteristics:
  • Your relationship is built over time, in and out of session, but the majority of your interactions happens at Saturday session. Therefore, showing up and being present at session is the baseline for your effectiveness as a mentor. Mentors are required to attend at least 80% of Saturday sessions.
  • Acting as a role model and caring adult for your mentee requires active listening, empathy, commitment and integrity. Furthermore, it’s critical that mentors follow through on their commitments made to their mentee.
  • While there are no required meetings outside of session, we ask mentors to be responsive to short texts/emails from their student and actively check-in from time to time.

Additional Requirements:

  • Mentors are required to be college graduates of 4-year colleges or universities.
  • All Volunteers are required to pass a criminal background check and undergo child protection training.
  • All volunteers act as representatives of Minds Matter in and out of session, and are asked to uphold the organization’s values and core beliefs.

Time Commitment:

Mentors commit to volunteering with Minds Matter for 2-3 hours per week on Saturdays from approximately 12:30pm – 2:00pm. Mentors should be prepared to commit to three years as volunteers as they follow their student through the program.

Be a Test Prep Instructor

Support students through the daunting task of exploring, selecting, and applying to colleges with confidence.

Commitment: 2-3 hours per week, Saturdays during the school year

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Become a Test Prep Instructor

Junior Program:Test Prep Instructors are trained to guide students in small groups through a structured weekly Kaplan curriculum that helps elevate their SAT scores. Instructors are paired with two to three students and will work in small groups.

Additional Requirements:

  • Instructors are required to be college graduates of 4-year colleges or universities.
  • All volunteers are required to pass a criminal background check and undergo child protection training.

Time Commitment:

2-3 hours per week, including Saturday sessions from approximately 10:00am – 12:00pm.

Be a Writing & Critical Thinking (WCT) Instructor

Elevate student writing from beginner to advanced through small-group instruction and collaboration.

Commitment: 1-2 hours per week, Saturdays during the school year

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Become a Writing & Critical Thinking Advisor


Sophomore Program: Each volunteer is grouped with three sophomore students in a structured program to help take the students’ writing skills from the basic to the intermediate and advanced levels. Instructors are provided with curriculum and guidance for class time.

Additional Requirements:

  • Typical Writing & Critical Thinking Advisors have a professional or academic focus in writing.
  • Instructors are required to be college graduates of 4-year colleges or universities.
  • All volunteers are required to pass a criminal background check and undergo child protection training.

Time Commitment:

1-2 hours per week, including Saturday sessions from approximately 10:00am – 11:00am.

Be a Math Instructor

Support the STEM leaders of tomorrow. Guide students through a range of math topics for their academic and life skills.

Commitment: 1-2 hours per week, Saturdays during the school year

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Become a Math Instructor


Sophomore Program: Math instructors help students see where quantitative reasoning skills can be used in everyday life, beyond the classroom and traditional STEM-focused careers. Math instructors are provided with curriculum and workbooks for instruction.

Additional Requirements:

  • Instructors are required to be college graduates of 4-year colleges or universities.
  • All volunteers are required to pass a criminal background check and undergo child protection training.

Time Commitment:

1-2 hours per week, including Saturday sessions from 11:00am – 12:00pm.

HOW IT WORKS

Minds Matter utilizes a 2:2 Mentor-Mentee model. Mentors work alongside their students and one other adult mentor to create a pod.

Every week, pods meet to go over structured curriculum and community building. Students work with their pods to develop the hard and soft skills they need to succeeed in college and change the world.

Volunteer Stories

More than 102 volunteers serve as Mentors, Instructors, Team Leaders, and Program Directors. Every Minds Matter student works with at least 15 different volunteers over their three years in the program, expanding their network and giving them new perspectives on college and career. 

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