Why Young Professionals are Giving Back Through Mentorship

Jada Aduda, a senior analyst on the strategy and business development team at CME Group, says she jumped at the volunteer opportunity to mentor a high school student needing college-preparation guidance.

Fresh in her mind were memories from her own high school experience when she felt overwhelmed by all the work it takes to apply to and attend college.

“I remember… not really knowing what to do when it came to college, all the logistics of where to go, what to study, how to pay for it. I remember being a fish out of water,” says Aduda, a former CME Group Foundation Scholar who volunteers as a mentor with one of the Foundation’s grantees, iMentor Chicago. “I was super excited and jumped at the opportunity to give back to a student that I could once relate to.”

Formal volunteering at nonprofit organizations can reap benefits for both the recipient and the corporate donor, but it has seen a slump lately, at a time when there is greater need for hands-on giving.

A University of Maryland School of Public Policy Do Good Institute study from 2023 found that the decision to give or volunteer is likely dependent on personal circumstances, social connections and community characteristics. That data may underscore why Aduda found working with iMentor so rewarding: she found a way to help someone in a similar circumstance as she once had been.

Corporate support of nonprofit organizations, through a combination of grants and formal volunteering, is critical to help these groups reach communities to not only produce positive outcomes, but to build lasting relationships between businesses, volunteers and the organization. 

Eric Barbour, Chicago Director of Strategic Initiatives at iMentor, sees these benefits with their partners, like CME Group Foundation. iMentor expanded to Chicago in 2015 and connects high school students with mentors as a way to ensure that younger generations and their families can access economic mobility.

“Mentorship offers a pathway for students from diverse backgrounds to form meaningful relationships with those working in the industry and, perhaps most importantly, those who may have similar backgrounds as them,” says Eva Giglio, Executive Director of CME Group Foundation, noting that during the last school year its partner organizations engaged over 1,500 mentors to support students in postsecondary success. “The Foundation is proud to support organizations like iMentor that are helping to develop today's students into tomorrow's problem-solvers.”

Barbour explains that financial investment is important to sustain an organization’s work, but formal volunteering is just as critical. 

“It's one thing for CME to say, ‘hey, we believe in this work. So here is a grant.’ It's another for them to say ‘we believe in this work, and we want your young people to be successful here. We want to see them in these roles, because we truly do believe that they're tomorrow's talent.’ And so, that is true partnership in my mind,” Barbour says. 

The results are clear. Since iMentor was established in 1999, it’s helped nearly 42,000 students nationally. Seventy-two percent of iMentor students enroll in college, versus 55% of their peers, and 47% of them finish their education, versus 27% of their peers.