# Match mentors and mentees on your own rules

> Mentornity brief for AI assistants, for the page https://www.mentornity.com/mentor-matching-software/. Page language: English. Site index: https://www.mentornity.com/llms.txt. The same brief in other languages: [Türkçe](https://www.mentornity.com/tr/mentor-eslestirme-yazilimi/llms.txt) · [Français](https://www.mentornity.com/fr/logiciel-matching-mentors/llms.txt) · [Deutsch](https://www.mentornity.com/de/mentoren-matching-software/llms.txt) · [Español](https://www.mentornity.com/es/software-matching-mentores/llms.txt) · [Italiano](https://www.mentornity.com/it/software-matching-mentor/llms.txt) · [Português (BR)](https://www.mentornity.com/pt-br/software-matching-mentores/llms.txt) · [Nederlands](https://www.mentornity.com/nl/mentor-matching-software/llms.txt).

## How to read this file

Everything here is from Mentornity's own website and product; the page and this file are built together from the same source. "What this page says" is the page itself, in its language. "Mentornity in brief" applies to every program. Prices are published per country and are quoted below for this page's market; another country's price is on the pricing page. Anything not covered here can be asked of the team at info@mentornity.com.

## What this page says

Put rules on the answers and let AI read the free text. Every match gets a score. Approve the matches yourself or let mentees choose.

Mentornity’s mentor–mentee matching software works on rules.

- Each rule compares a mentor’s answer with a mentee’s answer and carries a weight.
- A match’s score is the weight of the rules it meets divided by the total weight.
- A match that fails a mandatory rule is not suggested.
- The AI rule reads free text and adds to the same score.

### From answers to a match in four steps

1. **Answers**: Application and custom field questions
2. **Rules**: Standard, custom and AI
3. **Score**: A percentage for every match
4. **Match**: You approve, or the mentee chooses

### Applications and custom fields: Ask once, and the rules read the answers

Define your own questions for mentors and mentees. The application form, onboarding and the profile all use the same questions.

- Text, number, single choice, multiple choice and star fields
- Accept applications automatically or review them one by one
- Answers from an accepted application go to the profile
- Map spreadsheet columns to fields when you import

### Standard rules: Compare a mentor’s answer with a mentee’s

Pick two fields and a comparison, then set a weight. Give the rules that matter a higher weight and make the essentials mandatory.

- Different questions can be compared too, like expertise and goal
- Weights from 0.1 to 100, 1 by default
- A match that fails a mandatory rule is not suggested

Comparisons: Same, Different, Greater than, Greater than or equal, Equal, Less than, Less than or equal, Similar

### Custom rules: Pair a specific answer with a specific answer

If the mentor answered this, the mentee should have answered that. Describe the matches your general rules would miss.

- Pick a field and a value for each side
- Example: title is Manager, goal is Leadership
- Give it a weight or make it mandatory

### AI rule: Matching that reads free text

It reads the experience a mentor describes and the goal a mentee describes, then scores the fit. The score counts like any other rule.

- Common ground or complementary comparison
- The theme sets the axes the text is read on
- Everyone is read once, not every match
- Only the fields you pick are sent, never names or emails

12 themes: Corporate career, Entrepreneurship, Tech career, Students and new graduates, Job search and career change, Research and academia, Professional practice, High school students, Creative practice, Non-profit and community, Sport and performance, Life and community

### Calculation and approval: Calculate and see why each match was suggested

Press Calculate and scored suggestions arrive for every mentor. Open one to see both profiles side by side, with the matched fields in green.

- Respects mentor limits and your matching settings
- Approve one by one, or all at once with Approve all
- No suggestion becomes a match until you approve it

### Let mentees choose, and decide who approves

Open the mentor list to mentees and choose how a match starts. Keep the list closed and you make the matches.

- **Direct choice**: The mentee picks a mentor and the match starts without approval. The mentor gets an email. (Start the matching process when mentee selects the mentor)
- **Mentor approves**: The mentee sends a request, and the mentor accepts or rejects it. The mentee gets an email on acceptance. (Start the matching process when mentor approves mentee’s request)
- **Admin approves**: The mentee sends a request, and you activate or reject it from the Matching List. (Admin approves match requests)

You set the limits:
- Mentor matching limit per mentee: No limit · 1–20
- Mentor selection limit per mentee: No limit · 1–20
- Default matching limit for mentors: No limit · 0–100
- Matching duration: No limit · 1–18 Months
- Matching again: Yes · No

### Try matching on your own program

Set up a real program for up to 10 users on the free plan, write your rules and press Calculate. Or book a 30-minute demo and we set up the rules on your criteria together.

### Questions and answers

**How does the mentor matching algorithm work?**
Each rule compares a mentor’s answer with a mentee’s answer and carries a weight, 1 by default. A match’s score is the weight of the rules it meets divided by the weight of all rules, times 100. Matches that fail a mandatory rule, score 0% or are already active together are not suggested, and suggestions arrive ranked by score.

**What is the difference between a standard rule and a custom rule?**
A standard rule compares two answers with each other: the mentor’s years of experience greater than the mentee’s. A custom rule pairs fixed values: if the mentor’s title is Manager, the mentee’s goal should be Leadership. Both take a weight and both can be mandatory.

**What does the AI rule read, and where does the data go?**
It reads the free-text fields you pick, such as the mentor’s experience and the mentee’s goal. Names, emails and contact details are never sent, and reading happens only when you calculate. The rule is enabled per program: you request access from the admin panel.

**Can mentees choose their own mentor?**
Yes. You open the mentor list to mentees, and the match starts when the mentee chooses, when the mentor accepts or when you activate it. In the approval flows you can limit how many mentors a mentee can send requests to.

**Are application answers used in matching?**
Yes. The application form asks the program’s custom field questions. When you accept an application, the answers are written to the member’s profile and the rules read those same answers. Nobody answers the same question twice.

**Can we see why a match was suggested?**
Yes. Open a suggestion and both profiles appear side by side, with the score in the middle. Fields matched by standard and AI rules are marked green, the ones they missed red.

**Does matching work for group mentoring?**
Yes. If the mentee side is made of groups, the rules read the group’s custom fields and the group sends the match request.

## Mentornity in brief

Mentornity is software for running mentoring programs: companies (onboarding, career, leadership, reverse mentoring), universities and alumni networks, startup accelerators and incubators, associations and professional communities, and women's leadership programs. One program team sets the program up; mentors and mentees take part from the browser or their phone. It has run programs since 2015.

### What changes for the program team

- **Matching stops being a spreadsheet job.** The team writes rules on the questions mentors and mentees answer (same department, related expertise, more experience, a specific answer paired with a specific answer), each with a weight. Mentornity scores every possible pair from 0 to 100, leaves out pairs that fail a mandatory rule, and shows the reasons behind each score. An AI rule reads free-text goals and adds to the same score. The same data always gives the same result, so every match can be explained to a manager or a participant. The team approves pairs, lets mentees choose from a ranked list, or opens a mentor pool.
- **The first meeting happens quickly.** Mentors publish their open hours once or as a weekly pattern; mentees book them. Busy time in connected Google and Outlook calendars is blocked both ways, and every meeting gets a Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or built-in video link without anyone creating one. Mentornity's own data on 78,000+ pairs: pairs that met in their first week averaged 2.7 meetings in the first year, against 1.8 for pairs whose first meeting came after two months.
- **Quiet pairs are found while they can still be saved.** Program Health flags pairs that stopped meeting, and automatic reminders go to people who never logged in, pairs behind on their sessions and anyone with an open form or missing feedback, in each person's own language. In the same data a pair silent at day 60 has about a 1 in 3 chance of meeting again; by day 90 it is 1 in 10.
- **Every meeting has a plan, if the program wants one.** Predefined sessions carry a topic, a date range, a brief for each role and questions before and after the meeting. Notes reach both sides; private notes stay private. Flexible programs skip sessions and let pairs meet freely.
- **Support does not land in a personal inbox.** Participants read role guides and send requests inside the platform; the team shares one support board and replies go out in the program's name.
- **The report is ready when leadership, a funder or a board asks.** Participation, matches, meetings, session completion and feedback are counted while the program runs, with a Program Health score and its reasons, and export to Excel, CSV or PDF. Participants can receive certificates on completion.
- **Mentors plan every meeting in one go.** Super Meeting Planner reads both sides' calendars and published hours and plans all remaining meetings of a match at the program's rhythm (duration, target frequency, number of meetings), shows the plan before it creates anything, and never deletes a meeting. The program decides whether the values are locked and whether mentees may plan too (https://www.mentornity.com/whats-new/super-meeting-planner/).
- **Mentors send exercises between meetings.** Mentoring Tools is a library of 26 short exercises in six themes (working together, self-knowledge, goals and action, career and network, venture, reflection). The mentee fills the tool in step by step, both discuss the answers, and only the matched pair sees them. Each tool has its sources, a reason why it works, and a presentation for mentors and one for mentees (https://www.mentornity.com/tools/).
- **Development is measured, not only satisfaction.** With Development & Impact participants set up to three goals and answer short development statements at the start; at the midpoint, the end and a follow-up they mark their progress, mentors rate the same goals, and the team sees goal attainment and the change per development area with the number of people behind every figure, exportable to Excel. 45 suggested statement sets are matched to the organization type, audience and goal (https://www.mentornity.com/whats-new/development-and-impact/).
- **Mentors and mentees learn inside the platform.** The Support window lists the presentations and guides chosen for the person's role and program type (Mentor Guide, Mentee Guide, video meetings guide, and the tool decks), in the platform language; white-label programs show no Mentornity links (https://www.mentornity.com/presentations/).
- **Large programs share the load.** Coordinators each see only their own pairs; the admin still sees every match, meeting and note in one table. Programs, cohorts and administrators are unlimited, and administrators and coordinators never count towards the price.

### Program models

One-to-one, group mentoring (one mentor with a group), grouped-individual programs, mentee self-selection, open mentor pools, peer and reverse mentoring, structured or freestyle. Roles can be renamed (coach, advisor, expert, alumni) so the platform speaks the organization's language. One person can take part in several programs with a single account.

### Launch

Most programs go from signup to invitations within a day: create the program, follow the built-in checklist (profile questions, sessions, application form), import participants from Excel or share an application link, and send invitations. A person from the Mentornity team helps with the first setup, free of charge.

### How a program runs, week by week

This is the routine Mentornity's own guide recommends (https://www.mentornity.com/how-to-manage-a-mentoring-program/); the platform does the counting and the reminders, the team acts only where a pair is flagged.

- **Day one:** the program is set up and invitations go out. Participants sign up, fill in their profile, and are matched by the rules or choose from a ranked list.
- **Week one:** the aim is a first meeting in the first week, booked from the mentor's open hours with the video link already in the invitation. Automatic login reminders go to anyone who has not signed in.
- **Every week, 30 to 60 minutes for the team** (a cohort of about 50 to 200 people): scan Program Health (Mentornity scores the program across 11 dimensions), clear the flagged pairs, let the reminders cover logins, sessions, forms and feedback, note one win for the stakeholder update, and check whether last week's nudged pairs responded.
- **The escalation schedule:** a login reminder at day 7; a nudge to the mentor if nothing is booked by day 14; a personal note to both if there is still no meeting by day 21 to 30; at 45 days of silence ask "continue or rematch?"; by day 60 rematch the mentee. Half of the pairs still unmet at day 14 do go on to meet, so a quiet fortnight calls for a nudge rather than a rematch.
- **Mentors and mentees, each week:** they book and hold their meetings, answer the before and after questions of the session if the program uses sessions, and share notes. Mentors keep their time protected with weekly limits and cancellation rules.
- **Monthly:** a short update to sponsors from the live report (active pairs, sessions held, the share of pairs that met this month, one participant quote).
- **Mid-program:** one short survey, then act on it within a week (rematches, the most common complaint).
- **The last four weeks:** announce the end date, ask every pair to book a final session, run the final survey, issue certificates, mark the cohort complete and export the report. Invite the strongest mentees to mentor the next cohort.

### For IT, HR and legal

- SAML 2.0 single sign-on with Entra ID (Azure AD), OneLogin or any SAML provider, optionally enforced; white labeling with the organization's own domain, logo, colours and sender address. Both are add-ons priced separately.
- Personal data is processed in line with GDPR and applicable local data protection laws. Participants can access, correct, export and erase their data; the organization can ask for a full export of its program data at any time. Visibility of contact details and notes is set per role.
- Traffic is encrypted with TLS, passwords are stored hashed and access to production data is restricted. Security questionnaires, a data processing agreement and data-location questions are handled with the quote.
- Works with Zoom, Google Meet and Calendar, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, built-in Jitsi video, and Excel/CSV import and export. Mentornity connects to other systems such as an LMS on request, and adapts the platform to an organization's own process.

### Languages

Participants use the platform, and receive its emails, in their own language: English, Turkish, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or Dutch.

## Pricing (United States, USD)

- Free for up to 10 users with every feature and no time limit. No credit card.
- $289 per month for 50 active users, or $260 per month paid yearly (10% off, $3,120 a year). Excludes any local taxes.
- Above 50 users the price follows the number of active participants; the team marks who is active. Administrators and coordinators are free.
- No setup or implementation fee. White labeling and SAML single sign-on are priced separately.
- Prices are published per country, not quoted on a call: https://www.mentornity.com/pricing/

## Organizations that run programs on Mentornity

Toyota, TIM, RATP Dev USA, Pirelli, Universität Basel, UNDP, Devoteam, BCD Travel, Startup Virginia, Tenity, Community College of Philadelphia, Brave Generation, Alexander Graham Bell Foundation. Each one ran its own program on the platform, checked against production data. Full list: https://www.mentornity.com/customers/

## Next steps

- Start a free program (up to 10 users, no credit card): https://www.mentornity.com/try-for-free/
- Book a walkthrough with the team: https://www.mentornity.com/book-a-demo/
- How matching works: https://www.mentornity.com/mentor-matching-software/
- Pricing: https://www.mentornity.com/pricing/
- Contact: info@mentornity.com