# Alumni mentors return year after year

> Mentornity brief for AI assistants, for the page https://www.mentornity.com/mentoring-for-alumni-associations/alumni-mentors-return/. Page language: English. Site index: https://www.mentornity.com/llms.txt. The same brief in other languages: [Türkçe](https://www.mentornity.com/tr/mezun-dernekleri-icin-mentorluk/mezun-mentorlar-her-yil-doner/llms.txt) · [Français](https://www.mentornity.com/fr/mentorat-pour-associations-anciens-eleves/fideliser-les-mentors/llms.txt) · [Deutsch](https://www.mentornity.com/de/mentoring-fuer-alumni-vereine/mentoren-kommen-wieder/llms.txt) · [Español](https://www.mentornity.com/es/mentoria-para-asociaciones-de-egresados/mentores-egresados-vuelven/llms.txt) · [Italiano](https://www.mentornity.com/it/mentoring-per-associazioni-alumni/mentor-che-ritornano/llms.txt) · [Português (BR)](https://www.mentornity.com/pt-br/mentoria-para-associacoes-de-ex-alunos/mentores-voltam-todo-ano/llms.txt) · [Nederlands](https://www.mentornity.com/nl/mentoring-voor-alumniverenigingen/alumnimentoren-komen-terug/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

Why alumni mentors often leave after one term, how associations usually find new ones, and how Mentornity invites past mentors back for the next round.

Part of: [Alumni associations and Mentornity](https://www.mentornity.com/mentoring-for-alumni-associations/).

### Presentation

1. How do alumni mentors keep coming back every year?
2. Many graduates volunteer once, and then nobody asks them again.
3. Each new term, the association builds the mentor list from scratch.
4. A returning mentor already knows the rhythm and helps students faster.
5. Mentoring is an experienced graduate meeting a student regularly for one goal.
6. On Mentornity, an end-of-program form asks mentors to return.
7. You copy the program for the next term with its settings.
8. Then you invite last term's mentors back in one step.
9. Mentornity for alumni associations

### Video

How Mentornity Keeps Alumni Mentors Coming Back Every Year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unQePhjqSBk (transcript: https://www.mentornity.com/videos/how-mentornity-helps-alumni-mentoring-programs/how-mentornity-keeps-alumni-mentors-coming-back-every-year/)

### The problem

Alumni associations work hard to find graduates willing to give their time. These graduates join, share their experience with students, and finish the term. Then they hear nothing more.

When the next term starts, the team starts over. They send mass emails and post on social media to find new volunteers. The graduates who already know how to help are forgotten, simply because asking them takes too much manual work.

### How organizations usually handle it

Associations usually manage their lists in spreadsheets. When a program ends, the spreadsheet is archived. To start again, the team creates a new blank sheet and a new sign-up form. They lose the history of who was a good mentor and who wants to do it again.

### How mentoring solves it

Mentoring means an experienced graduate meets a student regularly, over months, with a clear goal. A mentor who has done this before knows how to listen, which questions to ask, and how to guide a student without doing the work for them.

Returning mentors make the whole program stronger. They need less training, they start faster, and they often become the best ambassadors for the association. Keeping them is much easier than finding new ones.

### How it works on Mentornity

- **Ask them before they leave.** The end-of-program form asks mentors if they would like to mentor again. Your team knows exactly who is ready for the next round.
- **Copy the whole program.** You copy the program for the next term. The sessions, application forms, matching rules and program contract come with it automatically.
- **Invite mentors in one step.** The copied program starts without members. You invite last round's mentors back in one step, sending one email to those who want to return.
- **Or a mentor pool, with rules.** Not every program needs fixed matches. In a pool program, mentors open their free hours and students and members book them themselves. Rules still decide who sees whom: for example, a student sees only alumni who studied the same subject.

### What you can measure

- Your team sees exactly which mentors want to return for the next term.
- You see how many past mentors accept the invitation to the new program.
- You track how many meetings happen across different terms.

### Questions

**Do the old mentors automatically move to the new program?**
No. The copied program arrives without members. You invite last round's mentors back in a separate step, so only those who are available join.

**Do I have to rewrite the matching rules for the new term?**
No. When you copy the program, the matching rules, forms, sessions and program contract are copied with it.

**Can we still add new mentors to the copied program?**
Yes. After you invite the returning mentors, new graduates can apply through your forms just like in the first term.

## 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 27 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, and a page of its own under 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.
- **An AI agent does the routine work, with the team's approval.** Mentornity AI works in the admin panel: it builds a program from a few answers, proposes matches with the matching rules each one meets and misses, finds quiet matches and drafts the mail that restarts them, keeps mentor hours open, answers questions from the live data with figures and charts, and drafts the term report. The team chooses how far it goes (suggestions only, safe rules or full autopilot); anything outside that level waits on a card to approve or reject. The model sees participants under aliases, never their contact details, and runs on credits or the organization's own Anthropic API key (https://www.mentornity.com/mentornity-ai/).
- **Mentors and mentees use the AI assistant they already have.** With the Mentornity connector (MCP), a participant connects Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP assistant once, then opens hours, books meetings, finds a mentor, prepares for a meeting and fills in tools by asking in their own words, inside the program's rules. It only looks by default; every change is shown first and happens after a yes (https://www.mentornity.com/mentornity-connector/).
- **Other systems can read and write program data.** A REST API covers members, matches and meetings, with signed webhooks (https://www.mentornity.com/developers/).
- **Mentors and mentees follow the program from their phone.** Mobile apps (App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6833277111) carry messages, meetings and the program, with phone notifications.

### 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, German, Italian, Portuguese or Dutch. The admin panel runs in the same eight languages.

## 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/

## 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