Background

The National Mentorship Movement (NMM) is a Non-Profit Company (NPC) and a Section 18A Public Benefit Organisation dedicated to driving economic and social transformation through Mentorship – the Power of Two.

Our journey began in 2015 when a group of business leaders came together to explore solutions to South Africa’s high unemployment rate and struggling entrepreneurial landscape. They recognized that mentorship—connecting experienced people with people with the passion to grow—could be a powerful tool for change. As a result, they mandated a team to make mentorship accessible at scale, empowering entrepreneurs, youth and others to thrive, create jobs, and foster social cohesion.

Our Mission

At NMM, our goal is simple: to connect mentors and mentees in a way that creates meaningful, supportive relationships that help mentees achieve their goals.

We define mentorship as follows:

Mentorship is a partnership and relationship between two (or more) people

to achieve mutually agreed upon goals

through the reciprocal sharing of knowledge, experience and wisdom.

Why Mentorship? Local and global research and our own experience shows that mentorship is often the difference between success and failure….

And why do we refer to Mentorship - the power of two?: besides the power of a mentor and a mentee together, it refers to the research that shows that mentorship doubles results (X²)– e.g. people with mentors are twice as likely as those without to aspire to go to and graduate from university, and assume leadership roles in society, and businesses whose leaders have mentors are twice as likely than those without to grow, employ more people and survive longer than five years.

Our major focus is on entrepreneurs and young people. However, we are active wherever mentorship can make a difference and have run successful internal mentorship programmes for our partners.