MENTOR Vermont is excited to announce that its executive director, Chad Butt, has been elected as the 2019-2020 chair of the Mentoring Affiliate Advisory Council (MAAC) for MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership. Butt is one of seven members on the council, which is made up of leaders from state or regional affiliates of MENTOR across the country.
“In Chad’s first year as MAAC Vice-Chair, he led MENTOR Affiliates in several key initiatives and we are grateful to have his continued leadership in the coming year,” said MENTOR Affiliate Network Director Adrienne Popeney. “He has continued to elevate the voice and expertise of Affiliates across the country to enhance our national efforts.”
Butt has been a member of MAAC since 2016, and has served as the executive director of MENTOR Vermont since 2013. During his tenure, he has overseen the organization’s successful transition from a regional agency into a well-established statewide mentoring partnership, and its recent rebranding from Mobius to MENTOR Vermont. Prior to his time at MENTOR Vermont, he was the program director for The DREAM Program, a mentoring organization that matches college students as mentors for youth living in affordable housing communities. He is a 2004 graduate of Dartmouth College, and resides with his wife and two children in Burlington.
"Chad continues to champion the Vermont youth mentoring community admirably at both a local and national level,” said Nate Formalarie, chair of the MENTOR Vermont Board of Directors. “As chair of MAAC, he will enhance and expand the work that MENTOR does nationally, and ensure that state and regional MENTOR Affiliates have the resources and support they need to improve the lives of young people. Chad's work is putting Vermont on the map as a national leader in youth mentoring.”
MAAC provides MENTOR and the youth mentoring field with capacity-building expertise and strategic guidance on a variety of national initiatives and projects such as the development of the National Quality Mentoring System (a common system for evaluating program quality standards), resource development, public awareness, public policy and research. MAAC is comprised of leaders from the national network of MENTOR Affiliates who are selected through a peer nomination process.
MENTOR Vermont is the state affiliate of MENTOR, and is one of more than 25 state and regional organizations in MENTOR’s national network of affiliate organizations. These affiliates are non-partisan, public-private organizations that galvanize local or statewide mentoring movements. They provide the leadership and infrastructure necessary to support the expansion of quality mentoring relationships.
According to the “Mentoring Effect,” a study released in 2014 by MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, one in three youth in Vermont will enter adulthood without having a formal or informal mentoring relationship with a caring adult. National studies by MENTOR and Big Brothers Big Sisters demonstrate that youth with mentors are less likely to engage in risky behavior with drugs and alcohol, and they are more likely to develop positive relationships with peers and adults and pursue college and other post-secondary opportunities. Based on the 2019 Vermont Mentoring Surveys, more than 66 percent of middle and high school youth supported by mentoring programs in Vermont feel like they matter to people in their community, and more than 86 percent of mentors play a direct role in their mentee’s education.
MENTOR Vermont (formerly known as Mobius) supports 140 adult-to-youth mentoring program sites that serve 2,300 mentor pairs throughout the state. In addition to managing the Vermont Mentoring Grants, the organization provides technical support to mentoring program staff, maintains an online program directory and referral system for volunteers, manages a quality-based program management database, raises public awareness of mentoring, works with programs to ensure they are meeting best practices, and leads statewide mentoring initiatives. For more information about mentoring programs and initiatives in Vermont, visit www.mentorvt.org.