FUSION to Create Unique Snapchat Content in Conjunction with The National Mentoring Partnership to Highlight Importance of Youth Mentoring  

FUSION announced today it is joining forces with MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership (Mentoring.org) to highlight the importance of quality youth mentoring. FUSION will curate and produce a series of special features on the subject for its Snapchat Discover channel (http://fus.in/discover) as well as other digital platforms to mark National Mentoring Month. FUSION will publish a special edition on Snapchat Discover dedicated to mentoring on January 27 featuring several National Basketball Association (NBA) players and influencers including Carmelo Anthony, Al Horford, Marcus Smart, and Karl-Anthony Towns as well as rapper Kendrick Lamar and award-winning actress America Ferrera. The dedicated edition coincides with the beginning of the National Mentoring Summit in Washington DC.  

“As we look to connect our young, diverse audience with issues that matter, we must also look at how we can help create a better future for the next generation,” said Boris Gartner, FUSION Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. “We are thrilled to be partnering with MENTOR and recognize the importance of putting a spotlight on the power of mentorship and the influence it can have on young people. We look forward to building on this effort with MENTOR throughout the year.”   

This collaboration is a part of In Real Life (#MentorIRL), a campaign that MENTOR launched last year with the support of the NBA, National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA) to recruit 25,000 new mentors over five years, with a specific emphasis on recruiting men of color and in response to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative.   

“We are excited to partner with FUSION on Snapchat to reach a diverse, multicultural audience and engage with them information about the critical impact of mentoring,” said David Shapiro, CEO of MENTOR. “This is a great chance to share inspiring stories about the ways in which mentoring truly connects people to networks, support and guidance, and opportunity.”  
Based on MENTOR’s research, there are 9 million young people at risk for falling off track for high school graduation who are unable to identify a mentor who they can turn to for support and guidance. 

ABOUT MENTOR
MENTOR is the unifying champion for quality youth mentoring in the United States. MENTOR’s mission is to close the “mentoring gap” and ensure our nation’s young people have the support they need through quality mentoring relationships to succeed at home, school, and ultimately, work. To achieve this, MENTOR collaborates with its network of affiliate Mentoring Partnerships and works to drive the investment of time and money into high impact mentoring programs and advance quality mentoring through the development and delivery of standards, cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art tools. www.mentoring.org