1,200 Mentors, 97% Matched by Preference: Inside Georgia Tech’s Alumni Mentoring Program

The Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s mentoring program once relied on spreadsheets, a custom pairing tool, and separate student outreach.

Today, Mentor Jackets serves more than 1,200 mentors and mentees, with 97% of participants matched based on their preferences.

In this 30-minute conversation, Akira Goodman, Student Engagement Coordinator will share what it takes to run mentoring at this scale, including how students find mentors they actually want to work with, where the team still steps in manually, and what changed after the Association asked alumni mentors directly what they needed from the program. 

Janet Kinard, Vice President of Engagement will share what the broader GTConnect strategy has opened up across the institution, from enabling campus units to launch their own mentoring programs to identifying alumni who may be ready for deeper leadership and volunteer opportunities.

You’ll also hear how mentoring data gives the Association greater visibility into alumni engagement and can help identify alumni for future volunteer and leadership opportunities.

What You'll Walk Away With

• How Georgia Tech grew Mentor Jackets from a selective program into one serving more than 1,200 mentors and mentees
• How the program achieves a 97% preference-based match rate without manually pairing every participant 
• What Georgia Tech learned by asking alumni mentors what they needed, and the program changes that followed 
• How one alumni engagement platform can support mentoring programs across multiple campus units 
• How mentoring participation can help identify alumni for future volunteer and leadership opportunities 
• How Georgia Tech reports mentoring engagement and aligns its data with CASE Global Engagement Metrics 

Whether you’re evaluating technology for your mentoring program or looking for ideas to strengthen one you already run, you’ll hear a practical example of how Georgia Tech has expanded access to mentoring while keeping participant preferences and relationships at the center.