Federal grants to expand mentoring for at-risk youth in poor communities
H.R. 811 — Mentoring to Succeed Act of 2025 · Filed by Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) · 14 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a new federal grant program to fund youth mentoring initiatives that help disadvantaged young people develop social-emotional skills, explore careers, and prepare for work or higher education. Eligible nonprofits and partnerships can compete for grants (up to 3 years) to establish or expand mentoring programs serving at-risk youth in high-poverty, rural, or violence-affected communities, with priority given to programs that connect mentees with job training, internships, and postsecondary pathways.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a competitive grant program to fund community-based mentoring and career-readiness initiatives for disadvantaged youth. It is a straightforward public investment in youth development, not a tax provision, subsidy to a named entity, or regulatory change.
What the text implies
- Program success depends on sustained appropriations (2026–2030); if funding lapses, mentoring relationships may be disrupted mid-stream, potentially harming youth who have formed attachments to mentors.
- Reporting requirements include detailed outcome data on arrests, employment, and postsecondary enrollment; this creates a longitudinal dataset on youth outcomes that could inform future policy but also raises privacy and surveillance concerns if data is misused.
- Priority weighting toward high-poverty and violence-affected communities may concentrate resources geographically, potentially leaving other underserved areas (e.g., some rural regions, suburban pockets of poverty) with fewer mentoring options.
- Mentors are screened for criminal history in the 7-year lookback period; youth with prior justice involvement may face barriers to becoming peer mentors, even if rehabilitation is evident.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands access to mentoring and workforce development for at-risk youth in high-poverty and underserved communities, addressing documented gaps in career guidance and social-emotional support. The program targets youth facing barriers (poverty, violence exposure, family incarceration, academic struggle, disability) and funds evidence-based mentoring with trauma-informed training, career exploration, and work-based learning—all documented drivers of improved educational and employment ou
Who stands to gain
- Community-based nonprofits and youth-serving organizations (grant recipients)
- Faith-based organizations (eligible as community-based organizations)
- Local educational agencies and schools (partners in coordination)
- Private employers and industry partnerships (partners in work-based learning)
Named in the bill
Department of Labor, Secretary of Labor, Chief Evaluation Officer of the Department of Labor, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Secretary of Education, National Mentoring Resource Center, Community-based organizations, Local educational agencies, Covered institutions of higher education, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Higher Education Act of 1965 — and 3 more
Where it stands
14 cosponsors: 14 Democrats.
- Jan 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $10,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 9 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Jan Schakowsky, the sponsor, reported $88,051 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Mentoring Partnership Inc — $10,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (19,653 characters) on Oct 26, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,580 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-26.
“Federal grants to expand mentoring for at-risk youth in poor communities” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr811 Report an error
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