Federal grants for youth mentoring in high-poverty communities
S. 299 — Mentoring to Succeed Act of 2025 · Filed by Richard Durbin (D-IL) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 29, 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 organizations—nonprofits, faith-based groups, and public-private partnerships—can compete for grants (up to 3 years) to establish or expand mentoring programs that pair trained adult or peer mentors with at-risk youth, including those in high-poverty areas, rural communities, or facing trauma, incarceration in the family, or substance-abuse exposure. The bill prioritizes programs serving youth with the greatest need and requires grantees to track academic outcomes, employment, and social-emotional development.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a competitive federal grant program to fund mentoring and career-readiness services for at-risk youth. It is a straightforward public-investment instrument with no hidden riders, tax carve-outs, or private-sector immunity provisions.
What the text implies
- Mentoring programs may become dependent on federal grant cycles; sustainability beyond 3-year grant periods is not addressed, creating risk of program discontinuation.
- Outcome metrics (academic achievement, employment, arrest rates) are tracked but the bill does not specify consequences for programs that fail to meet benchmarks or how underperformance will be addressed.
- The bill requires coordination with 'private employers' and 'local businesses' but does not mandate employer participation or define their obligations, potentially limiting work-based learning access in economically distressed areas.
- Mentor compensation is authorized but not mandated; programs may struggle to recruit and retain quality mentors in low-income communities without adequate pay.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill directs federal resources to evidence-based mentoring and youth workforce development for economically disadvantaged, trauma-exposed, and justice-involved youth—populations with documented barriers to educational and employment success. Mentoring, social-emotional learning, and career pathways are established public goods; the bill includes safeguards (mentor screening, trauma-informed training, privacy protections, outcome tracking) and prioritizes high-need communities.
Who stands to gain
- Community-based nonprofits and youth-serving organizations
- Faith-based organizations providing youth services
- Local educational agencies and school districts
- Institutions of higher education (as partners in career pathways)
- Workforce development providers and training vendors
Named in the bill
Secretary of Labor, Department 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, Institutions of higher education, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- Jan 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 29, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. (text: CR S482-484)”
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.
Richard Durbin, the sponsor, reported $-29,800 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 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 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 2026-10-31.
“Federal grants for youth mentoring in high-poverty communities” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s299 Report an error
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