MentorPRO has been awarded a Phase II SBIR grant of over $1MM through the National Science Foundation
MentorPRO, the only evidence-based mentoring platform, has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of over $1MM through the National Science Foundation. The grant will support research and development on MentorAI, its AI-powered assistant that helps mentors and advisors deliver more effective support to mentees. The two-year award funds the project “SBIR Phase II: Advancing MentorAI to Improve Academic and Workforce Outcomes” and runs from August 2026 through July 2028.
Millions of students leave college each year without a degree, often because they lack a trusted adult who can help them navigate academic, financial, and personal challenges. MentorAI addresses these problems by drawing on decades of peer-reviewed mentoring research, translated into the MentorPRO platform under the guidance of Professor Jean Rhodes. MentorAI enables programs to scale mentoring by providing mentors instant access to mentee summaries, evidence-based guidance, and campus-specific resources. MentorAI’s ts“human-at-the-helm” approach serves to reduce mentors’ cognitive load, rather than communicating directly to mentees. In Phase I testing with experienced peer mentors, 96 percent reported satisfaction with MentorAI, 100 percent agreed it saved them time and reduced the mental effort of mentoring tasks, and the tool earned a Net Promoter Score of 88, well above the industry benchmark of 66 for business-to-business technology. Phase II will build on these results, with independent evaluations already linking MentorPRO use to significant improvements in students’ GPAs, sense of connection, and one-year retention.
“This award reflects years of careful peer-reviewed research showing that structured, evidence-based mentoring changes students’ trajectories. Phase II allows us to bring that science to many more mentors and students, with the human relationship always at the center,” said Professor Jean Rhodes, , Co-founder of MentorPRO and Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring at UMass Boston.
“Our Phase I work proved that MentorAI can be deployed securely across institutions while making mentors measurably more effective. Phase II is about scale, rigor, and reaching the students who need this support most,” said Nancy McNamara, Co-founder of MentorPRO and Principal Investigator on the award.
Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant), it becomes eligible to apply for a Phase II. Small businesses with Phase II funding are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales.
Entrepreneurs who submit a written Project Pitch (https://seedfund.nsf.gov/apply/get-started/) will know within about a month if they meet the program’s objectives to support innovative technologies that show promise of commercial and/or societal impact and involve an appropriate level of technical risk. Startups and small businesses with innovative science and technology solutions, and commercial potential, are encouraged to apply. All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program, also known as America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, undergo a rigorous merit-based review process. To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit https://seedfund.nsf.gov/
About the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Programs. America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
About MentorPRO. MentorPRO is the leading research-validated mentoring platform, built on more than two decades of peer-reviewed research. MentorPRO has been linked to improved retention, GPA, and sense of belonging in higher education. Learn more at mentorpro.org.
