The Spark

New this month

Mentor Resources is becoming Mentor Home

A new look that’s more organized and more convenient. Try it with your own students; nothing changes unless you keep it. Take the tour ↓
Ted Bozarth
A Note from Ted
Founder, Chairman & Mentor

Mentors,

In October you logged 16 mentoring sessions, 2 more students were matched with a mentor, and the number of students who have completed their full 12-month mentorship — or are in their final wind-down — reached 52.

We received 3 student applications and 1 new mentor application in October. Our waiting list stands at 108 students, each one ready to start and waiting only on a mentor. Closing that gap still runs through workplace partnerships and affiliate partnerships that bring in mentors at scale. If you have a connection to a company or a professional association that might partner with us, a warm introduction from you remains the single most valuable thing you can do.

This issue is mostly about one thing: Mentor Resources is becoming Mentor Home. The old design was no longer enough to keep the key resources easy to reach and everything else easy to find, so we rebuilt it. Everything you need for your students is now on one page, with the Library, your profile and your settings one tap away. Nothing you relied on is gone, and you can try Mentor Home with your own students before deciding to keep it. Here is the tour →

Thank you for everything you do for these students. See you at the huddle on November 16.

— Ted

In This Issue

Your New Mentor Home

We’re moving from Mentor Resources to a new look that’s more organized and more convenient: Mentor Resources is being replaced by Mentor Home. The old design was no longer enough to keep the key resources easy to reach and everything else easy to find. Mentor Home is built around a simple idea: the things you do every week should be on one page, not spread across tabs. There are now four places, one tap apart — Home, the Library, My Profile and Settings. Nothing you relied on is gone; it has been reorganized so it is closer at hand.

Mentor Home: a Do now list with one item, Write your agenda for Maya, above Your students, with a card for Maya Chen showing her year line, an On track score, a Mentoring pill and a row of buttons, and a card for Andre Williams showing his onboarding date

Mentor Home. All names, dates and events in these pictures are examples.

Home: everything for your students

Do now is one list of what is due across all of your students — writing an agenda before a meeting, logging a session after it. When it is empty, you are all caught up.

Below it, each student has one card. A line across the card shows where you are in your year together: the sessions you have held, your next meeting and the check-ins ahead. Your commitment score sits at the top of the card — tap it to see each check behind it and your minutes month by month. And every tool for that student is in one row of buttons: Video Call, Topics, Meeting Update, Diary, Lumen, Launchpad, Profile and Surveys. Your student's email and phone are right on the card once your mentorship is under way. Before onboarding, the card shows your onboarding date instead.

Further down Mentor Home: Your impact with sessions held, hours given, students mentored and giving, then Coming up with a meeting, an onboarding, the Mentor Huddle and a special event, and Around the program with single sessions and The Spark

Further down, Your impact shows the sessions you have held, the hours you have given, the students you have mentored and the giving by you and the people you have referred. Coming up lists your next meeting with each student, any onboarding, the next Mentor Huddle and the next special event, in date order — register right there. Around the program shows students waiting for a single session and the latest issue of The Spark.

The Library: every guide and tool in one place

The Library: a search box and an Ask Sparky button above grouped lists such as Get better at mentoring, Do more for students, Share the program, Connect with other mentors, Read and listen, Your students' tools and Help

Every resource you used before is here, grouped by what it is for: getting better at mentoring, doing more for students, sharing the program, connecting with other mentors, and the tools your students use. Search by name, tap the i on any row for a short description, and ask Sparky right from the top of the page.

My Profile and Settings

My Profile puts your impact up front: your numbers, the students you are mentoring now, how many of your match proposals you have answered and the recognition you have earned. Settings holds everything you set up about yourself in three parts — About you, Your mentoring and How we reach you.

One meeting link for all your students. Video Call is built in, so you never need a link. If you prefer Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, paste your link once under Your mentoring and it is used for every student.

On your phone

Mentor Home on a phone: the Do now list with a Write agenda button
A student card on a phone, with the year line and the buttons in two columns

Mentor Home works in your phone's browser. Better still, open Add as Mobile App in the Library: it walks you through putting SetFire on your home screen, where it opens like an app and can send you notifications — so a huddle reminder, or a nudge that a Meeting Update is due, reaches you right away.

How to try it

Sign in and look for the Try the new Mentor Home banner at the top of the page, then click Try it. You will see the new Mentor Home with your own students for the next few hours, and nothing about your account changes. If you like it, click Keep the new Mentor Home in the bar across the top; if not, Go back ends the preview.

Kept it and changed your mind? Classic Mentor Resources in Settings has a Switch back button that returns you to Mentor Resources. Mentors who joined recently are already on the new Mentor Home.

Your students are getting the same change. Student Resources is being replaced by Student Home, with the same layout: Home, the Library, My Profile and Settings, one tap apart. Their Home shows their next session with you, with a Send topics button right beside it.

Our Impact To-Date

Together, we're building something remarkable. Here's where we stand in November 2026.

231
Enrolled
+622%
125
Active
+291%
162
Capacity
+113%
1,022
Sessions
+244%
33
Alumni
+450%
81.3%
Completion Rate
+16.5 pts
77
Colleges
+670%
$339k
Value Delivered
+297%

Mentor Spotlight

Chris Koch
Chris Koch
Owner & President · C3 Media, Inc.
Mentor since August 2025 · Based in Charlotte, North Carolina

Chris brings more than thirty years in marketing, sales and business development, from Ticketmaster and a decade at Clear Channel to founding C3 Media, the Charlotte creative agency he has led since 2008.

He mentors because he wishes a program like this had existed when he was in college. His first year with his student wraps up this fall: fourteen sessions and more than ten hours together.

“Becoming a mentor with the Sparks Mentorship Program has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve recently encountered.”

Connect on LinkedIn →

Mentoring Tip

Book December Before Thanksgiving

For most students, the stretch from mid-November to the new year is the most crowded of the whole school year: final projects, exams, travel home and, for many, a holiday job. It is also when mentoring meetings quietly slip — not because anyone decided to skip one, but because nobody put it on the calendar before the calendar filled up.

So use your November meeting to book December. Ask your student when their last exam is and when they head home, and pick a time on either side of it before you hang up. If the month gets tight, a shorter conversation is far better than none: the habit of meeting matters more than the length of any one meeting.

And give that December meeting a job. The end of a semester is a natural moment to look back at the goals your student set in Lumen, ask what they are proud of, and choose one thing to work on in January. Students rarely pause to take stock on their own; fifteen minutes of it with you is often what turns a busy semester into a story they can tell.

November Mentor Huddle

Join us for our November huddle. We'll cover program updates and discuss mentoring strategies.

The detailed topic list will be included in email reminders sent 7 days, 1 day, and 1 hour before the huddle.

Monthly Mentor Huddle

Date: Monday, November 16, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM ET
Location: Virtual

Agenda

  • Mentor Intros, Q&A & Best Practices
  • Program Update
  • Platform Update
  • Mentoring Tips

Register Now

Can't make it? Meeting notes will be shared within 48 hours. We value your time and want everyone to stay connected.

Help us Impact More Students

Know a Great Mentor?

Students of every major are waiting for a mentor. Send them our way.

Refer a Mentor

Students Are Waiting

We have students ready to be matched. Help us spread the word.

View Waiting List

Know someone who's curious but not ready to apply? Our next mentor info sessions are Thursday, November 12 and Monday, November 23, both at 7:00 PM ET. Send them here to register →

View My Referral Network →

Beyond Mentoring

Your time as a mentor is the contribution we asked you for, and it remains the most valuable thing you give to the Sparks Mentorship Program — you are already doing enough. The options below are entirely optional, for any mentor with capacity to help us grow in additional ways.

Make a Donation

Every dollar helps us reach more students and move closer to financial self-sufficiency.

Giving Page

Open a Door for Us

Know someone at a corporate sponsor or foundation? A warm intro from you carries far more weight than any cold ask we could send.

Connect Us

SetFire Foundation · Sparks Mentorship Program

The Spark

Opens Monday, October 5 · Closes October 19

Our first-ever mentor survey is almost here

Fifteen minutes at most, anonymous by default, and the most direct say you will ever have in how this program runs. What to expect ↓
Ted Bozarth
A Note from Ted
Founder, Chairman & Mentor

Sparks Mentors,

On September 11, the entire program moved onto a platform of our own — every profile, every mentorship, every meeting note came across — and you reset your passwords and kept right on mentoring. Thank you for your patience through it. The work didn't miss a beat: you logged 76 mentoring sessions in September, 16 more students were matched with a mentor, and the number of students who have completed their full 12-month mentorship — or are in their final wind-down — reached 50.

After the summer surge, student applications settled back to 22 in September, against 31 in August — but the students that surge brought us are all still here. Our waiting list stands at 106 students, most of them in engineering and information technology, each one ready to start and waiting only on a mentor. Against that, we received 5 new mentor applications in September. Our path to closing the gap remains workplace partnerships and affiliate partnerships that bring in mentors at scale — and this fall we are focused on engineering and IT associations. If you have a connection to a company or an association that might partner with us, a warm introduction from you is still the single most valuable thing you can do. Please connect us where you can.

And one more thing — our first mentor survey opens Monday, October 5, and runs for two weeks. It is the clearest way you have to tell us what is working and what isn't, and we will act on what we hear. It takes fifteen minutes at most, and it is anonymous by default. Here is what to expect →

Thank you for being the reason this works. See you at the huddle on October 15.

— Ted

In This Issue

Our Impact To-Date

Together, we're building something remarkable. Here's where we stand in October 2026.

228
Enrolled
+613%
125
Active
+291%
161
Capacity
+115%
1,002
Sessions
+263%
32
Alumni
+540%
81.8%
Completion Rate
+16.5 pts
76
Colleges
+533%
$314k
Value Delivered
+328%
A Milestone, Just Reached
1,000
mentoring sessions delivered to students

This week the Sparks Mentorship Program logged its 1,000th one-on-one mentoring session. Every one of those was a mentor who showed up for a student — that is you. Thank you. Session 1,001 is already on someone's calendar.

Mentor Survey — Opens October 5

On Monday, October 5, every active Sparks mentor will get an email inviting them to our first-ever mentor survey. It stays open for two weeks and closes at the end of the day on Monday, October 19.

We built it because the people who know this program best are the ones doing the mentoring. Matching, onboarding, the platform, the resources, how well we keep you informed — you see all of it from a side we can't, and we want to hear it plainly.

It takes a few minutes — up to 15.
The first question asks where you are in your mentoring journey, and the survey follows from there. If you are still waiting for your first student, you get a short set of questions about getting started. If you have been mentoring a while, you get the full survey.

It is anonymous by default.
Your invitation carries a one-time link that isn't tied to your name. You can add your name if you'd like us to be able to follow up with you, but you never have to.

Your link works once.
Please don't forward it — if someone else uses it, it is spent. Set aside a quiet fifteen minutes and do it in one sitting.

Watch your inbox on October 5. If the invitation hasn't arrived by the end of that day, check your spam folder, then let us know at info@setfirefoundation.org and we will sort it out.

The more of you who answer, the more the results mean. Thank you in advance for your time — and for your honesty.

Fuel the Fire — What You Built

From August 1 through Labor Day, SetFire did something it had never done before: we asked the public for support. Here is where Fuel the Fire landed.

$11,816
Total Impact
$4,000
Match Unlocked
37
Donors
31
First-Time Givers

Community gifts reached $7,816 — about a third of our $21,600 goal — and unlocked the board's full $4,000 match. We didn't reach the goal. What we did build matters more over time: 31 people who had never given to SetFire before chose to back these students, and 29 Founding Sponsor seats were claimed.

Those gifts added several months of operating runway — time that keeps mentorships going while larger foundation and corporate funding develops. And a good number of those first-time donors found us because a mentor shared a campaign link or said a word on our behalf. If that was you, thank you. Your time is still the most valuable thing anyone gives this program, and nobody expected more from you than that.

Where Students Are Waiting

106 students are waiting for a mentor today. Of the 145 students who applied between July and September, 84 are studying engineering or information technology — the fields where demand is growing fastest and where our mentor bench is thinnest.

That is why our focus this fall is on affiliate partners in engineering and IT: professional associations whose members can become mentors in exactly those fields. A partnership like that brings qualified mentors in steadily, not one at a time, and it is how a volunteer-run program keeps pace with demand like this.

Are you a member of an engineering or IT association — a local chapter, a society, an alumni group? An introduction to the right person there could bring us dozens of mentors. Write to us at info@setfirefoundation.org.

Every major is welcome in this program and always will be — this is simply where the students are right now. And matching happens at the level of the field, so a professional doesn't need to share a student's exact specialty to be the right mentor for them.

Refer a Mentor

See the students who are waiting →

Mentor Spotlight

Angela Pulley
Angela Pulley
Tax Accounting · Coca‑Cola Consolidated
Sparks Mentor · Based in Fort Mill, South Carolina

Angela has spent more than thirty years in tax and accounting — corporate tax, financial accounting, individual tax, ASC 740 tax accounting, research, planning and audit — after earning her degree at Clemson University. Long before she joined the Sparks Mentorship Program she was already developing people at work: two colleagues in tax and accounting, and three interns, two of whom went on to careers in public accounting. She mentors because she wants to help shape the future of her profession, and because, as tax reform and AI reshape the field, she believes experienced guidance matters more than ever.

Her student, Gregory, put it this way: “Angela challenged me not to self-select out of opportunities because my path looks different from that of a traditional accounting student. Her experience, encouragement, and willingness to share her professional network have been invaluable.”

Connect on LinkedIn →

Platform Updates

Here's what's new on the platform.

Mentoring Guide 2.0

The Mentoring Guide has been fully revised, and Version 2.0 was published on September 22. It is not a rulebook — it is a collection of what has worked for other mentors, to come back to whenever you want ideas or a starting point. It walks through the whole relationship, from the first meeting to the art of mentoring, and adds practical help for the harder moments: when your student goes quiet, when expectations don't line up, when a conversation gets difficult, and how to look after yourself along the way. It closes with a quick reference of conversation starters and a monthly checklist.

Where to find it: the Mentoring Guide tile on your Mentor Resources page.

Single Session Mentoring

There is now a way to help a waiting student without taking on a full year. Single Session Mentoring is one conversation with a student who is still waiting to be matched — up to an hour, on video, about whatever they asked to talk about. It is separate from the year-long program, and each student gets one, ever.

You choose the student. You see what students in your domain want to talk about and pick one you can help — the program office never assigns them to you. You set the number you'll take in a month, and it is a ceiling, not a quota: if no student asks, nothing happens and nobody chases you. It renews quietly each month until you change it, and it never touches your full-year students or your open spots. Afterwards we ask one question — would you mentor this student for a year? — and a yes goes to the program office as a proposal.

Where you do it: open your Mentor Profile, go to Settings, and look for Single Session Mentoring. Turn it off any time; sessions already booked still stand.

Who can sign up: mentors who have mentored a student in our program for at least six months. If you haven't reached six months yet, you won't see Single Session Mentoring in your Settings — it appears once you do.

Why your sign-up matters: a domain opens to students only once five mentors in that domain have signed up. Until then, students in that field can't request a session at all — so every mentor who opts in brings their field one step closer to opening.

Coaching Tools, Now Built In

Four of our AI coaching tools — The Interviewer, Career Explorer, Values Explorer, and Mentoring Styles — were always ours, but they used to run on an outside site. They now run inside the platform itself, so your student no longer needs an outside account to use them. Brand Coach, Life Studio, and Foundations of Money are next.

None of them replaces a conversation with you — but each gives you something concrete to talk about. Ask your student to try one before your next meeting and bring what they found. Whatever surprised them is usually the best place to start.

Internships Have a Page of Their Own

Every open internship the platform knows about — more than 1,000 listings, each matched to a student's field and shown as one card per posting — now lives on a single Internships page, and mentors can browse it too. Roles listed by a partner or a mentor come first, the rest are refreshed every night, and one click narrows the list to a field.

What you can do there: pick one of your students on any card and click Send to this student. They get a note that their mentor found an internship for them, with a link straight to the posting. You can also list an opening you know of from the same page — and with the summer internship season opening now (see this month's tip), there is no better time to share one.

How it works with Launchpad: Launchpad is still your student's job-search workspace; the Internships page is the pool it draws from. When your student saves a listing — from the page, from a note you sent, or from the recommendations inside Launchpad — it lands on the same Launchpad board, where they track the application from there. One board, nothing to reconcile.

Where you find it: open your Mentor Resources page, go to the Student tab, and click the Internships tile.

Know of an internship? Any mentor can put one in front of our students. Open your Mentor Resources page and click the List an Internship tile: paste the link to the posting, the platform reads the role, employer, location and closing date off the page, you confirm the summary, and it is live in the pool the same day — visible to every student in that field, and to you on the Internships page. An opening at your own company, or one you happened to spot, is worth the thirty seconds.

Mentoring Tip

Next Summer's Internships Are Being Filled Now

Most students think of summer internships as a spring project. Many employers don't. At larger companies — and in fields like finance, consulting, engineering and tech — applications for next summer often open in August and September, and a good share of the spots are filled before the winter break. A student who starts looking in March can find the best openings already gone.

So use an October meeting to build the calendar together. Ask your student to name five organizations they would love to work for next summer, then look up each one's timeline side by side: when applications open, when they close, and what they ask for. Most students have never done this, and seeing the dates in one place is usually what turns “I should apply somewhere” into a plan.

Then pick one application to finish before your next meeting — and offer to read it first. Your fifteen minutes on a cover letter is worth more than any template they will find.

October Mentor Huddle

Join us for our October huddle. We'll cover program updates and discuss mentoring strategies.

The detailed topic list will be included in email reminders sent 7 days, 1 day, and 1 hour before the huddle.

Monthly Mentor Huddle

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM ET
Location: Virtual

Agenda

  • Mentor Intros, Q&A & Best Practices
  • Program Update
  • Platform Update
  • Mentoring Tips

Register Now

Can't make it? Meeting notes will be shared within 48 hours. We value your time and want everyone to stay connected.

Help us Impact More Students

Know a Great Mentor?

Students of every major are waiting for a mentor. Send them our way.

Refer a Mentor

Students Are Waiting

We have students ready to be matched. Help us spread the word.

View Waiting List

Know someone who's curious but not ready to apply? Our next mentor info sessions are Monday, October 5 and Tuesday, October 20, both at 7:00 PM ET. Send them here to register →

View My Referral Network →

Beyond Mentoring

Your time as a mentor is the contribution we asked you for, and it remains the most valuable thing you give to Sparks — you are already doing enough. The options below are entirely optional, for any mentor with capacity to help us grow in additional ways.

Make a Donation

Every dollar helps us reach more students and move closer to financial self-sufficiency.

Giving Page

Open a Door for Us

Know someone at a corporate sponsor or foundation? A warm intro from you carries far more weight than any cold ask we could send.

Connect Us

SetFire Foundation · Sparks Mentorship Program