Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to "create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth".[3] Adult volunteers are matched with children from age 5 to young adulthood.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is one of the oldest and largest youth mentoring organizations in the United States. Big Brothers Big Sisters mentors children, ages 5 through young adulthood in communities across the country. The ages of children and youth served varies by affiliate.
Public/Private Ventures, an independent Philadelphia-based national research organization, conducted a study from 1994 to 1995, monitoring 950 boys and girls nationwide to study the effects of Big Brothers Big Sisters.[4] CEO Karen J. Mathis reported that the study found favorable outcomes to the organization.
Public/Private Ventures conducted another study in 2011 that evaluated the school-based Big Brothers Big Sisters Program.[5][6] This program also found favorable outcomes.
In 1904, a young New York City court clerk named Ernest Kent Coulter was seeing many boys come through his courtroom. He recognized that caring adults could help many of these boys stay out of trouble, and he set out to find volunteers. That marked the beginning of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City and the Big Brothers movement. By 1916, Big Brothers had spread to 96 cities across the country.
At around the same time, the members of a group called Ladies of Charity were befriending girls who had come through the New York Children's Court. That group would later become Catholic Big Sisters, an independent organization.