The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts is to partner with families to provide their children with transformational, one-to-one professionally supported relationships with caring adult mentors, so that their children will thrive.
Our vision is to inspire, engage and transform the communities of Eastern Massachusetts by helping youth achieve their full potential, contributing to healthier families, better schools, brighter futures and stronger communities
Relationships are the foundation of our work. We create the most impactful relationships when connections between our staff, Bigs, Littles, parents, partners, and supporters are significant and strong.
Every meaningful relationship is built on trust. We build trust through a rigorous commitment to honesty, transparency, respect, and equity.
We maximize our impact and truly thrive as an organization when perspectives are diverse, our culture is inclusive, and our practices model the equity we want to see in the world.
We can’t stand still. Creativity, innovation, continuous learning, and a drive to improve enable us to make the greatest impact on as many children as possible.
We hold ourselves accountable for delivering measurable, long-lasting outcomes that clear a path to a child’s greatest possible future.
Our work is urgent, so effort alone is not enough. We set ambitious goals and expect to meet them, because every child who needs a mentor deserves one.
Our Impact
Every community member is empowered to be a force for change in achieving our mission. Transformative change happens when everyone feels welcomed, seen, heard, and valued.
The impact of our work lies in forging bonds between Bigs (mentors), Littles (mentees), and their families to promote understanding and learning. Thus, creating an open space where everyone is valued and vital to us. Beyond being ‘the right thing to do’ we know that workplaces that are free of prejudice and representative of the communities we serve are critical to our ability to grow the impact of our agency.
Meet or join our amazing and passionate team of staff and board members, all united by a shared commitment to the power of mentoring.
In its first year, “Big Brother Association of Boston” matched 10 boys with adult volunteers. And from this modest beginning, we have grown and evolved into the largest youth mentoring agency in New England. Today, we serve over 4,000 boys and girls annually, in over 150 communities. And while our agency’s founders would be amazed at the innovative ways that our programs leverage technology, the strength and breadth of our partnership network, and the variety of programs we offer, we remain steadfastly committed to the founding ideal: that a strong, long-lasting one-to-one relationship between a child and a caring adult will ignite the potential in that child. Scroll through the timeline of our history below and get a glimpse into how far we have come since 1949!
In 1949, "Big Brother Association of Boston" was founded by a small group of volunteers who wanted to help fatherless boys in the region. In that first year, 10 children were served.
The program quickly grew, and the agency began to hire staff, hold fundraising events, and conduct outreach.
Even in the earliest years, data analysis was a significant component to our culture - as can be seen in the hand-drawn wait list chart from 1955.
The 1970's and 80's saw continued service growth and we celebrated our 25th anniversary.
The agency became known as "Big Brother Association of Greater Boston", reflecting the dozens of communities where we served children and recruited volunteers.
In 1984, John Pearson was named CEO. He held that position for 25 years and oversaw a quarter-century of growth and innovation that forever changed the youth mentoring landscape in eastern Massachusetts.
The 1990's began an era of innovation and expansion. "Project 1,000" saw the agency grow to serve over 1,000 youth annually. The "Core Initiative" focused our efforts on boys living in the urban core communities of our service area. We launched our School-Based mentoring program in 2001.
For the first time, we began serving a small number of girls living in communities on the North Shore. During this time, we also launched the large Agency Alliance in Boston to bring the largest and most sophisticated agencies together to learn and advance.
Our successful "Vision 2000" strategic plan saw us grow to serve over 2,000 annually. In 2006, we joined forces withe the Cape & Islands BBBS agency and BBBS of greater Attleboro, and the merger more than quadrupled the number of girls we served, To reflect these changes in geography and demographics, we formally adopted the name "Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay".
During these years, technology innovation was critical to our success. We were one of the first agencies to have a computerized database.
In most recent years, our service area has continued to expand to the Greater New Bedford region and north into the Merrimack Valley.
In the Fall of 2016 we launched the innovative, technology-enhanced Mentor 2.0 Program (now Big Futures Mentoring Program), for the first time. We are now serving in 3 Eastern Massachusetts High Schools, with a 4th school to launch in the 2024-2025 academic year. The program matches students with mentors for all 4 years of high school.
In the Fall of 2018 we launched a new brand, creating a bold, urgent new message to defend the potential of every child.
In 2020, BBBSEM created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Roadmap and identified six areas of focus where the nonprofit can make improvements:
Since then, special attention has been paid to increasing representation among staff, board members, board members, Bigs, and corporate and community partners to highlight the growing diversity of the communities the agency serves
In the 2021-22 school year BBBSEM launched a partnership program with the Madison Park High School (The only voc-Tech High School serving Boston). This first-of-its-kind program provides social, academic, and career guidance and support for young people enrolled in the schools building trades programs.
In the 2023-2024 school year, BBBSEM rebranded its high school mentoring program formerly mentoring 2.0, to Big Futures Mentoring. That same school year, BBBSEM launch at its first school outside Boston, Revere High School.
BBBSEM recently launched "Commitment 10,000" - a plan to reach, serve, and produce positive outcomes, through mentoring, for at least 10,000 children living in Eastern Massachusetts between 2023-2028.
To reach our ambitious goals, we are making immediate and sustained investments in Family Outreach, Child Enrollment, and Volunteer Recruitment. Our plan emphasizes
These priorities are community-driven, jointly determined by our organization and the families we served, key community partners and our donors.
Early in 2025, Big Sister Association of Greater Boston merged with BBBSEM, expanding access to one-to-one youth mentoring programs and resources for hundreds of children, and volunteer mentors across the region.
It’s your money that keeps us going and enables us to connect young people with transformational mentoring relationships.
