Stocking the Pond: Empowering Young Women to Recruit Social Capital Through Technology-Enabled Flash Mentoring

Abstract

Young women from historically marginalized backgrounds face significant barriers to accessing the professional guidance and social capital necessary for career advancement. To address this problem, a flash mentoring digital tool was developed to expand underrepresented young women’s access to time-limited guidance from pre-screened professional women within Step Up Women’s Network, a mentorship nonprofit program. This community-based program evaluation used a user-centered design approach to develop and refine the platform. In-person workshops and informal group discussion sessions with young Step Up women aged 18 to 29 provided feedback on networking approaches and mentorship needs, which informed the platform design. A total of 285 female mentors and 363 female mentees downloaded and engaged with the platform over two years. Implementation metrics included 5008 messages exchanged with 2528 sent by mentees, 316 meetings held, and high usage of goal-setting features with 1445 goals set and check-ins with 72 percent of mentees. Evaluation findings suggested that the intervention was acceptable and feasible, fostering new, short-term supportive relationships within Step Up Women’s Network. Although additional evaluation with rigorous outcome measures is needed, this program evaluation highlights the potential of a scalable intervention for Step Up Women’s Network that extends the framework of youth-initiated mentoring interventions, which have shown considerable promise in recent years.

1. Introduction

Social capital, defined as the resources available through social networks and relationships, is associated with various benefits, such as academic, career, and economic outcomes, particularly for older adolescents and young adults (Chetty et al., 2022; S. Schwartz et al., 2023). Access to opportunity is often shaped by who students know, yet many young people do not begin on equal footing. First-generation college students and those from historically marginalized racial and ethnic communities often have fewer chances to form the professional relationships that can open doors to internships, guidance, and career pathways (Leigh, 2021; Raposa et al., 2021). When these connections are limited, inequities in education and employment persist. Reducing these gaps will require new models that go beyond simply encouraging networking—approaches must intentionally build students’ relationship-building capacity while also creating direct pathways to committed mentors.

Bonding social capital refers to strong, inward-focused connections within homogenous groups, fostering trust and support, while bridging capital refers to outward-focused connections across diverse groups, promoting inclusivity and access to broader opportunities (Putnam, 2000; for reviews, see S. Schwartz et al., 2023). In this evaluation, we explore a novel strategy for expanding the availability of social capital among young women in the Step Up Women’s Network and document the feasibility and iterative development of a flash mentoring platform.

Despite the value of both bonding and bridging social capital, youth from historically marginalized backgrounds often experience barriers to building broader networks (Raposa et al., 2021). Although their immediate communities possess extraordinary cultural wealth and assets, they often have fewer opportunities to forge new connections and often have lower levels of experience and comfort with reaching beyond their close ties (Schuyler et al., 2021). Such youth are also more likely to have parents who have not attended college or held jobs that require a college education, are less likely to attend college themselves, and may lack familiarity with the hidden curriculum of networking in schools and workplaces (Mishra, 2020; Thiem & Dasgupta, 2022). This, in turn, reduces their access to opportunities for economic mobility (Chetty et al., 2022). These barriers can result in well-documented disparities in social capital for young people with marginalized identities. In one recent survey of nearly 30,000 university seniors, researchers found that first-generation students and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students were significantly less likely to engage in activities such as networking, informational interviewing, and job shadowing (Leigh, 2021).

Young women face additional barriers to accessing and leveraging social capital for career advancement, particularly in male-dominated fields. Many young women face a confidence gap as they consider their work and career prospects (Exley & Kessler, 2022), which may dampen their willingness to reach out. Women also report lower self-esteem than their male counterparts (Zuckerman et al., 2016). In professional settings, women experience gender bias, including discrimination in performance evaluations and leadership opportunities (for reviews, see Heilman, 2012). Additionally, they often face barriers to building career networks, as male-dominated networks can limit their access to high-status connections and valuable career opportunities (for reviews, see Contreras et al., 2024; Mickey, 2022). Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, for example, report fewer network connections than men (Jebsen et al., 2022). To address these disparities, there is a need to create inclusive networking spaces from which women can more easily recruit support from more experienced professionals to explore careers.

1.1. Interventions

Mentoring refers to a supportive, growth-focused connection in which a knowledgeable and supportive person helps guide someone younger or with lesser experience, often for the goal of developing their personal and career-related skills (DuBois & Karcher, 2013; Rhodes, 2005). One-to-one mentoring models for young adults transitioning to adulthood emphasize two main mentoring functions for personal and professional development: career (e.g., exposure to opportunities to enhance their career-related skills) and psychosocial (e.g., emotional support and confidence building) that unfold over distinct phases of mentorship evolution, ranging from initiation of the mentorship to redefinition of the mentorship (or termination) (Kram, 1983). More recently, scholars have recognized that mentoring takes many forms beyond the classic dyad, including peer mentoring, group mentoring, and culturally responsive mentoring (Mullen & Klimaitis, 2021). Flash mentoring, as implemented in the present evaluation, departs from traditional models in its emphasis on brief, focused interactions in which a mentee seeks targeted career guidance from a professional around a specific topic or need. Rather than assuming a sustained relationship, flash mentoring prioritizes accessibility, breadth of exposure, and low barriers to entry for both mentors and mentees. The present evaluation thus draws on an expanded conceptualization of mentoring while positioning flash mentoring as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, longer-term mentoring relationships.

In response to persistent gaps in access to social capital, social capital interventions have emerged in recent years. For example, youth-initiated mentoring (YIM) is a mentoring model in which the mentees are trained to secure their own mentors within their networks, rather than being matched by a program (S. E. O. Schwartz et al., 2016; S. Schwartz et al., 2023). In YIM models, mentees learn to identify individuals within their existing networks who could serve as guides, develop thoughtful and strategic ways to initiate contact, and cultivate those relationships so they remain mutually beneficial and sustained over time. This relies on mentee agency and networking skill development, rather than formal 1:1 mentoring matches, limiting the breadth of mentors available to the mentee.

The most prominent of these teaching-to-fish approaches is Connected Scholars (CS), a program through which young adults are taught the value of social capital, as well as the specific steps involved in reaching out to potential mentors and other supports (S. E. O. Schwartz et al., 2016, 2017; S. Schwartz et al., 2023). Multiple qualitative and quantitative studies have supported the effectiveness of the program on a range of outcomes, including gains in help-seeking attitudes and behaviors, mentor relationships, and college graduation (e.g., Hersch et al., 2025; S. E. O. Schwartz et al., 2016, 2017; S. Schwartz et al., 2023).

Yet instilling the requisite networking skills does not address the fact that marginalized youth have fewer opportunities to identify and build bridging social capital. This has led to efforts that are designed to expand networks, essentially stocking the pond from which more marginalized youth can search for and connect with caring professionals. Although online professional networking sites like LinkedIn have the potential to expand access to bridging capital, selecting from a seemingly infinite pool and then approaching strangers may feel daunting to marginalized youth. Programs can support such efforts by creating smaller, closed networks of professionals who have been prescreened for their willingness to engage in the more time-limited exchanges around professional development (i.e., flash mentoring, defined by its shorter-lived nature). Young women in particular need concrete guidance on identifying sponsors and success partners who will advocate for them in rooms they are not in, share critical information, and help them navigate bias and microaggressions. This highlights the benefits of creating ecosystems in schools, colleges, and early-career spaces where women of color can regularly encounter near-peer and senior women who model possibility, provide honest feedback, and open doors. From this perspective, cultivating dense, supportive networks that both buffer against exclusion and actively pull young women of color toward opportunity is essential.

The present intervention intentionally combines both approaches: stocking the pond by creating an accessible pool of willing, pre-screened mentors, and teaching to fish by providing resources, training, and support to help mentees develop networking skills and confidence in reaching out. This dual emphasis distinguishes the current approach from interventions that focus solely on skill-building without expanding mentor accessibility, or those that simply assign mentors without developing mentees’ capacity for self-directed networking. By addressing both mentee skills and mentor availability simultaneously, the intervention aims to create a more comprehensive and sustainable model for expanding social capital among Step Up mentees.

This intervention ties together the complementary theories described above. Social capital theory (Putnam, 2000) highlights the importance of bridging connections for expanding access to opportunity. Youth-initiated mentoring (S. E. O. Schwartz et al., 2016; S. Schwartz et al., 2023) emphasizes the value of training young people to actively seek out and recruit their own mentors. The “web of support” framework (Varga & Zaff, 2018) underscores the developmental benefits of having multiple supportive adults, while the supportive accountability model (Mohr et al., 2011) points to the role of consistent, responsive human support in sustaining engagement with digital interventions. Together, these frameworks support the use of flash mentoring as a scalable, digital youth-driven approach to building professional networks and social capital.

1.2. Current Evaluation

Given the novelty of combining stocking the pond with teaching to fish approaches to building social capital, we undertook a collaborative approach to design, implement, and evaluate a flash mentoring intervention with Step Up Women’s Network (Step Up), a nonprofit organization that empowers young women from under-resourced communities. This evaluation had two primary objectives: first, to document the feasibility and acceptability of delivering flash mentoring to Step Up mentees through a digital platform, and second, to describe the iterative user-centered design (UCD) process that informed platform development and refinement. In this paper, we describe a bottom-up analytical approach that informed UCD core design principles (McCurdie et al., 2012). MentorPRO served as the digital platform that hosted the flash mentoring intervention in collaboration with Step Up. The evaluation focused on the feasibility and acceptability of using this platform to deliver flash mentoring. This research article presents a community-based program evaluation with Step Up using quantitative implementation data and qualitative user feedback, rather than an experimental study testing causal effects.

Step Up staff began by recruiting a pool of female professionals primarily through their national member network and corporate partners. Mentors were adults typically aged 30 years and older. They represented a range of industries, including business, finance, media, fashion, social services, and technology. Step Up staff recruited mentors primarily through their national member network and corporate partners. During onboarding, mentors were informed about program expectations, including timely responsiveness to mentee outreach and completion of detailed profiles to help mentees make informed connection decisions. The mentors completed profiles with searchable identifiers (e.g., mentor “power skills” or specific career-related expertise) that mentees can browse and contact based on their personal and professional development goals. This functionality was incorporated into MentorPRO, a smartphone and browser-based application, which has shown acceptability and feasibility with similar populations (e.g., Werntz et al., 2023, 2026). In addition to messaging and video meeting capabilities, MentorPRO allows mentees to set and share their goals with their mentors. Through MentorPRO, mentees are also prompted to reflect on challenges across seven life domains (academics, career, connections, finances, health, planning, and well-being). The additional networking feature enabled mentees to easily search for and reach out to potential mentors.

The evaluation discussed in this article relied on descriptive implementation metrics derived from user activity within the MentorPRO platform. Key indicators of young women’s engagement in the networking features included the number of mentors and mentees who downloaded and logged into the app, the number of messages exchanged and meetings held, and the frequency with which mentees used features such as goal setting and check-ins. These data were used to assess feasibility, acceptability, and patterns of platform usage. No inferential statistical analyses were conducted, consistent with the exploratory and user-centered nature of the evaluation. This was a descriptive program evaluation focused on feasibility and implementation within Step Up’s Women’s Network rather than an experimental study with controlled outcome assessments. The evaluation methods and data sources were designed to assess whether flash mentoring could be successfully delivered through a digital platform and to identify refinements needed to improve user experience and engagement within Step Up’s programming.

2. Materials and Methods

User-centered design (UCD) is a systematic approach to technology development that places users at the core of the design process, involving them at every stage to ensure the final product aligns with their needs, preferences, and contexts of use (Abras et al., 2004; Schnall et al., 2016). This iterative methodology was selected for developing the flash mentoring capabilities for integration into MentorPRO because of its benefits for improving user engagement and adoption of mobile health applications, particularly when designing for specialized populations (McCurdie et al., 2012). The iterative design process allows researchers, practitioners, and key stakeholders to provide feedback and ensure acceptability and feasibility of the intervention.

We conducted user evaluation through Step Up’s in-person workshops and informal group discussion sessions with culturally diverse young women to understand their networking approaches and career mentorship needs. The in-person workshops, called Power Talks, were originally designed by program staff to provide opportunities for young women aged 18 to 29 to learn career-related skills, network, and build social capital. These workshops included panels with professional women, small-group discussions, and speed networking sessions, which ultimately allowed Step Up to observe mentees’ actual networking approaches and challenges in practice, not just their self-reported needs. These workshops and group sessions ultimately functioned as co-design activities that were used to inform the flash mentoring platform features. The flash mentoring platform was refined through multiple rounds of testing with mentors and mentees in the Step Up community. The initial investigation explored the feasibility of flash mentoring and gathered insights about potential barriers to engagement within the Step Up community. Young women learned about Step Up programming and Power Talks events through multiple channels, including email blasts, posts on Instagram and LinkedIn, personal texts, and event posts on GroupMe (a group communication platform) and the flash mentoring platform.

2.1. Initial Prototype

As described above, Power Talks workshops were held across 2023 and 2024. In addition to panels, small-group discussions, and networking activities, some events included speed networking sessions that introduced the concept of flash mentoring. The goal was to help young women practice and gain confidence in career networking with professional women, ultimately assisting the staff in understanding networking approaches and challenges.

In total, 352 young women participated across all workshops conducted in 2023 and 2024. Among those who reported race and ethnicity, 23 percent were Asian or Asian American, approximately 24 percent were Black or African American, around 29 percent were Latina or Latine, 5 percent were White, and smaller proportions identified as multiracial (2.59 percent) or Arab (0.29 percent).

Following the events, Step Up staff met with MentorPRO staff to discuss themes that emerged from the Power Talks events. Data from in-person and virtual Power Talks intergenerational workshops (bringing together young women aged 18–29 with professional women mentors typically aged 30 and older across multiple career stages) informed the staff on young women’s networking approaches and what they want out of brief career mentorship. Likewise, group discussions and interviews explored young women’s perception of Step Up and how its network of mentors could support career development.

2.2. Prototype Design and Development

During the prototype design phase, user requirements were translated into functional specifications for a flash mentoring application (MentorPRO, SaaS version, at no cost to mentors and mentees). The flash mentoring app was designed to be an easy-to-use tool for mentees to reach out to potential mentors and for mentors to respond to requests. Within the app, mentees could reach out to mentors using secure messaging. Mentors received push notifications when a mentee sent them a message. Additionally, the design specified that, after logging into the app, mentees would find a searchable list of all mentors in the program, including their profiles, which provided (but was not limited to) their name and their specific expertise across four domains: life and career satisfaction, internship/job search and application process, strategic career planning, and navigating workplace culture. When setting up their profile, mentors could self-select the domain(s) in which they felt most comfortable providing support. Mentees would then be able to filter mentors in the app by skill. When a mentee identified a mentor they wanted to connect with, they could send them a secure message directly through the platform. Video calling functionality allowed mentors and mentees to schedule virtual meetings. In addition to announcing Step Up events, a library of program-specific and general resources was available for all mentees and mentors on the platform, allowing mentees to receive just-in-time support and providing mentors with resources to share directly with mentees.

3. Evaluation Findings

3.1. Feasibility

Implementation of the flash mentoring platform showed strong participant engagement and feasibility within the Step Up program. Over two years, nearly 300 mentors were recruited from the Power Talk events and Step Up community into the online network, creating a substantial pool of supporters for mentees. A total of 285 female mentors downloaded and engaged with the platform, as defined by logging into their accounts. During this timeframe, 363 female mentees downloaded and engaged with the platform. A total of 5008 messages were sent, 2528 of which were sent by mentees. In addition to these messages, 316 meetings occurred, both within and outside of the app. Most (n equals 262, 72.17 percent) of the young women engaged with the check-in feature, with career and finances ranked as most challenging on average. Likewise, most mentees (n equals 295, 81.26 percent) set goals and, in total, 1445 goals were set. The top five goals endorsed by young women were (a) defining your goals for a fulfilling life plus career; (b) finding opportunities; (c) networking (in person plus virtual); (d) finding and securing a mentor; and (e) exploring careers. MentorPRO staff met with Step Up staff regularly to discuss engagement (e.g., number of meetings between mentors and mentees, in-platform messages, challenge ratings through the Check In feature) and functionality, including new product improvements, and to share feedback. These aggregate usage data represent overall platform activity but do not allow us to determine whether engagement was distributed evenly across mentees or concentrated among a subset of highly active users. Additionally, these engagement metrics document feature usage and interactions but cannot assess whether flash mentoring led to lasting network expansion or career outcomes, which would require longitudinal follow-up with rigorous outcome measures.

The data demonstrates substantial engagement with both flash mentoring features specifically (messaging and meetings with mentors) and other platform features (goal setting and check-ins). While these platform features worked synergistically, the flash mentoring component, focused on connecting mentees with professional women for time-limited career guidance, represents the core intervention being evaluated.

3.2. Prototype Iteration and Evaluation

The Step Up and MentorPRO teams collaborated to refine app features and program implementation. This process was informed by insights (discussed more below) gathered from initial user testing, ongoing data collection at in-person Power Talks events, and additional group discussion sessions. These insights led to identification of five key challenges described below, each of which was addressed through design modifications. Adhering to a UCD framework, the project continuously collected user feedback via discussion sessions and staff meetings to refine the app and program delivery. In March 2024, three group discussions (N equals 9 in total) identified several user experience challenges. Each challenge was systematically addressed through the product design adjustments detailed in the following subsections.

3.3. Challenge 1: Mentor Responsiveness

Some mentees reported frustration due to mentor’s lack of timely responses, underscoring the necessity of ensuring not just mentor availability but timeliness and reliability. To address this, an anchor mentor model was introduced, wherein a designated staff member served as a primary contact for mentees, ensuring mentor accountability and prompt communication. This included sending messages encouraging the young women to reach out, suggesting mentors for them based on their personal and professional goals, monitoring the timeliness of mentors’ responses, and providing individualized support as needed. This model aligns with the “Web of Support” framework, emphasizing both breadth and depth in supportive networks (Varga & Zaff, 2018).

Additionally, a digital mentor contract was implemented by the staff members during onboarding to clearly establish expectations, leveraging commitment effects to improve mentor engagement. Such contracts are well-established commitment devices that can help individuals maintain healthy or desired behaviors over time (Savani, 2019). By encouraging mentors to be responsive and removing disengaged volunteers, the primary mentor ensured the health of the pond from which the young women recruited support. Lastly, the option for a mentor to add their availability was included in the mentor profiles, as well as a system for tagging mentors in the system as available or temporarily unavailable, giving mentees a more realistic expectation of when they can expect responses from mentors.

3.4. Challenge 2: Technical Barriers

Users reported technical issues, including being frequently logged out and missing messages due to disabled push notifications. In response to user feedback, the development team identified and addressed technical issues. The anchor mentor further mitigated these issues by prompting mentee and mentor engagement after periods of inactivity. A formal feedback loop between development and staff ensured resolution of technical issues, embodying the iterative principles central to UCD.

3.5. Challenge 3: Mentee Hesitation and Confidence

Despite enthusiasm, many mentees felt intimidated initiating contact with mentors they perceived as accomplished and powerful, leading to hesitancy. To support mentees, staff explored discussion guides and icebreaker prompts, which may provide structured conversation starters and reduce anxiety (Chlup & Collins, 2010). Although not in direct response to this issue, Step Up mentees also were provided access to courses through the platform, including a program that helps young people increase their help-seeking behaviors and beliefs (S. Schwartz et al., 2023). More recently, the team has shortened the training into a single-session intervention, which aligns with broader research on the power of brief mentoring encounters. For example, a study by Kaveladze et al. (2024) found that participants reported experiencing “aha moments” during short online interventions, suggesting the potential for transformative insights in time-limited interactions.

3.6. Challenge 4: Mentor Matching and Choice Overload

Mentees reported difficulty selecting appropriate mentors from a large pool, indicative of the paradox of choice, where too many options can cause indecision (B. Schwartz, 2005). Young women requested additional filter types for sorting potential mentors. The following filters were brainstormed: industry, experience classification (e.g., pre-career, mid-level, retired), and the skills that mentors would feel comfortable supporting (e.g., resume building, securing internships, self-advocacy). They also requested that mentors complete their in-app profile so that mentees have more information about potential mentors and could prepare more specific questions. Mentors were also encouraged to fully complete their profiles with photos, detailed bios, and support areas, improving mentees’ ability to make informed selections. Further, recruitment efforts intensified to diversify the mentor pool, aligning better with mentees’ needs and enhancing overall program effectiveness.

3.7. Challenge 5: Continuous Quality Improvement

Given the innovative nature of the flash mentoring approach, unanticipated issues arose during implementation. A structured communication plan and a collaborative feedback system were established, ensuring continuous, real-time improvements to the platform. This proactive iterative cycle allowed the program to swiftly address issues as they emerged, underscoring the practical value of UCD methodologies in aligning digital interventions with user needs.

Overall, these iterative adjustments improved user experiences, demonstrating the feasibility and acceptability of the flash mentoring program and highlighting the importance of embedding user feedback into digital mentoring solutions.

4. Discussion

This community-based program evaluation examined a novel, technology-enabled flash mentoring program designed to help underrepresented young women build social capital by actively seeking out and recruiting their own mentors. In this model, Step Up mentees were encouraged to reach out to mentors through a closed, searchable online network of female professionals, a strategy that reduced geographic and logistical barriers to networking. Using a user-centered design approach, the program was refined with ongoing input from the young women, resulting in an intuitive platform aligned with their needs. The evaluation demonstrated the feasibility and promise of this approach within the Step Up Women’s Network. Over the course of the program, 285 mentors and 363 mentees engaged with the platform, exchanging 5008 messages and holding 316 meetings. Overall, although additional evaluation with rigorous outcome measures is needed to determine its effects, the engagement patterns suggest that flash mentoring shows promise as a potential addition to more traditional mentoring within Step Up’s programming in ways that could expand access to mentoring relationships and social capital. At the same time, challenges with mentor responsiveness raise questions about the intervention’s ability to meaningfully build networks.

A key contribution of this approach is its intentional dual emphasis on both teaching to fish and stocking the pond. This combination distinguishes the present intervention from approaches that focus solely on skill-building or solely on mentor provision. In prior research, teaching to fish refers to equipping youth with skills to find and recruit their own mentors (S. Schwartz et al., 2023). The present intervention built on that idea by not only assisting young women in help-seeking and networking strategies, but also proactively recruiting a pool of dedicated mentors they could readily access. By providing a safe, searchable mentor network, the program aimed to foster more enduring transformations in women’s social networks than might occur from simply assigning a single mentor.

Consistent with expectations, many mentees took advantage of the opportunity to connect with multiple professionals, which gave them exposure to diverse perspectives and advice. At the same time, the inclusion of an anchor mentor, a Step Up staff member assigned to monitor mentor-mentee interactions, emerged as crucial for ensuring responsiveness and support. This dual approach of breadth and depth aligns with the “web of support” framework (Varga & Zaff, 2018), which suggests that young people benefit from a broad network of supportive adults (the web) as well as at least one close, reliable mentor (an anchor) who provides continuity. Mentees experienced focused chats with various mentors (expanding their web of professional contacts) and the presence of a dependable staff mentor who could step in if a mentor was unresponsive or needed additional support. Indeed, early in the program, some mentees experienced the discouragement of reaching out to a mentor who never replied, a challenging situation given the courage it took to initiate contact. The anchor mentor system helped address this by following up with unresponsive mentors, removing those who were truly unavailable, and ensuring that every young woman’s outreach was met with a timely response. This finding underscores the importance of supportive accountability in technology-mediated mentoring (Mohr et al., 2011). In practice, the anchor mentors filled this supportive role, boosting mentees’ confidence to continue networking and guaranteeing that the pond remained stocked with responsive, engaged mentors.

Several specific insights from the evaluation shed light on how flash mentoring can be optimized and scaled within Step Up’s programming. First, the program demonstrated that many Step Up mentees were willing to engage in networking and mentor outreach when provided with a supportive platform and resources. This willingness suggests that approaches focused on developing networking skills warrant further rigorous evaluation as a strategy for bridging equity gaps in social capital. Many of these young women initially felt anxious about contacting unfamiliar professionals. Providing training resources, such as discussion guides and assistance with networking strategies, may help mentees overcome anxiety around reaching out, although more investigation is needed here to fully understand the potential benefits of such resources. This approach is in line with evidence of brief, targeted interventions (e.g., Schleider et al., 2024), which may improve confidence and reduce anxiety in help-seeking situations.

Second, the evaluation highlights the need for mentor preparation. Some mentors may be hesitant to go beyond a single conversation, that is, to make referrals or introductions on a mentee’s behalf, unless they feel a high degree of trust in the mentee. This hesitation may reflect a form of opportunity hoarding (Reeves & Howard, 2013), wherein people guard their professional connections because extending them can carry personal risk. This represents one theoretical explanation drawn from the literature on social capital, though systematic data collection from mentors would be needed to confirm whether this mechanism explains the patterns we observed. Offering a half-hour informational interview to a young person is one thing; staking one’s reputation on that person by recommending them to a colleague is quite another. Unlike in tightly knit networks (such as alumni groups or family connections), mentors in a flash mentoring context lack an inherent affiliation with mentees, so their willingness to vouch for or sponsor a mentee may remain low until trust is built. This insight suggests that future implementations with Step Up should incorporate more extensive mentor training and relationship-building components, while also balancing mentors’ time constraints. For example, training mentors in cultural responsiveness and bias awareness could better equip them to connect with underrepresented youth and promote positive youth outcomes. Likewise, providing training and certification to mentees to master professional skills, such as informational interviews and resume writing, could increase mentors’ confidence that the mentee will be a trustworthy ambassador of their social capital. Encouraging repeated or follow-up interactions could also cultivate greater trust. While the flash mentoring model is inherently brief, structured opportunities for mentors and mentees to reconnect (or the involvement of the anchor mentor as a bridge) might facilitate deeper engagement over time. Mentor perspectives in this evaluation were captured primarily through informal discussions with Step Up staff who monitored mentor engagement and responsiveness, rather than through systematic surveys or interviews with mentors themselves. This represents a limitation discussed further below. Broader structural considerations, including systemic biases that may affect mentor responsiveness, are discussed in the implications section below.

Although the evaluation findings are encouraging, several limitations must be acknowledged to provide important context for interpreting our findings. First, because this was a collaborative community-based program evaluation, systematic data collection was secondary to actively encouraging the voice and engagement of community stakeholders. Although quantitative implementation metrics provided valuable data on engagement patterns, qualitative data from both mentees and mentors were gathered informally rather than through structured methods. Group conversations with mentees, sometimes ad hoc, were used to gather impressions of the platform but were not transcribed or systematically coded. Mentor perspectives were captured only indirectly through informal discussions with Step Up staff who monitored engagement and responsiveness, rather than through surveys or interviews with mentors themselves. As a result, important nuances from both groups were likely missed. Future evaluations should incorporate formal qualitative methods, including systematic assessment of mentor experiences, motivations, and challenges alongside mentee feedback.

Second, the evaluation emphasized implementation and engagement metrics (such as number of mentoring interactions, feature usage, and user satisfaction) over longer-term outcomes. We do not yet know whether participating in flash mentoring ultimately led to improvements in Step Up mentees’ academic or career trajectories, such as increased career self-efficacy, internship attainment, or job placement. This was an initial acceptability and feasibility evaluation of a first-of-its-kind program rather than a more rigorous test of its effects on Step Up mentees’ relationship formation and workforce outcomes. Consequently, we cannot make causal claims about the effects of the program.

Third, as noted earlier, the aggregate usage data do not allow us to determine whether engagement was distributed evenly across mentees. Future evaluation should examine disaggregated data to understand patterns of differential engagement. Forth, the young women who chose to participate were a self-selected group already involved in Step Up’s programming, which could indicate that they were particularly motivated to build social capital and engage in activities that advance their professional development. This selection bias means they might have been especially primed to engage with the mentoring platform, and their experiences cannot be generalized to all Step Up mentees.

Fifth, because the focus was on an interactive app development process, the evaluation did not include a more formal assessment of the platform’s usability. Without standardized user experience data, it is difficult to determine which platform features were most effective or if any aspects of the interface hindered engagement. Given these limitations in design and measurement, the findings should be interpreted as preliminary evidence of promise rather than proof of impact. The findings are specific to Step Up’s program and predominantly descriptive in nature and cannot be generalized to other mentoring programs. However, these limitations provide important direction for future work, which should employ more rigorous methodologies to build on what was learned here.

Beyond the specific implementation findings, this evaluation raises important questions about flash mentoring as a solution to social capital disparities. The feasibility findings with Step Up suggest that flash mentoring is a promising approach worthy of more rigorous evaluation. Whether it ultimately proves effective at expanding social capital and improving career outcomes for Step Up’s young women remains an empirical question requiring longitudinal research with controlled designs and validated outcome measures.

This work extends existing theoretical frameworks in several ways. First, it extends youth-initiated mentoring theory (S. E. O. Schwartz et al., 2016; S. Schwartz et al., 2023) by demonstrating that technology can facilitate youth agency in mentor recruitment by providing searchable, accessible pools of willing professionals. Second, it instantiates the web of support framework (Varga & Zaff, 2018) by combining breadth (multiple flash mentors) with depth (anchor mentor support). Third, it demonstrates the importance of supportive accountability (Mohr et al., 2011) in technology-mediated mentoring, as the anchor mentor role was important for ensuring mentor responsiveness and mentee persistence.

Several new theoretical directions emerge from this work. The role of technology in democratizing access to bridging social capital deserves further investigation. Does reducing geographic and logistical barriers through digital platforms meaningfully expand opportunities for marginalized youth, or do digital divides and other barriers limit its reach? The balance between youth agency and structural support also warrants examination. For example, it will be important to determine the optimal balance between mentee skill-building versus mentor provision and the extent to which this balance varies by context.

Finally, this evaluation underscores that interventions alone cannot address the structural barriers that underrepresented young women face. Systemic issues such as gender and racial bias in professional settings, opportunity hoarding among those with social capital, and institutional barriers to mentorship formation require complementary efforts beyond individual or program-level interventions. Creating more equitable pathways to social capital requires both empowering mentees through programs like flash mentoring and addressing the broader systems and cultures that create disparities in network access and quality.

Despite its exploratory nature, this evaluation provides valuable insights into a new approach for cultivating social capital among Step Up’s mentees. The findings demonstrate that it is feasible to increase mentoring opportunities without the traditional model of one-to-one mentor matching; instead, by teaching youth the skills to seek help (S. Schwartz et al., 2023) and simultaneously offering them a stocked pool of mentors, we can broaden their support networks in a scalable way. At the same time, the mixed experiences of Step Up’s mentees indicate that continued refinement of this approach is needed to maximize its benefits.

Future work should build on these findings in several ways. First, more rigorous outcome evaluations, including controlled trials or longitudinal studies, are necessary to determine the long-term impact of flash mentoring on Step Up mentees’ outcomes. Such evaluations could examine whether participating in flash mentoring leads to greater confidence in networking, expanded professional networks, and improved career readiness and advancement over time. Second, future iterations of the program should focus on enhancing the components identified as critical in this evaluation: mentor training, mentee preparation, and accountability systems. For example, providing mentors with structured training on effective, bias-aware mentoring could help ensure that all mentors engage constructively with the diverse pool of mentees (Albright et al., 2017). Developing stronger accountability measures such as clearly defined mentor response expectations and ongoing monitoring will be important so that mentees consistently receive timely and helpful engagement from mentors. Additionally, exploring ways to facilitate deeper connections beyond the initial flash interaction is a promising direction. This might include follow-up meetings, networking events that bring flash mentors and their mentees together in person or virtually, or integrating the flash mentoring platform with longer-term mentorship opportunities. Third, implementing user feedback loops will remain crucial as the program evolves. Regularly gathering input from program participants (mentees and mentors alike) can guide iterative improvements to the platform’s features and ensure the interface stays youth-friendly as technology preferences shift. Prior research on digital interventions underscores the importance of keeping content relevant and engaging for users (see Stiles-Shields et al., 2023). Similarly, involving a youth advisory board or similar stakeholder group can help the program stay attuned to the cultural and practical needs of the young people it serves (Stiles-Shields et al., 2023). Ensuring cultural relevance may involve tailoring mentor recruitment and training to connect with mentees from different backgrounds, as well as incorporating mentors who share similar identities or experiences with the mentees when possible. Finally, scalability and sustainability should be investigated through implementation research. Because this evaluation is limited to Step Up’s programming, it will be important to examine how this model can be adopted in other settings, such as schools, universities, alumni networks, or workforce development programs, and what organizational supports are needed to maintain it. Questions of cost-effectiveness, integration with existing youth services, and mentor recruitment at scale will need to be addressed to translate this pilot into broader practice, which this current evaluation cannot do.

5. Conclusions

The findings from this evaluation suggest that a flash mentoring approach, grounded in teaching underrepresented young women how to fish for mentors and simultaneously stocking their pond with willing, vetted professionals, is a promising strategy for bolstering social capital within Step Up’s Women’s Network. Our evaluation provides stronger evidence for the feasibility and iterative development of the platform with Step Up’s programming than for expansion of social capital per se. Demonstrating actual expansion of social capital and its effects on career outcomes requires longitudinal research with more rigorous outcome measurement. Step Up’s success in engaging mentors and mentees, and the preliminary evidence of its benefits, indicate that such interventions can complement more traditional mentoring by providing breadth of support and encouraging youth agency in help-seeking. However, the approach is not a panacea for the systemic inequities that affect access to mentorship. To truly reduce disparities in social capital, there also needs to be broader efforts to address structural barriers—for example, initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion within professional networks and that incentivize mentors to support underserved youth. With more thoughtful refinement and rigorous evaluation within Step Up and similar mentoring and social capital programs, technology-enabled flash mentoring could become a scalable means of creating more equitable pathways to academic and career success for youth who have historically been left behind in access to mentorship and professional networks.