Company History

Mentors International dates back to 1989 when St. Louis businessman Menlo Smith returned to the United States after working on a three-year humanitarian project in the Philippines. During his time in the Philippines, Smith noticed the tremendous load carried by those who have so little. He was determined to find a proactive way to lift the poor in developing countries from poverty.

Smith soon joined with Warner P. Woodworth and Steven H. Mann to put the process in motion. Woodworth worked at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, and Mann was a businessman with experience in international training. Together, Smith, Woodworth, and Mann organized a group of graduate students who studied opportunities and developed networking contacts in the Philippines.

A strategic planning team met in Manila in September 1989 and concluded that the poor in the country could best be served by a program offering microenterprise training, mentoring, and microcredit.

By January 1990, Mentors International (then called Enterprise Mentors International), was formed in St. Louis, Missouri. Its first partner organization, Mentors Philippines Luzon, was organized in Manila with a local board of volunteer directors and a small staff.

Since then, Mentors has now established a total of seven partner organizations, one in each of the largest cities of the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao), and one each in Guatemala, Peru, El Salvador, and Honduras. Each organization has its own local board of directors and native staff, but is a legal subsidiary of Mentors International and is supervised by the U.S. management team. Mentors also provides start-up support, training, operational funding and loan capital for its partner organizations.

As of June 2011, Mentors has lifted over 2.4 million individuals in developing countries from the cycle of poverty.  A total of $42,129,787 has been loaned out with a 97% repayment rate!

Mentors' clients make a difference in their communities through the formation of small businesses with loans funded by Mentors and the highly-valued mentoring and training with which Mentors provides its clients.

Mentors Philippines Luzon, Mentors’ first partner organization, has now reached Operational Self-Sufficiency (OSS). When a partner organization arrives at OSS it has become profitable in its operations and no longer relies on Mentors International, the parent organization, for operating grants.  

Mentors extends loans to people of all creeds and faiths and trains clients with proven business principles to ensure prolonged success.

Mentors was led by G. Richard Oscarson from 1997 to 2007. The current president and CEO is Mark L. Petersen. Chairman of the board is Ralph Christensen, former managing director of human resources for Hallmark Cards.