Rural Innovation Mentor Network

You can commit as much or as little time as you want, and we will always check in with you before making any introductions. We would never match you with a startup you don’t have the bandwidth and space in your schedule to support. In addition to one-on-one meetings with your mentee, you will have the opportunity to participate in virtual speed mentoring sessions, pitch feedback sessions, and pitch events.

We will contact you when a startup enters our program that we think would be a good fit based on the information you both provide. You may be contacted as early as a few days from submission.

No, the beauty of this mentor network is that it is both national and virtual — as a mentor you will be introduced to tech entrepreneurs from rural communities across the U.S.

We make introductions for the sole purpose of mentorship, and aim to work only with mentors who are in it because they love to work with entrepreneurs and give back. There is no expectation that there will be anything given in return other than the satisfaction of supporting a tech startup from rural America. However, as your relationship progresses, mentors are free to discuss additional opportunities to support the startup with the founders as they see fit. 

Involvement in our mentor network is a volunteer activity (for which we are so grateful!), so we do not provide financial compensation to mentors.  One of the goals of this network is to foster mutually beneficial and valuable relationships and connections, and we hope that mentors see the value in giving back and getting to know and support the next generation of tech entrepreneurs in rural America. 

We believe there is no single definition or profile of a great mentor, and we select mentors from a vast range of professional and industry expertise. Current mentors in our network have experience across industries and verticals including software, manufacturing, biotech, artificial intelligence, digital media, investment, sales, and more. Typically, mentors have launched multiple companies, and are currently running a tech startup.

The mentor relationship will begin through a process curated by the Center on Rural Innovation team. In order to make efficient and effective introductions, we will check in with mentors by email to confirm they are interested in an introduction prior to connecting them with a startup. Once introduced, the mentor and founder are encouraged to arrange an initial call in which they get to know each other, determine if they’d like to work together, and if so, the goals and cadence of their mentoring calls.