The greatest support offered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for youth mentoring has been through the Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP), which provides one-to-one mentoring for youth at risk of delinquency, gang involvement, educational failure, or dropping out of school. Information on JUMP has been collected through an automated management information system. Data are currently available for 7,515 youth, 6,163 mentors, and 6,632 matches. A national evaluation team collects information in a common format from all JUMP grantees, enabling conclusions about mentoring based on the experience of the 164 existing JUMP programs. The average age of youth enrolled in JUMP programs is just under 12 years, and most are from single-parent households. Most are exposed to risk factors and are lacking in protective factors. The volunteer mentors participating in JUMP projects are a diverse group. The JUMP national evaluation will play an important role in expanding the body of information about mentoring, but some assessments can already be made. Both youth and mentors have viewed the experience as positive, and it is evident that match characteristics affect perceived benefits. Many projects have reported difficulty in recruiting mentors, especially men. For this reason, it is necessary to study the motivations of mentors. Other areas that require more study are the use of funding and ways to secure further support, and issues related to training and technical assistance. Mentoring shows great promise as an effective intervention for at-risk youth. Knowledge from the JUMP national evaluation will help future mentoring projects. (SLD)