9. From the Heart of the Community: How Academy 4 Trains 6,500 Volunteers to Mentor One-on-One

Training Impact Podcast

In this inspiring episode of the Training Impact Podcast, host Jeff Walter sits down with Susan Demers, Manager of Learning and Development at Academy 4, a Texas-based nonprofit delivering one-on-one mentorship to fourth graders in Title I schools. The conversation redefines what "extended enterprise learning" means—moving beyond franchises and partners to focus on volunteer training in the nonprofit sector.

Susan walks us through the remarkable scale of Academy 4’s program, which pairs one volunteer with every fourth grader in 60 schools, reaching over 6,500 students in the upcoming year. These aren’t group mentoring sessions—each child gets an individual mentor, creating powerful, lasting human connections that are rare in today’s education landscape.

Mission Meets Method

Founded in 2012, Academy 4’s mission is simple yet profound: Changing lives through relationships. Their model connects local churches with nearby schools, recruiting volunteers from within the community. Volunteers come from diverse backgrounds—retirees, professionals, local businesses, high school juniors and seniors—and all participate in structured mentoring once a month for 90 minutes. The result? A classroom full of fourth graders each receiving direct, individualized attention and leadership development.

Teachers report transformative effects: formerly shy students engage and smile. Volunteers, in turn, often deepen their involvement, organizing clothing drives, school supplies, and other community support efforts. In essence, the program becomes a community-building engine far beyond the original scope of mentoring.

Training the Volunteer Army

To prepare this massive network of volunteers, Academy 4 developed a simple yet effective training course called “Academy 4 Basics”, hosted on the LatitudeLearning LMS. The course has three main goals:

1. Introduce the organization and its mission.
2. Explain logistics and mentoring expectations.
3. Ensure compliance with child safety policies.

The training is mobile-friendly, easy to complete, and requires annual recertification. Volunteers agree to clear guidelines—no phones during mentoring, designated restrooms only, and gender-sensitive pairings (e.g., male mentors only mentor male students). This creates a consistent, safe experience across all schools.

Susan highlights the importance of usability for older volunteers, noting how LatitudeLearning helped streamline access and track completions. As the program grew from 6 to 60 schools, having a reliable LMS was crucial to managing volunteer compliance at scale.

Tools of the Trade: Rise vs. Storyline

As an experienced instructional designer, Susan shares her preference for Articulate Rise to create eLearning content. Unlike its more complex sibling Storyline, Rise allows her to quickly build interactive, responsive courses ideal for volunteer learners who just need the essentials—no frills, just facts, and engagement. She also notes the emergence of AI tools in eLearning, expressing interest in their future potential for nonprofits like hers.

Beyond Mentoring: Scaling and Soft Skills

Academy 4’s innovation doesn’t stop at fourth grade. Graduates can enter a fifth-grade program (Leaders V) where they in turn mentor first graders, reinforcing lessons through teaching. Academy 4 also runs 4Families, a parent engagement initiative delivered via churches. Training for all three programs runs through LatitudeLearning, ensuring centralized oversight and consistency.

Internally, Susan is expanding professional development for Academy 4’s growing full-time and part-time staff. This includes workshops led by university professors and even a chatbot for difficult conversation practice, showcasing how even nonprofits can adopt cutting-edge L&D tools.

Reflections and Relevance

The episode closes with a humanizing look at Susan’s journey from journalism to L&D. Her storytelling instincts inform how she teaches and inspires—skills that echo in both her volunteer training and her love of history and genealogy. As Jeff points out, Susan’s work is a perfect example of how partner learning can transcend commercial goals and deliver profound social impact.

Academy 4 is a case study in scaling training outside the enterprise, while still using best practices from the L&D playbook. From one-on-one mentoring to leveraging LMS tools, this episode shows that training isn’t just about instruction—it’s about transformation.

Learn more about Academy 4: https://academy4.org/

Learn more about becoming a mentor at Academy 4: https://academy4.org/mentor