In this chapter, volunteer youth mentoring in the European context is considered through a historical overview. Calls for volunteering and the need for mentoring programs come from a variety of quarters. One version arises from administrations with higher public debts and chronic difficulties in financing actions at the regional and local levels and which are looking for cost-effective alternatives where citizens can get involved. Another call comes from people who are committed to social activism who want to accompany adolescents and young people in disadvantaged situations, such as unaccompanied adolescents or refugees. Yet another call comes from university students who must participate in service-learning courses, including those in which they participate as mentors in mentoring programs. Other forms of mentoring may be appropriate, but finding how and when volunteer mentoring and professional mentoring, for example, are most useful for youth, young adults, and adults, and within which country contexts, is proposed as a key next step in the mentoring research agenda.