A guide for nonprofit mentees and mentors
By Gil Katz
Early in your nonprofit career you can benefit greatly from connecting with a mentor who has years of experience in the field. A mentor is someone who volunteers to help the next generation by answering questions about the industry, how to handle situations, provide insights about topics and share their past work experiences.
1. How to find a mentor
While you could ask someone you already know to be your mentor, ask people you know if they could refer you to a possible good fit, or reach out of the blue to anyone for advice, the best way to find a mentor is by joining a formal mentoring program. Look for an industry association in your field and see if they offer a mentoring program. Sometimes their program may not be visible on their website so it is worthwhile to contact the association and ask if such a program is available.
Usually joining an industry association as a member will provide access to their mentoring program. Look for the start and end dates so you join at the right time. The program may be on-going throughout the year – it’s important to ask the program manager or coordinator about timing.
When looking for a program that is right for you, keep in mind that some programs may be general for the industry and others geared for specific interests. A program may be designed to help students, interns, pre-certification, new association members, women in leadership, immigrants, entrepreneurs or other interest groups.
Joining requires completing a registration form which may be part of a mentoring software platform and lead you to a dashboard where you could select a mentor – there you could search, browse and filter through various categories to find a mentor with the type of background you are looking for. Some programs don’t provide a selection but instead they look for the best mentor for you or make recommendations for you to select from.
2. How to work with a mentor
Once matched, you will often be provided with mentoring resources – guides about how to prepare for the first meeting, what to expect, suggested topics of discussion and more. These may be documents, videos, slideshows, training courses and/or checklists.
Prior to the first meeting you should learn more about your mentor, read their bio or resume and think of how they could help you, as well as questions you should ask them and how they handled specific situations in the past. For example, if you are struggling with fundraising, asking about how they improved their fundraising skills over the years, what epiphanies they may have made a difference and what tactics work best for them.
During the meetings take notes especially whenever a meaningful insight is found. Notes can be taken in the program’s online platform if a mentoring software is being utilized. After initial meetings you should define one or a few goals that you would like to achieve throughout the mentoring program. Ultimately, you should list the tasks to achieve the goal, work towards them and check mark tasks as they get done. The plan is to achieve your mentoring goals during the program, or make significant progress.
Potential mentoring goals can include:
- Decide which direction to go by learning more about the industry and career options
- Improve the way you present yourself – through documents, online, in person, communication skills or your personal brand
- Improve specific skills – technical, financial, administrative, communication or leadership
- Figure out how to deal with specific challenges – what are the best ways to approach them
3. How to be a mentor
If you are a seasoned industry professional and thinking how you could give back, sharing your knowledge with the next generation and better understand their new perspectives, then it’s time to join your industry association’s mentoring program as a mentor.
The program manager may make the match or you may receive a match request from a potential mentee. You will be asked how many mentees you can help at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed with requests.
Once matched, you should learn about your mentee by reading their profile or resume and consider how you could help them from your own experience. Recall possible work and life stories you could share and ideas of how they could improve various aspects of their career.
Remember to review any available mentoring resources to help prepare for the first meeting. Also, don’t assume you know what the mentee wants to learn. Instead, ask leading open-ended questions that will require the mentee to think about the topics and come up with their own questions for you to answer. In addition, help the mentee define their own goals and tasks they may want to achieve through the mentoring relationship and follow up on them in meetings. It’s important for you both to stay on track towards helping them achieve their goals.
Gil Katz is Director of Operations at MentorEase mentoring software (www.mentorease.com), a leading platform used by industry associations, professional certification organizations, charities and foundations to manage their mentoring programs.
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