Mentoring isn’t just for companies big and small, it’s also great for non-corporate and non-professional organisations.
In fact, we’ve seen many different community-run mentoring programs, and have found that each provides unique benefits to their community members.
Whether you’re a small community-run association, or a larger, nationwide organisation with multiple chapters, mentoring programs can lead to real-world change.
Let’s take a look at a few organisations, their mentoring programs, and what type of impact they’re having on their participants—and the community at large.
Back Up Trust
Back Up is a UK charity dedicated to supporting people affected by spinal cord injury get the most out of life. For over 30 years, they have helped people and their families to rebuild their independence after a devastating spinal cord injury.
Their mentoring program was created as a way to support people living with spinal cord injuries, as well as their families, as they go through difficult transitions in their lives. They link people with a spinal cord injury and their family members to volunteer mentors who have been through similar experiences. Their mentors are there to help them come to terms with what has happened and adjust positively to life post-injury by offering both practical advice and support with emotional issues.
Type of Program: Traditional mentoring; mentee are paired with a mentor with the required experience
Participants: Mentoring is available to people of all ages, all over the UK. It’s not just for people adjusting to a new spinal cord injury, it could have happened some time ago.
Program Success: The Back Up mentoring program continuously helps those who have sustained a spinal cord injury and their family members to live and move forward after a traumatic injury. Connecting those newly affected with someone who has ‘been there’ and lived through similar challenges helps people to feel less isolated and more empowered to live life to the fullest.
Fitted For Work
Fitted for Work is a Not-for-Profit dedicated to helping women experiencing disadvantages to get work, keep work, and navigate their world of work. They focus specifically on helping women gain employment not only because work provides financial security, but also a sense of social connectedness, dignity, and pride.
Fitted for Work created The Mentor Program to offer valuable support to women from carefully matched volunteer mentors. The 6 to 12 month programs offer one-to-one support to empower mentees to develop, succeed, and grow.
Type of Program: Traditional mentoring; mentees are paired with “role model” mentors
Participants: Mentees may include older women; survivors of domestic violence; single mothers; those experiencing homelessness; those recently released from prison; transgender or gender diverse people; newly arrived migrants or refugee women; or women with disabilities.
Program Success: Mentors offer mentees a chance to help secure employment and gain real-life skills. As one mentee said, “My mentor helped me see my assets and showed me how my skills and experiences related to my previous employment made me highly employable in other fields. She helped me realise my transferable skills.”
WATCH: Mentorloop Co-Founder Heidi Holmes chats with Merredith Murphy and Mary Grech of Fitted for Work. They talk about the role their mentoring program plays in the work that they do and how it has grown over the years. They also share some fantastic stories of growth and transformation – a testament to the importance of the work they do and of mentoring relationships in society.
Out For Australia
Out for Australia provides visible mentors, role models, thought leadership, and targeted support to aspiring LGBTQIA+ professionals and strengthens the sense of community among professionals and students alike.
Their mentoring program—Australia’s largest LGBTQIA+ mentoring program—helps mentees navigate through career challenges to get them where they want to be in their professional journeys.
Type of Program: Traditional mentoring.
Participants: Mentees include students, recent graduates, and young professionals aspiring to pursue a career in a broad range of professional industries. Mentors are LGBTIQ+ people and their allies who are more established professionals.
Program Success: Mentees learn life skills, like what their next career step should be, how to write a strong cover letter, and more. One mentee shared, “I didn’t think I’d be able to get the help I needed, but my mentor really helped me work through an issue and I got a pay rise and a promotion!”
Ready to See Success?
Your organisation can have this kind of impact in your community too. You’ve already got the community, so you might as well start seeing how much good you can do with it! Thankfully, we can make it easy by doing much of the heavy lifting of getting a mentoring program off the ground for you.
It’s easy to get started with Mentorloop Pro, which has a program theme specifically designed for communities. Try it out today!
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