How DAMA Australia Keeps Raising the Bar on Mentoring, Year After Year
with Belinda Walton,
Mentoring Program Manager,
DAMA
with Belinda Walton,
Mentoring Program Manager,
DAMA
The Data Management Association (DAMA) Australia exists to build capability, community, and leadership in the data profession. Through certifications, events, and mentoring, DAMA helps data professionals at every stage of their careers to connect, learn, and grow.
Before Mentorloop, DAMA’s mentoring was ad hoc and difficult to manage. Matching meant spreadsheets, long email chains, and no way to track whether matches were actually working — or whether members had already completed their DMBC certification and what guidance they needed next.
"Before Mentorloop, our mentoring was ad hoc and inconsistent. It was hard to scale and hard to keep people engaged"
DAMA moved to Mentorloop in 2023. Since then, a new volunteer coordinator has taken the program forward each year — this year, that’s Belinda Walton.
Since adopting Mentorloop, the program has seen transformational growth.
Importantly, DAMA has been able to scale while maintaining quality. Automated onboarding, customisable profiles, and in-platform analytics have freed up the admin team’s time—so they can focus on people, not processes.
“Mentorloop has really freed up our time to focus on our people, not our processes.”
One early turning point came when DAMA introduced group loops — letting mentors run sessions with multiple mentees at once. For the first time this year, that history is paying off in a new way: mentors returning for a third consecutive year prompted DAMA to reopen two historic loops.
This year, coordinator Belinda Walton changed how the program opens — bringing mentors onto the platform six weeks before mentees, instead of relying on back-and-forth email.
DAMA also expanded its interest-matching categories from around 12 to 60+, and restricted mentees to one active match request at a time. Expanding their interest-matching categories meant that their participants could express themselves, their interests, and their goals in far more detail – resulting in even better quality mentoring outcomes.
The result: sentiment climbed from a four-year average of 4.5 to 4.8 this year alone, and matches are strong enough to need very little coordinator support.
Mentoring Program Manager, DAMA
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"Mentorloop has transformed our program—freeing us from spreadsheets and admin so we can focus on people. The result is a thriving community where mentors and mentees share knowledge, build confidence, and grow together."
– Belinda Walton, Mentoring Program Manager, DAMA
What Role Does Equity and Equality Play in Your Mentoring Program?
The right mentoring program should level the playing field to empower entire cohorts of people: workplaces, member associations, social groups and educational institutions. Equality should be a cherished value so that every individual can thrive—whoever they are, whatever their background, however they worship or whomever they love. But we can’t arrive at equality without it’s often forgotten partner, equity.
What does a Mentoring Program Coordinator do?
Being a Mentoring Program Coordinator is an incredibly rewarding experience that positively impacts the lives of many. And while mentoring programs don’t fully run themselves (even though Mentorloop can do a great deal of the heavy lifting!), they do require a point of contact that can steer the program in the right direction for the organisation that is running one.
Building Quality Feedback Into Mentoring Relationships
This is Part 8 of our 10-part series on the 10 Key Qualities and Habits of a Highly Effective Mentor.
In this post, we’ll look at how mentors can successfully build quality feedback into their mentoring. Quality feedback is priceless because it clarifies expectations, helps people learn from their mistakes, and builds confidence. It also allows mentees to more effectively take what their mentors say and turn it into action.
