Summary of
the Mentoring Intervention Guide
Nonprofit
Development Institute
2500
(302) 656-1100
Description of the
Intervention
Target
population
This
intervention is generally useful with youth of all ages, and sometimes focused
on particular populations. There are
some federal programs that are stand-alone mentoring programs, but you may
choose to utilize mentoring as a component of a larger program.
Detailed Description of Intervention
Youth
mentoring is often defined as a sustained relationship between a youth and an
older person, typically an adult, in which the adult provides the younger
person with support, guidance, and assistance. Mentoring is based on the
premise that if young people have interaction with caring, concerned adults,
they will be more likely to become successful adults themselves. Historically,
mentoring has meant that one volunteer commits to mentoring one child at a
time. More recently, mentoring has moved beyond this traditional relationship
to encompass other formats, including group and e-mail mentoring (Jekielek and
Moore, 2002)
To
improve the outcomes of our nation’s school age children, Congress passed the
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001. Among other things, this act
authorized 3-year grants for student mentoring programs. NCLBA required that
selected programs serve children with the greatest need, that is, children most
at risk of failing school, dropping out of school, or being involved in
criminal or delinquent activity, as well as those lacking strong positive role
models.
(More detail is given in the full document.)
How to Do It: Best
Practices
Types of Approaches
Setting
Mentoring
programs vary widely in both setting and content of the mentoring activity.
Settings of mentoring programs are most frequently community-based,
school-based, or faith-based.
In
community-based programs, youth are often referred for mentoring by family
members. These programs are provided by community-based organizations (CBOs)
that are not schools and that provide services to youth and families in the
community. Potential mentors often submit to extensive background checks and
trained mentors are often allowed to engage in unsupervised activities with the
youth.
These
relationships enable young people to develop a relationship with one or more
adults, other than parents and teachers, who become friends, role models and
advocates for them. The activities often take place outside of specific sites,
when mentors and youth plan activities, such as going to the movies, going to a
park, etc.
School-based
mentoring, as its name implies, takes place on school grounds. Given their
location in the school, program staff in school-based mentoring programs can
easily meet with teachers. Often teachers refer youth for mentoring whom they
believe could benefit from additional attention and guidance. In school-based
mentoring programs, volunteers typically meet with the youth during or after
school and their interactions are typically supervised. Mentors and youth can
spend time on schoolwork, but also engage in other activities, including
playing sports, attending a concert, reading, eating lunch together, or just
“hanging out together.”
Faith-Based
mentoring programs are those undertaken by houses of worship and other
religious organizations, or in which these organizations partner with other
agencies in order to provide mentors.
(More detail is given in the full document.)
Activity
Often
the framework and goals of the mentoring program inform the nature of the
relationship between mentors and youth, and the activities in which they
engage, regardless of the setting of the program. For example, academic
mentoring programs are those in which mentors help youth improve academic
achievement and maximize benefit from school. This may include tutoring,
homework assistance, coping with test anxiety, assistance with completing
college applications, visiting colleges together, and other activities.
Recreational
mentoring, on the other hand, often involves leisure activity, with more
generalized objectives related to character development and personal growth.
This type of activity might revolve around playing or attending sports,
creating arts and crafts, outings to amusement parks or nature reserves, and
other pursuits of an extracurricular nature.
Mentoring
programs often attempt to expose youth to cultural experiences outside their
normal range of familiarity through enrichment-based mentoring. This may
include attendance at museums, concerts, or plays, or participation in
arts-related activity.
Some
mentoring programs, particularly those serving high-risk youth, are designed to
involve a strong counseling component. In these programs, mentors generally
undergo significant training, and are prepared to counsel youth participants
about drug use, family problems. Mentors also cultivate conflict resolution
skills in youth as an alternative to violence.
Last,
some programs have an emphasis on vocational training, and involve the youth
shadowing a mentor on the job or working as an intern under the direction and
guidance of the mentor. This also may include transfer of specific skills, such
as technology training or other industry-specific expertise.
10 Key Program Design
Components
The
following components are central to designing an effective mentoring program
for your proposal. We go through each
one in depth. You’ll want to talk about
these in the appropriate sections in your proposal. They are:
1. A Written Recruitment
Plan
The
first step in creating high-quality mentoring relationships is finding
appropriate and suitable adults who are committed to volunteering with your program.
The more developed, structured, and targeted your recruitment strategies are,
the more likely you are to find the most appropriate match for each youth in
your program.
Because
of the importance of finding qualified mentors, your recruitment efforts
cannot be conducted haphazardly. You must systematically target groups of
prospective mentors with a message that they can relate to and understand. This
message must be articulated clearly and tailored for the specific populations
of volunteers that you are hoping to attract to your program. Your targeted recruitment
messages should attract the different groups of mentors that are needed to
address the needs of youth within your program. These targeted messages should
find their way into your print materials, newspaper and media ads, flyers, and
brochures. And if your program makes presentations and appearances at public
events, you will need to make sure that your message is reflective of the
audience you are trying to recruit.
There
are several steps in creating an effective recruitment plan:
1.
Adequately Staff Your Recruitment Efforts The first step is to designate staff who are
responsible for developing and implementing your volunteer recruitment
efforts. Recruitment can be a labor-intensive task, so be sure that your staff
has the necessary time available to give recruitment the attention it deserves.
In addition to adequate time, be sure that the people responsible for your
recruitment efforts have the proper knowledge and skills to be successful. You
may need to seek out training or other professional development activities to
ensure that your recruitment personnel have a good understanding of effective
recruitment strategies.
2.
Identify Your Target Groups and Volunteer-Rich Environments
Your
program will need to identify the types
of
individuals you will want to seek out and the volunteer-rich environments in
which you might find them. The specific populations your program chooses to
target will vary, depending on your program’s mission, goals, and clients. The
key is to identify the groups in your community that might supply the type of
mentors that would work well in your program. If your program has conducted a
community needs assessment, chances are you have a pretty good understanding of
the demographic make-up of the groups in your community and an awareness of
volunteer pools on which to focus.
Common
volunteer groups that programs target include:
·
College students
·
Senior citizens
·
Specific groups related to gender, race, ethnicity, or culture
·
Employees in a specific field
·
Individuals from a particular geographic area
Just
as it is important to identify potential groups of volunteers for your program,
you must also identify local organizations, workplaces, and other community
settings that might have large numbers of potential volunteers. These
volunteer-rich environments can greatly assist you in recruiting from your
target groups. By developing contacts with these organizations, you can create
partnerships that support your recruitment efforts. Some have likened
recruitment in these volunteer-rich environments to a “wholesale” (large
quantity) rather than “retail” (traditional one-to-one recruitment of
individuals) approach to finding volunteers.
Common
volunteer-rich environments include:
·
Local colleges and universities (or specific campus groups such as
fraternities and sororities)
·
Retirement homes
·
Social, civic, and fraternal organizations
·
Local businesses
·
Local/regional government agencies
·
Faith-based organizations
·
Professional associations
Your
program should keep a written list of general targeted groups and specific
volunteer-rich environments on which you focus your recruitment efforts. You
should take time to periodically update, expand, and refine this list so that
your recruitment efforts are flexible and can expand in the future.
3.
Customize Your Recruitment Messages Once you have identified the groups your program
would like to target, you should begin the process of tailoring your message to
appeal to those groups. Recognize that mentoring will appeal to different
groups of adults for different reasons. Each group will likely have some unique
motivational appeals that should be considered in designing your recruitment
messages. You cannot use the same approach for every group of prospective
mentors and expect consistent results.
This
does not mean that the mission, goals, or volunteer responsibilities of your
program change depending on which group you’re courting. It simply means that
you spend some time thinking about what aspects of your program might appeal
to, say, college students more than would apply to a local church group. What
would you highlight about your program if you were approaching a local
high-tech firm that would be different if you were approaching an Elk’s Lodge?
Your program’s goals and focus should not change, but the message for your
various target groups will.
4.
Develop Your Recruitment Strategies
Once
you know who you are targeting, where you might find them, and what you want to
say to them, it’s time to develop some methods of delivery for your recruitment
message. There are many vehicles for getting your recruitment message out to
your targeted groups. Some of the most common are:
·
Program Brochures and
Flyers
Your
program should have brochures, posters, newsletters, flyers, and other print
materials that you can give to prospective mentors and disseminate at
community events. These print materials should explain the mission and goals of
the program and contain motivational language that would inspire someone to
further explore volunteering in your program.
·
A
Be
sure to have a well-defined written job description for mentors that describes
the roles, responsibilities, and benefits of mentoring as a volunteer with your
organization. This description should tie in closely with your program’s
mission and goals and the population of youth you are serving.
·
Newspaper and Media
Advertising
Your
program should explore the possibility of reaching out to targeted groups
through print ads or through public service announcements. This type of
outreach can often be done more inexpensively than one might expect, often in
the form of in-kind donations. Your program may also consider writing a letter
to the editor or submitting press releases to local papers about the program’s
progress.
·
Program Web Site
Having
an effective program Web site is fast becoming a necessity, not a luxury.
Having a presence on the Web can really expand your program’s visibility, even
at the local level. Once your Web site is up, be sure to get it listed on other
Web sites that help with volunteer recruitment (such as Network for Good or
your state’s mentoring partnership Web site).
·
Presentations
Your
program should regularly be making recruitment presentations to local
businesses and organizations. It is important to have a dynamic presenter
represent your agency—someone who can engage an audience and inspire passion
about the work your program does. It also helps to bring along an experienced
and enthusiastic current mentor to share his or her story. Some programs use
these presentations as a volunteer orientation, while other simply use them as
an introduction to the program that is followed by a later orientation for
those who have expressed interest in the program.
·
Displays at Events
Whenever
possible, your program should have a booth or table at community events where
appropriate groups of mentors might be found. It is important to be visible in
the community and increase general awareness of your program.
·
“Word of Mouth”
One of
the best ways of attracting new volunteers is through your existing pool of
mentors. Ask your mentors to provide personal testimony and help in recruiting
friends, co-workers, and family members. “Word of mouth” advertising is your
reward for running a quality program. If your program is well regarded in the
community, and if your volunteers are happy, then people will have positive
things to say about your program. That kind of positive reputation can go a
long way in helping all aspects of your recruitment process.
No
matter what methods you use in recruiting volunteers, it is important to create
a “customer-friendly” atmosphere. You should designate staff members to follow
up volunteer inquiries in a timely and professional manner. Your printed
materials should describe the steps in the process of becoming a mentor, so
that people know what they’re getting into. Most important, your program should
be perceived as being welcoming, attentive, and supportive.
The document
goes on to discuss in detail the following additional key components of a
mentoring program you need to think through in designing your program and
writing it up in your proposal. Every
RFP we are aware of requires these elements:
2.
Initial
Orientation for Prospective Mentors and Mentees
3.
Established
Mentor/Mentee Intake Procedures
4.
Appropriate
5.
Pre-Match
Training for All New Mentors and Mentees
6.
Established
Matching Procedures
7.
Established
Procedure for Monitoring Matches
8.
Support, Ongoing Training, and Recognition of
Volunteers
9.
Established Match Closure Procedure
10.
Additional
Program Elements Typically Required by Federal RFPs (e.g., demonstrating
academic improvement).
Outcomes Impacted
Mentoring
interventions typically impact the following outcome areas.
In
establishing the student mentoring initiative associated with No Child Left
Behind, Congress authorized grants to organizations to achieve one or more
goals for participating children, including improved academic outcomes; reduced
incidence of school dropout, juvenile delinquency, and alcohol and drug use;
and lower involvement in gangs.
Additional
goals commonly shared by mentoring programs are: (More detail is
given in the full document.)
Typical Intervention
Evaluation
The program
evaluation section has been removed. In the
full document it describes the kinds of program evaluations you can do. In addition, in the
What
to Do Next: Three Options
Are you thinking about developing and getting funding for a
mentoring program? As you can see, this
program design guide is pretty comprehensive, and will give you all the
essentials of designing a program. If
you don’t cover these essentials in your proposal, it will not be funded,
guaranteed (you’ll notice that mentoring RFPs ask you to discuss these
elements, and they are looking for very specific things to reassure them that
you know what you are doing—and with our Guide, you will!).
After you cover these essentials, you can then utilize your own
creativity and the goals of your nonprofit or faith-based organization to go
beyond the essentials to include additional elements.
You now have three options.
Option One:
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Option Two: Rapid
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You
can purchase a Toolkit for this area.
Each Toolkit includes:
1) The full version of this Program Design Guide;
2) One-year subscription to the Funding Opportunity Bulletin for this
program area’
3) One or more proposals that were funded by the
federal government for this area;
4) Outlines of all major programs offered by the government for this
program area; and
5) Links to additional resources
These
tools—the tools we offer in the Rapid Proposal Toolkits for each grant
area—will greatly speed your ability to write your proposal the next time the
government or a foundation announces the availability of funds.
To purchase the Mentoring Rapid Proposal Toolkit, click here. Just $85.00
Option Three:
Free Guide
You can request this guide for free. Each nonprofit or faith-based organization
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