Benefits
We work with anyone who has a leadership role within a charity, community group or not-for-profit social enterprise, including trustees, managers and directors. We can focus on a specific issue or on general strategic direction.
Our mentors will help a mentee to think through the issues and help them to come to their own solutions and conclusions. We always ensure we have the permission of trustees before becoming involved.
Charity Mentors offer short term support (usually around 6 to 8 months) and it costs nothing, apart from time, energy and commitment from the mentee to participate fully.
The Process
Connect
- Contact Charity Mentors by completing the online form [Link to form here] or sending an email
- Your initial enquiry will be followed up by our Coordinator, to establish whether your project is suitable and what your objectives might be.
Share
- If you are the CEO / Manager of the organisation, we ask that you share the fact that you are thinking of working with us with your trustees / board.
- If you are a trustee / chair, please share with your other trustees.
- It makes sense in an organisation with collective responsibility that everyone is aware of support at a strategic level. We may ask your permission to contact your chair, or other trustees, to explain our role. We will need confirmation that they are on-board before we move forward.
Select
- We will then help you find the best mentor to meet your needs, and make introductions so that you can arrange an initial meeting.
- The aim of this first meeting is for you and the mentor to decide if you would like to work together on a project and to clarify your goals.
- You are not committed to working with Charity Mentors until after you have had this meeting.
Focus
- If you both feel that you can work together productively, you then have a period of around 6-8 months in which to complete the mentoring project.
- This is likely to involve a series of scheduled meetings, at mutually convenient times. Some mentors and mentees may agree to use video calls (such as Zoom, Teams etc) to make the meetings easier to arrange, although we generally recommend that at least one or two meetings are held face-to-face.
- The whole project is designed around you, your organisation and your needs. The important thing is that you use your mentor whilst you have them! We ask you to respect the value of the mentoring provided, take the time to prepare for your meetings, and bring commitment and enthusiasm to each session.
Review
- At the end of the project, we ask you to complete a feedback form so that we can learn from each experience and obtain useful evaluation to demonstrate the value of our work.
- We arrange to check back with you after a period of around 6-months to see what the longer-term benefits have been.
Refer
- The service is free-of-charge and completely confidential between yourself and Charity Mentors, although we do ask if you would help us to spread the word to other charity leaders, and, at a minimum, that you summarise the project outcomes to help us report back.
What sort of issues might be covered?
- Supporting and encouraging managers in clarifying options and priorities.
- Decisions about the development and direction of the organisation.
- Managing change and how to articulate it.
- Decisions concerning structure and staffing.
- Exploring how an organisation might move to the “next step” in terms of growth and sustainability.
- Positioning and purpose of an organisation to enable strategic focus.
- Identifying resource requirements
- Working through trustees and governance issues.
- Help with being new in role as a manager or CEO