The third sector, wherever it operates in the world, faces increasing challenges. Many of these can be met in part by having a well-designed, well-managed mentoring programme – or in some cases, multiple mentoring programmes. Some of these programmes are world-class – Medicins Sans Frontieres, for example, is one of the few holders of the Gold level award under the International Standards for Mentoring and Coaching Programmes, the global benchmark for good practice in this area.
Mentoring is focused in charities and Non-Governmental Bodies (NGOs) on two audiences: beneficiaries and staff. Beneficiaries range from people starting micro-businesses in developing countries, through immigrants and refugees, schoolchildren, and ex-offenders. The key in all these cases is that the person wants to make a significant improvement in their life and prospects, but needs guidance and support in that transition.
Staff benefit from mentoring in multiple ways. If you are a doctor heading out into the field for the first time, for example, it can be a lonely and stressful experience. Having a wise head in an experienced colleague can make a major difference. Many people now see the third sector as their long-term career choice. Having someone who can help them think through and prepare for career steps gives them clarity of direction, enabling them to take charge of their career, rather than let it happen to them. As a result, they are more likely to stay in the sector.
For third sector organizations, mentoring is an important means of attracting, as well as keeping talent. It can be a tough transition from a relatively well-resourced corporate environment to one, where every penny wasted is one less to support beneficiaries. Mentoring between charities and corporates makes the corporates more aware of and more responsive to social issues. It also helps employees in the corporate world understand and appreciate how they can contribute by working within the sector. And when they join a third sector organization, having an internal mentor helps them learn the culture and fit in much more rapidly. It is estimated that a well-trained mentor can halve the amount of “running in” time for a new recruit.
Another major benefit for the charity lies in establishing or reinforcing a coaching culture. The most effective way to support line managers in becoming comfortable with a coaching style of leadership is to train them as a mentor first. Having someone to experiment with in holding developmental dialogues with someone outside the reporting line allows them to build their skills and confidence without the worries they might have about getting it wrong with a direct report.
Other corporate benefits include significant improvements in communication between headquarters and the field, stronger alignment of newcomers with the charity’s values, and positive impacts on diversity management. For example, reverse mentoring has been highly effective in charities, such as the UK’s national Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). When the management structures and the volunteer network are both predominantly middle class, middle-aged, and white, reverse mentoring from younger, black, and less privileged staff or volunteers can have a major impact on how the organization thinks and how it relates to its beneficiaries. Even where the mentoring relationship is not formally reversed in terms of hierarchical position, both mentor and mentee gain a deeper understanding of each other’s world and perspectives.
Gender-based mentoring has been highly effective in helping women break the glass ceiling in the third sector. A problem in female advancement is that many successful women do not want to help other women climb the ladder, too. Educating them about how to make a difference through mentoring, and giving them the skills to do so, can change attitudes substantially.
A particularly interesting form of mentoring now migrating from the corporate and governmental sectors (in Europe and Australasia at least) is maternity mentoring, in which mothers are supported in returning to the workplace by a mentoring relationship with a peer, who has been through the same transition. Organizations adopting this approach find that they improve both the post-maternity (and paternity) return rate and the speed, with which returners get back up to full speed in their work and careers.
Another rapidly growing application is ethical mentoring. This involves training experienced managers in both the skills of mentoring and the basics of the psychology of ethical behaviour. Their role is partly to help other people recognise when an ethical dilemma arises and partly to help them think through what appropriate actions the person can take that minimise the damage to both the organization and themselves. In extremis, the mentor may ensure that issues are raised and reviewed against ethical principles at top level. The reputational damage suffered by charities such as Oxfam and Save the Children in recent years could arguably have been avoided, if people had had an ethical mentor to turn to.
Critical Issues in Third Sector Mentoring
From our experience with dozens of charities and NGOs, we can identify some clear lessons about recommended practice:
- Relate what you spend to the benefit you expect to achieve.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money on your mentoring programme, but there is an optimum investment, below which you may do more harm than good. That means having sufficient resources to:
a. Ensure everyone is trained for the role initially. Increasingly, this training is delivered virtually, by webinars with reading and discussion forums built around them. If you only train mentors, you typically lose two-thirds of the impact of the relationships.
b. Match people effectively.
c. Support them over the first 12 months of the relationship.
d. Measure the effectiveness of both each relationship and the programme overall. - Be very clear about why you are introducing mentoring.
Linking it to your organizational values increases people’s commitment and makes it easier to relate the outcomes to the organization’s purpose. - Be very clear about what you mean by mentoring.
Much of the literature on mentoring is influenced by tradition from the United States, which conflates mentoring and sponsorship and focuses on the mentor as “godfather”. In Europe, the home of mentoring, the tradition remains in line with the origins of mentoring in “using your wisdom to help another person develop their own wisdom”. Sponsorship and mentoring are not only different kinds of relationship – they are largely incompatible in an organizational context, because sponsorship discourages the total honesty and psychological safety of mentoring. In the ethical climate of a third sector organization, sponsorship implies nepotistic qualities contrary to the values of equal opportunity. - Appoint a mentoring coordinator and steering group.
Their role is to ensure the programme stays on track, to troubleshoot if needed, and to champion the programme. - Even if you don’t apply for the International Standards, use them in your programme design and benchmarking.
The standards were created on the experience of hundreds of mentoring programmes around the world, in all sectors. - Listen to participants.
The more they can take ownership of the mentoring programmes, the more effective the programmes will be and the less costly to administer.
In Conclusion
Having a mentoring capability is no longer a “nice to have” for third sector organisations. It is as much an essential as a payroll system or a strategic plan. In all the dozens of properly designed and managed mentoring programmes we have seen in the sector, in numerous countries, we have not seen one case where there was not a substantial return on investment and an increase in how effectively the charity or NGO was able to deliver its mission.
© David Clutterbuck