Overview

For a mentorship program, I interviewed and arranged 11 pairs of mentors and mentees based on understanding their goals for joining the program. For the duration of the program, I am monitoring their relationship to mediate any potential conflicts that arise. At the end of the program, I am gathering participants’ feedback to recommend improvements for next year’s program

Challenge

I volunteer for Asian Sisters Participating in Reaching Excellence (ASPIRE) and am one of the team members of the mentorship program, which aims to provide professional socialization, career guidance, and psychosocial development for Asian-American women. 

One of my roles was to pair mentors and mentees based on their goals and background. Once the program kicked off, I became one of the liaisons that checked the progress of the mentor and mentee relationships and gathered feedback about the program.

Process

Pairing Mentors and Mentees

Since I began volunteering when the program was taking applications, my main role was to have informal interviews with the prospective mentors and mentees to understand their goals for participating. Additionally, we wanted to know their expectations with the mentorship program itself. I created an interview guide to address these goals. Using Calendly, I scheduled time to interview individuals and incorporated personalized questions based on their application. 

Once I finished the interviews, I analyzed the data and paired mentors and mentees with their goals and backgrounds in mind.

Liaison 

Lily Rugo, my other team member, coordinated events to build a sense of community between the program participants. Rita, the program director, and I oversaw the progress of the mentorship pairs. This mainly consisted of checking in to see if the pairs were meeting up individually and making them aware of the events. 

Program Finale

There will be a program finale event in November 2019. To gather feedback on the program so that we can make improvements for next year’s program, I am creating a list of general questions that mentors and mentees might be willing to share during the event. I am also creating an anonymous survey in Google Forms to get more detailed feedback on the program and on each pair’s relationship.

Outcomes

Based on the application forms and informal interviews, I assigned 11 paired mentors and mentees. I have been checking in with all of the pairs and attending the events to support the participants. The feedback survey has been drafted and will be finalized in the upcoming weeks before the finale event. 

As a next step, Rita is also planning on starting a Mentorship Circle. This will consist of monthly facilitated discussions based on anonymous questions that were submitted by participating individuals.