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GCMLA – Charter
This page shares the Charter of the Greater Cincinnati Mentor Leadership Alliance.
This document serves to guide the work of the Core Team and the entire Alliance.
Alliance Vision:
- All mentoring organizations are thriving and at peak capacity.
- Our communities are stronger because our programs impact mentees deeply.
Alliance Mission:
- We elevate and expand capacity for social service focused mentoring in Greater Cincinnati.
Note: Capacity includes elements of capability, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability.
- We support and encourage purposeful growth in all areas of life, ultimately focused toward “people in need”.
- We inspire sustainable, transformational growth in mentees, volunteer mentors, non-profit staff and all volunteers.
- We reapply and share to keep focus on our clients rather than content. Resources (tools, processes, people) are easily and freely available to enable continual improvement on-demand.
- We role model, benchmark and pilot tools and processes seeking best practices.
Scope of the Alliance:
- Social service-focused mentoring…serving people in need (not career mentoring for professionals).
- All ages…adult, teen, youth.
- Mentor Program Leaders (including Executive Directors, Volunteer Managers and “key” mentors).
- We equip and educate through self-service use of a shareable toolbox, workshops and 1:1 coaching.
We will measure our progress via the following:
- Strategic Plan progress (completion of key actions).
- Feedback via an annual Survey.
Key Documents:
- Strategic Plan.
- Masterplan (by quarter, program calendar).
- Member Engagement Plan.
Core Team Principles:
- We seek consensus on key decisions.
- Core team members play an active role. We work in our passions and strengths. We each lead in our own unique way: content development, customer development, facilitators and coaches, ambassadors, etc.
- We respect and leverage our diversity…visible, mentor program focus, Cincinnati/NKY, customers and contributors, social service professionals and lead volunteers, neuro, experiential, faith and spirituality.
- We have one set of content. Continual improvement ideas are incorporated into documents. We have a process to review and approve. It is easy to access and use. Everyone adds to and takes from the toolbox.
- Informal networking leads to sharing across organizations.
The Core Team and Roles:
A core team of 8-10 people provide guidance, leadership and direction. We seek all types of diversity. Membership is comprised of mentor program leaders, volunteer leaders, executive directors and lead volunteers. We expect people to play an active role — 2-4 hours per month and hold the role 1-2 years.
Name | Organization | Team Role |
Tony Aloise | Life Solutions Network | Team Leader |
Bob Miller | Lead Volunteer | Organization Design Process Owner |
Nancy Costello | Saturday Hoops | Strategic Planning Process Owner |
Amy Pelicano | DCCH Home for Children | Marketing & Communications Advisor |
Lynn Shewmaker | Lead Volunteer | Insight 30 Process Owner |
Paul Spencer | Lead Volunteer | Masterplanning Process Owner |
Kimberly Huckleby | Ladies of Leadership | tbd |
Lorraine O’Moore | Learning Grove | tbd |
Joe Dixon | City Gospel Mission | tbd |
Greg Metz | Awesome All Around | Mentor Recruiting Advocacy Leader |
Amy Thompson | Cincinnati Youth Collaborative | Tbd |
Relationship with LSN:
- LSN is the sponsoring organization. It adds capacity (lead volunteers), infrastructure (e.g. web site, newsletter) and leadership (Tony and Lead Volunteers).
- LSN is a key content provider: life skills wiki, blog and tools.
Click here to see and download our 2023 Charter
Mentor Development Planning
This document discusses a process to develop mentors, from orientation to initial training to ongoing development. It links the LSN Toolbox to the process. Note that green text highlights resources that are not currently on-line but freely available upon request.
Background: Volunteer mentors have various starting points. It could be as basic as never mentoring or some experience as a mentor in a corporate setting or being a very experienced but informal mentor of a teen child. Moving from this variable starting point to being an impactful mentor requires guidance and structure.
The Life Solutions Network can support you in mentor development. It starts with a choice to make quality (skills and effectiveness) an important goal as well as quantity (more mentor relationships).
Recommended Process:
- Provide orientation to the organizations mission and mentor role.
- Expectations. A clear role description guides the needs.
- Provide initial training.
- Mentoring skills. Review and align on the essential skills and then offer the Mentor for Purpose Overview
- Contextual skills. These include mental health, trauma, abuse, recovery and poverty.
- Establish an expectation for ongoing development.
- Offer ongoing workshops. See the Mentor for Purpose Workshop series.
- Encourage self-learning. Explore the Life Skills Wiki, subscribe to internet newsletters or just read a book or short article.
- Offer individualized coaching. Consider assigning an experienced mentor as a “sponsor” to a new mentor.
- Consider assigning a lead volunteer. Coordination of training and development requires “capacity”.
- Establish tracking and communication systems.
- Self-assess skills once or twice per year. Use the Principles and Skills Assessment Tool.
- Attendance at required 2-4 development sessions per year. Bringing your volunteers together as a group can include social, informational and development agenda topics.
- Implement Best Practices. See the Mentoring.org web site.
- Testing. Consider a Mentor Resource Page to insure awareness of available resources. Follow-up with an initial and then annual on-line quiz of content and policies.
Further Discussion:
- Guiding mentor development requires resources and the focus of a Volunteer Coordinator or Mentor Program Leader. It requires the structure of a good Process Design and tools, e.g. a Volunteer Dashboard or Mentor Development Tracking tool.
- Leadership must insist on mentor development; make it a priority.