Support for Non-Profits, Creatives & Start Ups
Support for Non-Profits, Creatives & Start Ups
Mentor (noun): an experienced and trusted adviser
Mentoring (verb): to advise and train someone
Mentee (noun): Someone looking to grow, learn and develop professionally (or personally) and who engages with a mentor to achieve this goal.
Pro-Bono (adjective/adverb): Denoting work undertaken without charge
Life in the top seat of an organization can sometimes feel lonely. When your busy providing support to others, you may begin to feel emotionally fatigued yourself. When you are faced with conflict, difficult decisions, or uncertain choices, where do you turn for advice?
Any of these situations or other circumstances may be a reason to seek an experienced professional who can provide support and insight confidentially without judgement. An individual board member with the right experience can sometimes offer valuable mentorship. But what if you don’t have that resource available to you? or the difficulty at hand involves your board?
Engaging with 90 Degrees Up for a 3- to 12- month mentorship can give you the support you need to push forward and up.
A successful mentor/mentee relationship requires both parties to “engage”. For the mentee, the relationship works best when considered part of a larger journey of growth and development.
To get the most out of the time invested, being open, curious and ready to learn is key. Mentoring is about inviting the mentor into your space to become part of your inner thoughts connected to leadership, including decision-making, effective time management, employee supervision, and productive conflict resolution.
Will I coach you? Probably not, although sometimes coaching overlaps mentoring. Coaching is a bit more structured, usually centered on short-term goals, identifying needs and developing a structured action plan.
Mentoring is about sharing knowledge, wisdom and experience to help you grow and develop. The relationship of mentee-mentor is informal, with the mentee leading the agenda.
While coaching and mentoring are not mutually exclusive, coaching is usually about improving performance, whereas mentoring is about developing skills for on-going growth.
Before we enter into a mentor-mentee agreement, we’ll want to discuss what you need at this time in terms of professional growth. We can meet and share informally so I can learn more about your background and goals; also so that you can learn more about my communication style and how 90 Degrees Up might be able to help.
Let’s schedule 45 minutes to meet and share. In-person preferred, but if not local or super busy, zoom is an option.
After we meet, we can each decide if we are the right match in order to be productive.* After confirming our desire to proceed, the final step is to
You get to lead the conversation based on what is on your mind in connection with your work or goals.
I can provide up to six mentoring sessions pro bono.
*If I feel I do not have the right experience to help and support your current situation, I will suggest other options to help you get what you need.