Purpose
The purpose of the Friends mentoring program is to foster active, vibrant, and effective Friends organizations. The goal is to help a Friends organization and their Service site partner formulate a clear path forward so that they may work efficiently toward their mutual goals. Along the way, they will enhance understanding of these
mutual goals, review the Friends’ and Service’s capacity to pursue the goals, and make
plans to increase the capacity of the partners, if necessary.
Overview
The Friends Partnership Mentoring Program is a peer-based, face-to-face coaching opportunity to build and enhance the partnership between a Friends organization and the Service site and to strengthen both organizations to enable them to accomplish their mutual goals. A mentor relationship involves a specially trained pair of mentors
(a Service employee and a Friends member), the Friends board of directors/leaders, and key Service employees from the requesting Service site.
Priority Areas
Mentoring is designed to address four priority areas for Friends partnerships:
Core management of Friends organizations—e.g., board development, bylaw development, and organizing administrative and financial operations;
Developing or strengthening joint partnerships—e.g., defining roles and responsibilities for Friends and Service staff, meeting effectiveness, celebrating accomplishments, and planning together;
Dealing with change/transition—e.g., changes in Service staff and board members, life cycle stages for nonprofit organizations, planning, repurposing; and
Triage/crash cart assessment—e.g., revitalizing a partnership in decline an in danger of collapse.
Using the above four priority areas, the Friends leaders, the Service site staff, and the mentors will discuss and agree upon the major focus for the mentor visit. Mentoring can reveal exciting opportunities and identify ways to build capacity to pursue these opportunities. It can also focus on an anticipated challenge or on the changes
experienced as an organization progresses through normal life cycles.
Quick Look: Applying for the Mentoring Program
Download, complete, and sign this application form.
Submit completed application to Linda_Schnee@fws.gov.
National Friends coordinator forwards application to appropriate regional coordinator.
Regional Friends coordinator reviews application and ranks it among other applications.
If your application is selected, the regional coordinator recruits appropriate mentors and introduces you to them.
Mentor team schedules and leads the first call to establish expectations and the best mentoring approach. Service project leader and liaison and Friends board members should plan to participate in this call.
The rest is preparation for the visit—phone calls, emails, setting a date, reviewing the mentors’ proposed agenda, and gearing up for a special experience.
A mentoring visit is normally scheduled 2–6 months from the time of initial contact from your mentor team. If a mentor visit date cannot be scheduled once the 6 month time frame has arrived, then the current application will be closed and the partnership will need to reapply for the next application cycle.
Process and Expectations
The Friends Partnership Mentoring Program is funded jointly by the Refuge System headquarters and the regional officers s at very little expense to the individual Service site or partnership being mentored. When a partnership is chosen for mentoring, the mentor team is carefully selected to complement the purpose for which mentoring was requested. The mentors work directly with the Service
Project Leader/Service Liaison and key Friends leaders to obtain additional information. This is accomplished through a process that involves a phone conference and a standard set of questions.
Afterward, a site visit will be scheduled when all can participate (typically over two and one-half days), and mentors will draft a meeting agenda. We have found that a fully successful mentoring experience requires 1) the Service Project Leader/Service Liaison and key board members/Friends leaders being fully engaged in planning for and communicating about the mentor visit and 2) key
Service staff, the board of directors, and other Friends leaders being available for and participating in the mentoring site visit.
During the visit, the mentor team will assist the partnership in addressing and working on the priorities identified through the preparation process. The site visit will result in a written narrative by the mentors, a draft of which will be provided to the
partnership within a month following the site visit. The narrative will summarize the mentoring session, including conclusions and commitments made by the participants.
About the Mentors
The mentors will follow up with the participants through scheduled conference calls at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after mentoring. Mentors are trained Friends and Service staff who have such a strong interest and commitment to supporting Friends partnerships that they volunteer their time to do so. They have diverse experiences working with Friends partnerships and have received specialized mentor training. There are approximately 20 mentors serving on a nationwide basis, and they work in pairs consisting of one Friends member and one Service employee. The pair, once formed, is supported by the regional coordinator
from the region in which the application was generated.