Design and Planning a Mentoring Program

You're ready to embark on the very important work of designing and planning the who, what, when, where and how of your mentoring program. By taking time to carefully think through all aspects of your program, you will ensure that you're able to serve young people most effectively and sustain your efforts over the long-term. This section is adapted from section IV of the How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice (PDF) Tool Kit.

The program design and planning stage enables you to create a roadmap of how you will manage, implement and evaluate your mentoring program. Keep in mind that you can modify your plan as you go along, when circumstances and experiences dictate. However, advance planning on how the program will be managed: such as selecting a management team, establishing policies and procedures, developing a financial plan, implementing the program and a plan for evaluating the program will assist you carrying out the Elements as outlined in the program management, operations and evaluation sections. Additional resources for each section can be found in the "Find Resources" section.

Start with the Need

Your decision to start a mentoring program stems from your belief that a need already exists for such a program. However, in order to amass the support you will need to actually launch a program, you must verify that the need does actually exist. Your local government, or a communitywide organization such as United Way may have the documentation you require via a community needs assessment. Or, you might elect to conduct your own environmental scan, a process that identifies community and state priorities, needs and opportunities in the context of the economic environment. Using the information gleaned from these assessments, you can help ensure your proposed initiative addresses a true need among youth in your community. More...

Design the Parameters for Your Program

The program design phase helps your mentoring program decide what youth populations to serve, what specific type of mentoring it wants to do, what setting the matches will meet in, what type of school or organization it may want to partner with and what types of people to involve. Program design and planning tools to assist you in designing and planning a mentoring program can be accessed in the How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice Tool Kit. More...

Program Design and Planning Resources

Additional information, resources and tools on program design and planning available in the Find Resources section and in the How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice Tool Kit.

(Information adapted from How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice, Section IV How to Design and Plan a Mentoring Program. Some information adapted from the Connecticut Mentoring Partnership, Business Mentoring Tool Kit) More...