The Mentoring Connector Gets A Refresh!
December 9, 2021
As the nation’s only database of mentoring programs, the Mentoring Connector is a critical resource for mentors and mentoring organizations across the country. Every year potential mentors conduct around 60,000 searches in the system to find programs they can get involved with, and that number is continuing to grow! In response to the evolving needs of a growing movement, MENTOR recognized the need to give the Mentoring Connector a refresh, and we’re so excited to announce that the new and improved system is now live.
Thanks to MENTOR Canada’s partnership and extensive input from Affiliates and programs, the new Mentoring Connector has a cleaner interface that is more user-friendly and easier to navigate than the previous version. With updated search filters and an interactive dashboard, volunteers can better tailor their search results and programs can more efficiently track and respond to volunteer inquiries. And thanks to our partners at Partners for Youth with Disabilities, the new Mentoring Connector is more accessible and filled with many resources on inclusive mentoring (click here to learn more about this work).
To learn more about the impact of this refresh, we sat down with MENTOR Program Manager Shylana Roman, Director of IT Sandy Martins, and Senior Director of External Affairs Matt Meyersohn.
What prompted our decision to update the mentoring connecter?
Shylana Roman: “It started in 2019 when MENTOR Canada reached out to us. They wanted to look at the system, see how it was running, and learn where we were going with this product. They wanted to develop their own version of it, and I thought, ‘If you’re going to make your own, we should just do a completely new system that’s better for both of us.’ It’s been a great opportunity to really think about how can we improve the system in the way that people were asking us for. A lot of feedback that we’ve gotten over the years from programs is that it wasn’t functioning the way that they really wanted it to. Mentoring programs and mentors and mentees are our top stakeholders, so we want to make sure that we’re creating a product that really works for them. And the Mentoring Connector is something that a lot of people associate with MENTOR, so we wanted to make sure that we developed something that we could be proud of.”
Matt Meyersohn: “We were looking to improve the experience for everybody involved with the Mentoring Connector. For our partners like Nike, the NBA, LinkedIn, and Starbucks who are utilizing this as a volunteer recruitment tool for mentoring, we want the analytics and the tracking to be really smooth. For the individuals who get sent to the Mentoring Connector, we want to make sure that the questions are easy to understand and that potential volunteers can find the exact right mentoring program for them. With these changes, mentoring programs across the country are going to see more and more volume going into the system and more and more quality leads coming their way.”
What has the refresh process entailed?
Shylana Roman: “We really wanted to focus on our stakeholders who use the system day in and day out, so that’s program users, Affiliates, and volunteers. We did many rounds of focus groups with everyone, really listening in and walking through the system with them and asking, ‘What are frustration points for you all? If we could rebuild the system if you could have whatever you want, what would you love to have here? What would make you want to log in and use the system?’ We sent out surveys to everyone and met with Affiliates and programs to get their feedback. Whenever a program emailed us with frustration, we made sure to log it. At the end of every training we did, every webinar, we would ask folks, ‘What would you like to see in a future version of this?’ By pushing those priorities to the top, we now have a product where people are like, ‘I’m so happy it does this. This is exactly what I was hoping for.’ The number one change that we made that programs asked us for was making it easier for them to respond to volunteers.”
What have been some of the biggest challenges? Any successes that you are especially proud of?
Sandy Martins: “This project has had its fair share of challenges. This system has a lot of great data regarding mentoring opportunities and needs across the country. From an IT standpoint that excites me because there’s an opportunity for us to use the information to help our constituents of volunteers out there. From a relationship standpoint, it was a learning curve for me to teach people certain processes. We tried them, some worked, some didn’t; and when they didn’t work, we had the opportunity to take a step back and re-engage. All in all, in the year that we’ve worked, I think that resilience is the key to success. We remained to see this project through, even if we had multiple times we had to take a pause on it. This system needed love and tender care and the attention to get it to where it is. And even still, I would say that yes, we crossed the finish line with phase one, but it’s still not done.”
Shylana Roman: “It’s never going to be done. It’s like an art project. You’re never finished, but you have to know when to stop and come back to it. The old system had quite a few band-aids, so we essentially pulled out the guts, rebuilt and restructured. And I think laying this strong foundation down so we can continue building is a turning point for all of our tech products at MENTOR.”
How do you think the mentoring movement will be impacted by this updated system?
Matt Meyersohn: “Technology at its best makes everybody’s lives easier and more efficient, and the Mentoring Connector is really designed to be a single place that anyone across the country can go to find the right mentoring opportunity for them. And as we improve the technology, we’re making it better for every constituent, from our Affiliates to the 3,000 programs in the system to the 60,000 volunteers that search the system every year.”
Shylana Roman: “For a lot of folks, the Mentoring Connector is their first foray into volunteering, so it’s this very front, public-facing product that brings you the concept of volunteering. Even if you’re not sure if you’re going to become a mentor, if you click the button, we send you mentoring resources. And it provides us with so much information for our network. For example, when we set up an Affiliate in a new state, we send them a report of all the mentoring programs in the area so they know who to reach out to and who their stakeholders are. And I think if we look at it more from a micro perspective, we are really leading and having an impact in bringing older programs and smaller staffed programs to this digital literacy point. In one-on-one trainings, we’re guiding folks who may not be as digitally literate as we are through the system, and they’re learning a lot in the process. So, it’s having various levels of impact across the board.”
Sandy Martins: “Not only are we pushing ourselves to really be innovative and to go along with the digital era that we’re in, but when you develop a system that’s so easily consumed from the user perspective, you’re gaining their trust to lean on this type of tool for whatever they need. If their experience is great, they pass it on to other people. That clunky system from before? It’s in the past now. Here we are in the future, making it easier than ever for people to become mentors.”