Mentoring and Collaboration

Spectrum runs a mentoring program, currently we have 37 kids matched up with adult mentors, many of which are now past the one-year point. Five years ago we had only 6 matches, so I am very pleased that we have seen this important work grow.

I am also on the Mobius board of directors, which is the overall mentoring organization for Chittenden County, and at the last board meeting the E.D. of Mobius announced that the Burlington Boy’s and Girl’s Club wants to get into mentoring for their kids. I know the director there, Mary Alice McKenzie, a great and dynamic leader who is new and has lots of energy, and the B and G Club is less than a mile from Spectrum. I went over to see her last Friday with Joan White, our development director, and our message was, “Hey, we at Spectrum have been doing mentoring for years, quite successfully, we know how to vett and train mentors. Rather than re-invent the wheel, and have you expend your money and time on that, let’s collaborate, with Spectrum doing that aspect of the work for you.” Mary Alice seemed very happy with this offer, so we will be off and running soon. I think it is a good example of the type of collaborations which will have to occur in the coming years, as there are fewer and fewer resources available to nonprofits, particularly from government funding. Nonprofits need to become smarter and more efficient, and learn to work with each other rather than competing against each other.

Mark

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 6:41 am and is filed under GENERAL ENTRIES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.