Good mentoring practice: volunteer coordinators in Poland

Mentoring Across Borders focuses on mentoring across borders between older mentors and younger mentees following a specific methodology. However many of our Mentoring Across Border partners have experience with mentoring in their own countries before the project, among them our MAB partner Stowarzyszenie Centrum Wolontariatu. Their mentoring program answers the question of how to support volunteer coordinators in non-governmental organizations and public institutions, who constantly pay attention to the need for in-depth, systematic reflection. One of their volunteer coordinators Katarzyna Osior-Szot, tells us more about the programme:

Volunteer coordinator is a profession that combines many different roles. We are bit by bit team leaders, managers, strategists, logisticians, event producers, motivational speakers, fundraisers... It takes a wide variety of competences to meet all these challenges.

Needs of a volunteer coordinator

Volunteer coordinator is a profession that combines many different roles. We are bit of everything, team leaders, managers, strategists, logisticians, event producers, motivational speakers, fundraisers....

Many diverse competences are needed to meet all these challenges. Some of these can be taught during group forms of education such as training and workshops. Note, however, that even the best-prepared training will not be able to fully address the individual needs of each participant - the programme will necessarily turn out to be an averaging exercise.

In addition, the more advanced the group, the more difficult it is to prepare an attractive proposal, because the participants are already at a level of competence where they need specialised information on very precise fragments of reality.

This is usually the situation of volunteer coordinators with a lot of seniority in the profession, working in organisations with a long tradition of volunteer programmes. In order to develop, they need one-to-one forms, geared towards analysing their specific situation. Moreover, this analysis does not necessarily have to be about aspects strictly related to volunteering or even social activities. Sometimes a volunteer coordinator is most in need of advice from a specialist from a slightly different professional world.

In such a situation, it is worth reaching for forms of development that allow for both a personalised approach and the invigoration that comes from contact with a different sector. One of these may be mentoring. This is exactly the conclusion we have come to at the Stowarzyszenie Volunteer Centre.

Origins

In 2020, we were looking for answers to the question of how to support volunteer coordinators well, constantly highlighting the need for in-depth, systematic reflection. Their challenges focused on managerial competences, managing themselves in time and using their strengths at work. We decided that we would try out whether mentoring - a relationship based on the mentor sharing his or her experience - could bridge the development gap.

As experts on volunteering and representatives of an organisation that binds the volunteering community together, we knew we could effectively spread the idea to coordinators. However, we needed someone who would bring expertise on how to model a mentoring programme. The Polish Mentoring Association played such a role in the programme, with whom we established a partnership that has continued uninterrupted to this day. The knowledge and experience of the Polish Mentoring Association ensures that mentoring meets the highest standards of professionalism, and the status of the Volunteer Centre in the community ensures that the programme hits the needs of the coordinators.

In February 2021, we inaugurated the first edition of the mentoring programme for volunteer coordinators, which ran until January 2022. We ran the second edition of the programme in April 2022. - February 2023.We launched the third edition in April 2023 and planned to finish it in December 2023.

Stages

The first stage of each edition was to recruit mentees, i.e. coordinators willing to take advantage of mentoring. In the first two editions of the programme, we decided on closed recruitment - as organisers, we sent invitations to people we had selected from organisations of various types: cultural institutions, NGOs, social welfare centres, schools, etc. The mentors were both experienced volunteer coordinators and representatives of other professional backgrounds. 

We adopted a slightly different recruitment model during the third edition of the programme: mentees applied themselves and completed questionnaires, on the basis of which we selected a group of participants. As before, the mentors came from a variety of sectors. Some of them had worked with us in previous editions, others joined us for the first time.

The pilot edition of the programme brought together nine mentoring pairs. In the second, four pairs started working together. In the third edition - with open recruitment - eighteen couples joined the programme, but eventually fourteen couples continued the relationship.

Once mentees and mentors are recruited, the programme follows a specific scenario.

1. As organisers, we match mentors and mentees into pairs based on questionnaires that address, among other things, development goals, work experience, work style preferences.
2. The mentee and mentor meet for a zero session where they talk about the goals of the collaboration and check in with each other to see how they feel as members of that mentoring pair. This is an opportunity to verify whether the proposed pairing is promising for the future.
3. If both parties want to work together, they write up a mentoring contract. In it, mentee and mentor describe what development goals the mentee will work on, how they will do it, what results they want to achieve and in what time frame. They also agree on organisational issues such as, among other things, the format and frequency of meetings.
4. The phase of regular meetings in pairs begins. Mentee and mentor usually have six to eight mentoring sessions over the course of the programme.
5. In parallel, as organisers, we monitor the progress of the programme: we check whether the pairs are working, whether they need our support, what logistical elements we can improve.
6. The mentoring relationship ends with a debriefing session, during which the mentee and mentor discuss whether and to what extent the mentee has achieved the goals set. Such a meeting is also an opportunity for both parties to give each other feedback and thank each other for their cooperation.
7. The programme ends with a meeting among all participants, where we evaluate the edition, celebrate successes and gather lessons for the future.

As you can see, the core of the programme is the paired cooperation between mentor and mentee. The success of the project depends on it. Good organisation of the programme is above all to ensure that pairs are well matched, have something to talk about and work regularly.

Successes and perspectives

Past editions of the mentoring programme have brought many benefits to the coordinators. Among other things, participants have written in evaluation questionnaires that, thanks to mentoring:

• they looked at their competences in a different light,
• their sense of empowerment, self-confidence and self-awareness increased,
• they acquired the "missing pieces of the puzzle": they found solutions they had been looking for long and unsuccessfully on their own,
• gained greater confidence and awareness of the activities they undertake and the processes in which they participate,
• found a source of new motivation to work, develop and search for solutions,
• gained not only theoretical knowledge but also a thoroughly practical perspective.

It is not only the volunteer coordinators who have gained from participating in the programme. Mentoring also develops mentors. They reported that through mentoring:

• they got the chance to share their experience with someone,
• were often able to prove themselves in a new role,
• were able to get the satisfaction of supporting someone in their development,
• fulfilled needs - for example self-development, community, relationships,
• practised competences - for example listening, formulating feedback, asking pertinent questions,
• broaden their horizons.

We also see many “environmental” benefits. Thanks to the mentoring programme, a new development offer for volunteer coordinators has entered the market, in a good way complementing the forms of education already available. Mentoring has triggered a lot of cross-industry contact, allowing us to be inspired by many examples 'outside our bubble'. It is also a further step towards making the profession of volunteer coordinator truly a profession - professional, but not without its characteristics, which certainly include empathy, flexibility and working towards higher goals. This is why we intend to continue the mentoring programme. We plan to launch the next, fourth edition in spring 2024.

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash