Designing and Configuring Your Program

The first stage of any mentorship program is design. This includes confirming goals and outcomes, defining participant groups, identifying administrator roles and responsibilities, establishing a timeline, and configuring the program to best fit your program needs.

Confirming Your Program Goals

We recognize that you have distinct goals and objectives that you aim to accomplish through your partnership with Mentor Collective. At the onset of the program, please reflect on and be sure to share program goals and measurable outcomes with your Mentor Collective representative, so that we can work alongside you in achieving them! 

Determining Participant Eligibility

Based on your program’s goals, your institution will need to identify the target populations for your program.

• Who is the mentee population? Why?
• Who is the mentor population? Why?
  • Will mentors be volunteer or paid mentors? 
• Would you like to see disaggregated data for participants? 
  • If yes, by what subcategories or subpopulations? 
• Are there any requirements for participation?

Note: By default, Mentor Collective's platform already requires a matching survey and mentor training.

Identifying Administrator Roles and Responsibilities

It is vital to have all internal roles, responsibilities, and processes in place prior to the program launch in order to have the most streamlined and positive participant experience. Your institution will need to identify specific administrator roles, outlined below. 

Creating a Timeline

The program design, implementation, and onboarding process typically takes around 4 to 8 weeks. Your program’s specific launch time frame will be decided jointly by your team and your Mentor Collective representative. This timeline can be impacted by factors such as the complexity of program customization(s) and the time needed to gather specific program details and participant directory information.

At the onset of the program, your Mentor Collective representative will want to align on:

• When will the program design and configuration be finalized?
• When will program promotion and recruitment begin?
• When would you like to begin matching?
• When should assessment surveys be sent throughout the program?
• When will the program end?
• What significant events or dates should be considered?

Your Mentor Collective representative will create a specific implementation timeline to keep the program on track. 

Configure Your Program

Mentor Collective offers a comprehensive mentorship program and platform that requires no additional customization in order to be successful. However, many programs want to take advantage of the many configurations offered in order to best fit their program’s specific needs - from matching survey configuration to disaggregated participant data to custom participant resources.

Your Mentor Collective representative will recommend any configurations that make sense for your program design. In addition, you are encouraged to review configuration opportunities in our Knowledge Center.