Executives and managers in the field of nonprofit financial management can benefit from mentoring just as much, if not more so, than entry-level staffers.
We often think of mentoring as the process of helping a novice or junior-level employee gain the confidence, experience, and seasoning needed for promotion or increasing responsibilities. The name itself, mentoring, conjures images of an old, wise counselor and a young person shadowing the mentor to learn through experience.
Learning isn’t just a young person’s purview anymore. Nonprofit financial management offers many challenges that can be difficult for executives and managers to navigate on their own. Through a mentoring relationship, managers and executives have the opportunity to seek guidance, insight, and feedback from someone with equal or greater experience.
It’s Lonely at the Top
You’ve heard the expression “It’s lonely at the top.” Senior-level leaders often struggle to find someone to share ideas and solicit feedback from because there are few, if any, people with the same amount of experience as they have within the organization.
Mentors can help you with these issues. A mentor who works for another organization can act as a sounding board and confidante for problems you need to talk out with an experienced person. Asking for guidance, ideas, suggestions, and solutions and working on them with your mentor can also broaden your leadership skills.
By forging professional relationships with other nonprofit leaders, you’ll have a ready-made network of people to tap into when you need to consult with others.
Making the Mentorship Relationship Work
To make the mentor-mentee relationship work to its fullest potential, start with an action plan. Mentors should work with their mentees to form a written plan. Identify the skills you wish to work on together. Then, identify projects, opportunities, and areas where you can build those skills in the next several months.
Choose an area to work on that will make the biggest impact on your own needs. Time management and delegation are two areas that leaders often struggle with and that a mentor can be helpful to resolve. The more time you free up through delegation, the more time you will have to work on projects that will benefit your nonprofit.
Regular face-to-face meetings are also an essential component of the mentoring process. Regular meetings ensure accountability, clear feedback, and trust-building that is essential to successful mentoring.
Finding a Mentor
All of this may sound terrific, but how do you find a mentor? Check with professional associations first. You may find someone willing to become a mentor or an active mentorship program. If they do not have one, suggest one. You may be surprised by the interest in such a program.
Consider becoming a mentor to others too. Skilled executives are teachers, leaders, and cheerleaders. By sharing what you have learned along the way, you’ll help improve nonprofit financial management skills for others as well.
Mentoring others also brings with it several positives. If you take the time to mentor others within your own organization, you’ll help people improve their skills so that when the opportunity for promotion and advancement arises, you will have leaders ready to step into new roles. It’s a win-win for all when you embrace a culture of mentoring and begin the mentoring process yourself.
Beck & Company
Beck & Company are Washington DC nonprofit advisors. We also are Virginia certified nonprofit accountants. We work with nonprofits of all sizes serving many different constituents nationwide, providing a variety of consulting, auditing, and accounting services. For more information, please contact us at 703-834-0776 x8001.