New Sector's nonprofit clients and program participants benefit from the exceptional pro bono support of skilled volunteers. Typical volunteer engagements include serving as a Mentor, providing professional development/training, and other opportunities described below.
Serving as a Mentor
The Mentor is an integral part of New Sector’s program model. Advisors provide guidance, support project quality and are an invaluable source of knowledge and coaching. The mentor’s role is to work regularly with the mentee to frame issues and push analyses, as well as provide feedback on presentations and other deliverables.
Many Mentors are typically management consultants by profession, with 2-30+ years of experience in the field, working with both for-profit and nonprofit areas of focus. Each program participant (Resident or Fellow) in our program is matched one-on-one with a Mentor. Mentors meet/communicate with their Program Participants weekly, providing technical skills training, project-specific support and personal/professional development coaching. We encourage consulting advisors to get involved in their mentees’ host site work by attending progress presentations and visiting the site if possible.
Mentors commit 1-2 hours/week to support an emerging leader as they work full-time on capacity building projects for a local nonprofit organization, and engage in an intensive training program. Support may entail several in-person meetings, but is often primarily phone/email support, with a focus on project/presentation review and feedback. Specific types of support consultant advisors often provide program participants include:
- Technical and presentation skills, including effective and efficient use of Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
- Project-specific support (e.g. workplanning, challenging program participants to push analysis further)
- Personal and professional support (e.g. navigating the workplace, managing up and career planning)
By becoming a Mentor, you can bring your insights and experience to make a lasting impact on an exceptional emerging leader and impact a local nonprofit. Other benefits our advisors share with us include deepening your knowledge about or connection to social impact, being inspired by your mentee and engaging with the New Sector community through events.
To learn more or get involved, please contact Brian Garshelis for supporting San Francisco Bay Area program participants, or Jenn Bender for Boston Area program participnts or opportunities outside of these two core city areas.
Providing Professional Development/Training
The expertise and engagement of our trainers makes our Social Change Leadership Curriculum unique and effective. Volunteers from academic, nonprofit, business, government, consulting and other sectors provide training across our curriculum on topics. Read more about our training.
To learn more or get involved, please contact Brian Garshelis for supporting the San Francisco Bay Area programs, or Jenn Bender for Boston Area programs for opportunities outside of these two core city areas.
Other Volunteer Opportunities
We also benefit from the support of skilled volunteers across other program and operational areas, such as marketing and communications, technology and graphic design. To discuss how your skills match our needs, please email Jenn Bender.
