Mentor Success Stories book - effective recruitment tool?
Hello,
I've been a community-based mentor for 8 years. About 2 years ago, my mentee and I decided to write a 'how to' book to inspire busy women to become mentors by sharing our personal stories, learnings and experiences together. I decided I wanted to devote a chapter to OTHER mentor success stories, since I wanted to show the reader that many mentoring matches (both male and female)are equally fulfilling - that it's more than just me and my mentee talking about how great mentoring can be. That idea grew into a separate book - actually a digital ebook - which is currently a 'special offer' on my website. (I'm not sure if I can mention it here, but if you are interested send me an email at solid_pathways@comcast.net.) That book was a bit of an afterthought, but I'm beginning to get feedback that the success stories book (think Chicken Soup for the Mentor's Soul - but smaller)would be a great book to give an adult thinking about mentoring, or even as a training piece. I'm surveying mentoring organizations right now to validate this, before I pursue a printed version of the book. If such a book was available in print, would it serve a purpose with your mentoring program?
Thanks,
Paula Dirkes
Welcome to the MRC Forums, Giuseppe! Our staff here at the Mentoring Resource Center are thrilled to have international representation on the forums and look forward to hearing more about the mentoring work you are doing in Italy.
Thanks for sharing your book with us, Paula. A year or so ago Denzel Washington put out a book about mentoring called "A Hand to Guide Me" that has a similar purpose - only with well-known people as the storytellers, but I think having real-life experience from ordinary people involved in mentoring could be very powerful as a recruitment tool. I would imagine that many programs have developed one or two mentoring vignettes that they use for recruitment, but having a whole collection of stories is great because it allows potential mentors to see a variety of mentoring experiences.
Actually Denzel's book inspired me to pull the MENTORrific Success Stories book together. Thanks for the validation.
For other mentoring professionals - please share your thoughts on my original post as well. Your feedback is critical to what direction I take next with these books. I would love to get your feedback on a survey relating to these topics as well if you're willing to spend 20 minutes or so with me on the phone (or in person if you're in the Detroit, Michigan area). My direct email is: solid_pathways@comcast.net. Thanks!
Can I get a copy of your book ?
Dear Paula,
you had a very good idea writing this book, I would have a copy, thus if possible send it me via e-mail to my address : g.calogero@mainsoft.it
I am the Director of an Italian Mentoring Program 1 to 1, operative in Italy in three towns: Milan, Naples and Alghero with a total of 215 Mentors active in 48 schools, half of them primary.
If I will receive your book I will transalte it in Italian. I believe real cases are very useful to recruit new Mentors and to motivate them when operative in the field, in the first six months particularly. I have also collected some similar experiences from our Italian Mentors and I am very interested to see if theirs are similar to yours.
Waiting from you.
Regards
Giuseppe Calogero
Giuseppe Calogero - Master in Engineering - Director of a Mentoring Program in Milano - Italy. C/O Società Umanitaria - Via Daverio 7 - 20122 Milan Italy.
calogero@umanitaria.it - 12 years experience in mentoring program management