How to Build a Mentorship Program that Lasts
Mentorship is a powerful yet underutilized tool in nonprofits, and in this episode, we’re diving into how to operationalize it for real organizational impact.
I sit down with Larcy Douglas, director at Common Power, to explore how mentorship can transform both individuals and organizations. From designing collaborative mentor-mentee relationships to embedding mentorship into broader learning and development strategies, Larcy shares how her team built a program that not only develops leaders but also strengthens retention, engagement, and long-term impact.
If you’ve ever wondered how to move beyond informal mentoring into a structured, scalable program, this conversation will give you a practical roadmap.
▶️ Key Points:
00:00 Why Mentorship is a Missed Opportunity in Nonprofits
03:04 The Role of Intergenerational Mentorship
07:59 Inside Common Power’s Mission and Programs
10:48 Building a Scalable Mentorship Model
19:39 Evolving Programs Using Data and Participant Feedback
24:57 Measuring Mentorship Impact in Nonprofit Organizations
29:21 Advice for Launching a Mentorship Program
Mentorship Is a Missed Opportunity in Nonprofits
Seventy-six percent of people say mentors are important. Only 37% have one.
And for nonprofit L&D and HR leaders, it’s also a missed opportunity—one that sits right at the intersection of leadership development, retention, and mission impact.
Most organizations treat mentorship as something that happens informally, if at all. A senior leader takes a newer employee under their wing. Someone gets lucky and finds a champion. But informal mentorship is inconsistent by definition. It favors people who already know how to network, who already have access, who already fit the unwritten profile of “someone worth investing in.”
Larcy Douglas, Director at Common Power, a nonprofit civic engagement organization in Seattle, has spent the better part of a decade doing something different. She didn’t wait for mentorship to happen organically. She built a system for it, fundraised for it, and measured it. And the results speak for themselves: over half of Common Power’s current staff came up through the mentorship and leadership program she created.
And that’s what we are diving into on episode 185 of the Learning for Good podcast.
A Common Misconception about Mentorship
The most common misconception about mentorship is that it flows in one direction. You have a more experienced person who “gives” information and insight to the less experienced person. This is a picture of knowledge transfer at best.
Larcy rejects that model entirely.
“Mentorship is a two-way road. It’s a two-way street, and the most impactful, best ones have to be a collaborative relationship. I can’t just throw up a bunch of wisdom on you if you’re not gonna do anything about it.”
This is a critical distinction because as nonprofit L&D professionals, we know knowledge transfer isn’t the goal; change is. So, mentorship can’t be a one-way knowledge delivery mechanism any more than training is. Both require the learner to be active, engaged, and accountable. And both require the facilitator—whether that’s a trainer or a mentor—to be genuinely curious about the person in front of them, not just the content they’re supposed to transfer.
The research supports this. Mentors don’t just give. In most mentorship relationships, they also gain. They report lower anxiety, greater sense of purpose, and higher rates of promotion than non-mentors. When you design a mentorship program, you’re not creating a burden for your senior staff. You’re creating a growth opportunity for them too. That reframe matters when you’re making the internal case for resources and buy-in.
Why Informal Mentoring Fails to Scale
Informal mentorship doesn’t work because the people who need it most are often least likely to get it. That might include volunteers who don’t know how to advocate for themselves, staff from communities that have historically been excluded from leadership pipelines, and new hires who don’t yet have the internal credibility to attract a champion.
Informal mentorship also doesn’t survive leadership transitions. If a key mentor leaves, their mentees often lose that support entirely. The relationships exist in people, not in systems. And what exists only in people can’t scale.
How to Create Effective Mentorship Programs
Larcy built Common Power’s mentorship program with explicit intentionality:
“We intentionally built that system. We intentionally fundraise for a mentorship system because that’s the way to make sure that there’s longevity in our work.”
Systematized mentorship creates a leadership pipeline that doesn’t collapse when someone leaves. It creates consistency of experience across different cohorts and different mentors. It creates something you can measure, improve, and defend with data. And it creates longevity.
The Action Academy (the program that grew out of Larcy’s vision) started with a dozen expected students and enrolled over 80 in its first year, all because she was intentional in how she designed it.
To systematize mentorship and create more effective programs, we need to give it clear structure, resources, roles, and outcomes.
Here are 4 key considerations drawn from our conversation:
What behavior change or leadership development outcome do you most need? Examples: retention, improved leadership pipeline, cross-functional collaboration. Name it specifically to give your mentorship program a purpose and clear outcomes.
Who are your potential mentors and what do they need to succeed in that role? We can’t assume that being good at their job makes someone a good mentor. They need a framework, guidance, and support too.
What structure will make this sustainable? This might include defined timelines, check-in cadences, shared goals, and a clear way to raise concerns if the relationship isn’t working.
How will you know it’s working? Start with your purpose and intended outcomes and set up ways to measure it.
We should design mentorship programs with the same intentionality we bring to any high-stakes training program.
To learn more about effective mentorship programs and this real-world example, tune into episode 185 of the Learning for Good podcast.
Sources: Mentorloop | Forbes
Additional Resources Just for You
Other Helpful Podcast Episodes:
Why Executive Coaching is the Missing Learning Strategy in Your Nonprofit
Reimagining Women’s Leadership Development in Your Nonprofit
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