#003: Helping people help each other
Part II: Progress
Today’s edition is about a 10-minute read. If you’re in a hurry, here are the takeaways:
This is the second of three posts about RISC’s mentorship project, where we want to make it easier to start mentee-driven mentorship programs. In this post, I’ll talk about the work we’ve done so far to bring the idea to life.
Our first challenge was finding volunteers to develop the tool. I knew that there were college clubs with talented developers interested in doing this kind of work for nonprofits, and we found one of these clubs in the amazing Nova, Tech for Good.
Once we had our technical team, we spent a lot of time talking to people in mentorship programs. They largely validated our assumptions, complaining that their websites didn’t feel welcoming and didn’t do a good job facilitating mentoring relationships. Nova built a mockup of the tool based on their ideas for improving their websites, and we received such positive feedback that we developed the tool to match the mockups.
We finished developing the first version of the tool in July 2021, and we had 10 pilot programs slated to start in August and September. But by the time August came around, that number had dropped to just three programs. The remaining programs were different sizes, served different populations, and had different outcomes from the pilot. One had highly engaged mentees, one had low mentee engagement but still liked the tool, and one had trouble convincing mentors to create profiles.
The main goal of our pilot was to learn, and we sure did that. We learned that some existing mentorship programs may not need our tool, and we know that we need to make it easier to get started with our tool. We’ll also have to work hard to make mentees feel comfortable reaching out to mentors. But in all the craziness, our tool can work! And if nothing else happens from here, we helped some people find mentors.
Last week, I talked about the genesis of RISC’s mentorship project. Our idea is to make it easier to start mentee-driven mentorship programs. More concretely, we’re building a software tool for creating websites that help mentees find their ideal mentors. If you want to read more about the idea and the inspiration behind it, check out last week’s post here.
In this post, I’ll talk about the work we’ve done so far to bring the idea to life.
Finding someone to develop the tool
The biggest challenge facing us in the early stages of the project was the fact that RISC doesn’t have software developers on staff nor the resources to spend on them. We were basically going to have to find someone to volunteer to build our mentorship tool.
Again I was able to draw from my past experience running a mentorship program in college. Working with University IT on our program’s website had been such a hassle that we decided to talk with a club on campus about building us a better website for free. Students in the club were burgeoning software developers and designers, and they saw projects like these as a way to build cool stuff and add experience to their resumes. But before we could begin on the new website, COVID hit.
Now, instead of needing someone to build a better website for free, I needed someone to build a way for anyone to have a better website for free. Taking the same approach as in college, I thought RISC could partner with a college student group to develop our mentorship tool.
I scoured the internet for student groups, and I came across one at UCLA called Nova, Tech for Good. Their mission aligned well with RISC, and they had a track record of interesting technical projects built in partnership with nonprofits. My colleague April Feng and I met with them twice to talk about our project idea, and they asked us a ton of questions. We were asking a lot from them; they would basically be helping us build a nonprofit startup from the ground up.
After much discussion, they agreed to assemble a team of developers and designers around the project. As students, they have a million other commitments on top of this project, but their dedication to the problem, their boundless curiosity, and their willingness to ask hard questions have made them amazing partners. Without them, this project wouldn’t have happened, quite literally.
Developing the first version of our tool
Now that we had our technical team, we could start the development process.
Since we were building a tool for starting mentorship programs, we wanted to talk to as many people in mentorship programs as possible. Our goal was to create a council of potential users who could validate the problems we’d experienced and provide valuable feedback on our tool. Mentorship programs are basically everywhere, so my approach was to email people listed on mentorship program websites. I was surprised by how many people responded and continue to respond to my emails. By now, I’ve probably talked to over a hundred people about this project — from mentorship program leaders to cultural center administrators to community leaders in various student organizations.
Side note: Throughout this project, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to potential users. One thing that strikes me about people in this space is how incredibly kind and helpful they are. They serve such supportive roles in their communities, and that support comes through in their conversations with me, even if they aren’t interested in our product. With their busy schedules, I’ve been so grateful that they’ve given me the time to share our project and mission. And I sincerely hope that we’ll be able to build a product that empowers them to do this important work in a way that aligns with their goals, alleviates some administrative burden from their shoulders, and improves the experience for mentees in their communities.
Our initial conversations with mentorship programs largely validated our thoughts and provided some interesting ideas for building our tool. Overwhelmingly, program leaders complained that their websites didn’t feel welcoming and didn’t do a good job facilitating mentoring relationships. They wished their websites could enable scheduling coffee chats, filtering through mentors, and answering frequently asked questions. We took their suggestions with a lot of excitement, and Nova built a wireframe version of the tool. You couldn’t actually use it, but you could imagine how it would work.
As we showed the wireframe to our council of program leaders, we began to feel like we were doing something special. Program leaders showed great enthusiasm for what we’d built and made suggestions for additional features. They talked about how helpful it looked and how great it would be to finally use it for themselves. Feedback was so positive that Nova basically took the wireframe and developed the first version to match. It took about 8 months from our first conversation with a potential user to the day we finished developing the tool.
The first version of our tool (which is our current version) has three different views -- one for administrators, mentors, and mentees -- and it adjusts to each user’s unique role in the group. Administrators customize the content of their websites and manage mentor and mentee rosters. Mentors edit the information on their profiles and set availability for mentees. Mentees sort through the group’s mentors using tags and schedule chats with potential mentors to determine fit. If you want to see what it looks like, here is a quick demo I recorded.
The story so far had been pretty perfect, so we were surprised by what came next.
Piloting the tool
We finished the tool in July 2021. Most mentorship programs start at the beginning of the school year, so our pilots would begin in August and September. We had pilot programs lined up from academic departments, cultural centers, and student groups across multiple universities. Once August came around, people started to back out and delay their starts. We went from almost 10 pilot programs to 3 in the span of a month.
Of course, COVID restrictions were changing on campuses across the country. People had a lot to worry about besides piloting our mentorship tool, so we were getting pushed to the side. That made sense, but it made me uneasy. Was COVID just an excuse for programs to tell us nicely that our tool wasn’t good?
In any case, our tool was good enough to keep three groups interested through the craziness! Their feedback helped us learn a ton, and their experiences were pretty different.
The first program connected high school students with alumni from the high school to talk about careers, college, and life. They had an existing summer program and thought our tool might help extend their engagement with students to the school year as well. Their program was fairly small (about a dozen mentors and a dozen mentees), and we were excited to see our tool work really well for them. The majority of their mentees sparked connections with mentors, with some mentees even reaching out to multiple mentors. Their program leaders liked our tool so much that they’re planning on using it during their main summer programming!
The second program connected LGBTQ college students with LGBTQ faculty and staff at the college to talk about identity and interests. They were excited about the idea of empowering mentees to find mentors for themselves, and their program was fairly large (about 30 mentors and 30 mentees). COVID has put a strain on their community events, but some mentees used our tool to have conversations with mentors. It hasn’t been the success we’ve seen in the high school program, but it certainly hasn’t been a failure. Their program leaders have enjoyed using our tool, and they’re even creating a new program for BIPOC students in the coming months.
The last program connected first-generation college students with upperclassmen to talk about identity, college, and campus resources. This is a program I needed in college, so I was excited to work with them. Sadly, they couldn’t get their mentors or mentees interested in our tool. Their program leader was excited about the idea of mentee-driven mentorship, but her mentors saw our tool as another communication platform that they’d have to deal with. They were so against it that hardly any of them created profiles, even with gift card incentives!
We definitely learned some things
Our pilot results were mixed, but we were glad to get any results at all after such a rough start! The main goal at this stage was learning, and we definitely learned some things. Here are some of my biggest takeaways:
Some existing mentorship programs may not need or want our tool. Based on the third group’s experience and the drop-off in pilot programs, it could be that our tool adds a level of inconvenience for programs that are already working well. This particular group was very tight knit; they didn’t need mentor profiles to seek out new mentors!
We need to make it easier to get started using our tool. The drop-off in pilot programs tells me that there is something difficult about creating a program with our tool. Maybe program leaders couldn’t figure out how to make it work or couldn’t think of good questions for mentor profiles. In either case, we will need to think about simplifying our tool and providing extra resources and support for new users.
Mentee-driven mentorship takes courage. Despite our best efforts to make it easy for mentees to reach out to mentors, we saw many mentees struggle to book chats. Testing with more groups and hearing from more mentees will help us understand this better, but we need to make sure that mentees receive mentorship. We might have to make it even easier to reach out to mentors, or we might have to have mentors do the initial outreach somehow.
Our tool can work! Mentees found mentors and booked chats with them using our tool. In the first group, this happened for the majority of mentees! It will be important for us to understand what went right for the first group. And if nothing else happens from here, we helped some people find mentors.
We could have learned some of these things much earlier by taking a smarter approach, and we probably wouldn’t have seen so many programs back out in August. Next week, I’ll talk about what we would have done differently and where we hope to take the project next.
See you then :)
Noah