The Posner Center is excited to present our fifth annual mentoring program! We want to create partnerships in the Posner Community so you can come together to connect, exchange ideas, and find support for your personal and professional growth. The Posner Center Mentoring Program cultivates the professional development of the Posner Center Community by facilitating partnerships between professionals working for a more equitable and prosperous world.
What is Reciprocal Mentoring?
We believe everyone has something to teach and to learn. In traditional mentoring programs, each pair consists of a more experienced “mentor” providing guidance to a less experienced “mentee.” In reciprocal mentoring, pairs still consist of people with more and less experience, but the roles alternate between who is the “mentor” and who is the “mentee” – every other meeting, in the same meeting, or with another structure.
“With reciprocal mentoring…in the mentor role, they hold each other accountable and give each other encouragement and feedback on their goals process. In the mentee role, they work on goals and process learning.” (The Mentor Leadership Team)
Program Goals
The goals of the Posner Center Mentoring Program are to:
- Enhance the professional development of both mentoring partners
- Provide opportunities for participants to enrich their contributions to global development and further develop as leaders
- Support diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in staff and leadership roles in the global development sector
- Strengthen the Posner Center Community
- Strengthen and expand participants’ global development career network
Leadership Certificate
The Mentoring Program is one of the three programs included in the Posner Center’s Leadership Certificate. Learn more about the certificate and other included programs here.
Who Should Participate?
You should participate if you:
- want to build deeper relationships
- want to provide guidance to others in the Posner Community
- want to enhance your professional development and mentorship skills
- are willing to introduce a mentoring partner to others in your network
Black, Indigenous, and people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA-identified people, and people with low incomes are strongly encouraged to apply, as people with these identities typically have less access to mentorship opportunities and have been excluded from leadership positions in global development.
While women also tend to have less access to mentorship, women are well represented in the Posner Center Community in general and leadership positions.
This program is open to all Members and Tenants of the Posner Center Community, wherever you live. Not based in Denver? No problem! Mentoring sessions can be done via Zoom or over the phone, and global members are encouraged to apply.
What Past Participants Said
I learned how to bridge and address new cultural and language barrier issues. I made promising connections for my mentee that should take his organization successfully in a new direction, which in turn energized my thinking about my own organization.
The mentoring program was invaluable and had a huge positive impact on my life. My mentor helped me with salary negotiations, helped me set up informational interviews with people in her network, offered a listening ear and sound advice. She has become a close friend and someone that I hope will be in my life for years to come. Having a mentor to turn to during covid was also very important. I don’t have the words to express the magnitude of gratitude I feel.
This has been a great experience – one of my goals when I started my job was to build my network with folks at Posner and this has done just that!
This experience was a reminder that our lives aren’t boxed into the areas of home, personal, work, play, relationships. Everything more than ever is interconnected quite literally at all times. I learned just as much from [my mentee] as if she had been my mentor. We shared a roller coaster of a year, being authentic and able to say “everything is not okay today”. It felt like I didn’t have to have it all together to be in the mentor role.
Participant Agreements
- Participate in the program orientation and celebration
- Set a meeting plan that works for both partners (at least monthly)
- Keep confidentiality
- Introduce your mentoring partner to others in your professional network
- When acting as the mentor, monitor progress and provide direction, assistance, and advice
- When acting as the mentee, seek guidance and advice
- Provide feedback to your mentoring partner
- Provide feedback to the Posner Center
Dates & Times
Thank you for your patience as we search for the Posner Center’s next Executive Director! Dates for the Mentoring Program will be announced after the transition, likely in spring 2023.
January 12, 2023, 10:00am-11:00am MST
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Leadership Certificate Information Session
Applications Open
Applications Due
Mentoring Pairs Announced
Mentoring Kick-off to meet the other participants, your Mentoring Partner, past Mentors and Mentees
Mentoring Program Celebration
To Apply
We will create mentoring pairs with varied experience – in the application, you will have a chance to share how much experience you have, and what you would like to learn from someone with more experience and less experience than you, and whether you would prefer a reciprocal or traditional mentorship. We plan to choose 15 mentoring pairs for the 2023 program.