March 28, 2011 Novice Grant Writing Workshop

What "mentoring" really means?

Recently, we have advised several agencies to avoid the claim that they will provide "mentoring" services. It sounds nice in theory but the practical implications for providing mentoring services often requires more time, effort, and money than an agency is willing to commit. As an alternative, we have frequently offered the term "intrusive advising" and provided resources to explain the term and how it may be implemented.

Have you ever wondered what mentoring really means?

The word mentor is derived from Homer's Odyssey; when Ulysses left Ithaca to fight in the Trojan wars, he asked his friend, Mentor, to serve as tutor and substitute father for his newborn son. In the past 20 years, mentoring research has undergone a tremendous expansion. According to the literature on mentoring, the accepted definition of mentoring is one established by Bronfenbrenner:

"A mentor is an older, more experienced person who seeks to further the development of character and competence in a younger person by guiding the latter in acquiring mastery of progressively more complex skills and tasks in which the mentor is already proficient. The guidance is accomplished through demonstration, instruction, challenge, and encouragement on a more or less regular basis over an extended period of time. In the course of this process, the mentor and the young person develop a special bond of mutual commitment. In addition, the young person's relationship to the mentor takes on an emotional character of respect, loyalty, and identification." 

In formal mentoring programs (e.g. Big Brothers Big Sisters), there is usually a purposeful matching of mentors and protégés based on preliminary identification of common characteristics (e.g. race, gender, ethnicity, preferences and opinions, etc.). However, informal (or "natural") mentoring relationships sometimes occur in the absence of purposeful matching (e.g. a teacher and student develop a close bond). Mentoring relationships often form naturally between people when skills are being imparted to the protégé and contact is regular for a period of at least 6 months. However, positive impacts or outcomes (especially long-term ones) for the participant are more certain after a year of regular contact. In both formal and informal mentoring relationships, the common characteristic is the definition above. In other words, a mentor is someone who personally cares about, spends a lot of one-on-one time with, and provides tailored instruction for the protégé.

What does this mean for grant proposals?

Establishing mentoring relationships requires a formal recruitment: screening, assessment, and training for the mentor. The organization must then provide ongoing monitoring and support to sustain the mentoring relationships. Further, grants typically require evaluation plans to illustrate program outcomes. If proposals claim mentoring will be provided, then evaluation plans must provide evidence of mentoring relationships; such as providing quantified contact hours and survey data from the mentor and protégé (e.g. the protégé trusts the mentor enough to ask any question, accept and utilize the mentor's guidance, and feels a mutual bond with the mentor). However, surveys are difficult to administer because they require lots of resources, time, and expertise. Unless mentoring is the primary activity in the proposal, we typically suggest a useful concept as a substitution: Intrusive Advising.

What is Intrusive Advising?

According to the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), intrusive advising is a programmatic structure that encourages academic advisors to initiate proactive, frequent contact and intervention strategies for students. NACADA encourages advisors to initiate communication with students at orientation, explain who they are and what they do, and provide several forms of contact information (e.g. phone number, email address). This approach encourages students to contact their advisor sooner rather than later. Further, NACADA instructs advisors to connect with students at many locations (e.g. in the hall, cafeteria, and where they typically hang out) and construct an early warning system that monitors grades, attendance, and classroom behavior.

How can agencies utilize Intrusive Advising?

Research on intrusive advising suggests that it is a key factor to increasing student retention and performance. This evidence-based strategy can be utilized as a part of a holistic approach to participant support. Creating guidelines at the organizational level will encourage program administrators to incorporate intrusive advising activities into their routine. Further, intrusive advising offers clearly identifiable and easily monitored outcomes (e.g. case managers will complete 10 contacts with each participant per year).

When writing a grant proposal, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Agencies can avoid the temptation of promising mentoring relationships by instead incorporating intrusive advising, thereby offering a more feasible and realistic program design.

For more information on intrusive advising, visit the website of the National Academic Advising Association, found here.