Announcing the GovLoop Mentors Program!

Andrew Krzmarzick

13 years ago

With the impending departure of Baby Boomers from the workforce and the need to transfer knowledge from one generation of public servants to the next, there’s one idea that we’ve heard again and again: “we need a government-wide mentoring program.” Of course, there are several excellent mentor programs in individual agencies and at the state and local level…but there is nothing available on a larger scale – a massive mentoring project that connects people from every level of government with seasoned leaders and peers who can offer insight and advice to help each other advance in their careers.

Well, I am really pleased to announce today that we’ve created one:

Welcome to the GovLoop Mentors Program!

Our ultimate vision for the project: Imagine a program manager in a state-level department of health receiving feedback and insight from a senior executive at the federal DHHS level or an IT guy at OPM learning from a seasoned tech guru on the county level.

Here are a few more details about it:

We’re going to run a pilot program this fall, keeping it simple and easy to participate. The timeline is as follows:

Mentors Sign-Up (Jun 30 – Jul 15): Most programs never have enough mentors, so we’re working hard to get dozens of mentors before inviting mentees.
Mentees Sign-Up (Jul 25 – Aug 15): We’ll open it up to mentees in tandem with the Next Generation of Government conference the week of July 25.
Matches and Online Training (Aug 15 – Aug 22): Final matches will happen by August 15 and we’re starting the project as a pilot with only 50 mentoring relationships.
Mentoring Relationships (Aug 22 – Nov 18): We’re asking that mentoring relationships last 3 months, aiming for the mentors and mentees to connect 6 times (2 times per month) over that period with just one mentoring partnership at a time. The location and type of meeting is up to the mentors / mentees.

The next step is for Mentors: As seasoned public servants, you have so much to share with the next generation – they want to listen to your stories, hear your lessons learned and pick up a few tricks of trade. Who knows? Maybe there are even some tech savvy twenty-somethings who’d be interested in mentoring their peers or upper level management who are less familiar with mobile technology or who could gain insight about managing the next generation.

Here are three ways you can get involved right now:

1. Sign up to become a mentor.

2. Share this blog post or the brochure below with people that you think would be awesome mentors.

3. Nominate a mentor (just send their name to andrew@govloop.com and I’ll reach out to ask them).

As we connect mentors with mentees across all levels of government (federal, state, local) and across agencies and disciplines, we hope that we’re launching yet another valuable project that accomplishes our mission of “connecting government to improve government.”

Thank you in advance for participating!