Summer and Fall 2021 News
Consider CMP During Giving Tuesday
The California Mentoring Partnership (CMP) has joined #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that harnesses the collective power of individuals, communities, and organizations to encourage philanthropy and to celebrate generosity worldwide. Occurring this year on November 30th, #GivingTuesday is held annually on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to kick off the holiday giving season and inspire people to give back to the charities and causes they support.
CMP serves the mentoring field by strengthening, sustaining, and expanding quality mentoring in California. Since the pandemic, CMP has increased virtual resources for the mentoring field, hosting roundtable discussion sessions, facilitating working groups to discuss emerging needs, collecting field feedback on virtual services during the pandemic to inform future research, and providing no-cost support to continue to advance mentoring services throughout the state.
Your donations help make this work possible! Your donations will support our outreach work to promote mentoring throughout California; provide trainings and workshops for mentoring programs on best practices in mentoring; research and practice on using mentoring to support California's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic; or our work around mentoring and racial justice.
As we close out 2021, we would like to take this chance to say thank you! We know this has been a difficult two years for many. We appreciate the opportunity to work alongside you and for all you do for our young people. Next week during #GivingTuesday we hope that you will consider donating to the California Mentoring Partnership so we can continue our work together to create brighter futures for our youth. Thank you for your support! In addition, CMP aims to advance a California-driven research agenda that supports evidence-based practice and demonstrates the benefits of mentoring. Our California Mentoring Research Workgroup, comprised of CMP leaders, mentoring researchers, and practice leaders, engages in substantive planning and discourse toward new mentoring research. Current workgroup activities include a preliminary study of adaptations mentoring programs are making in response to COVID.
The CMP Leadership Team
Professional Program in Fundraising and Volunteer Management, by Berkeley Extension
California Mentoring Partnerships’s Director of Research, Dr. Dustianne North is the lead instructor for this 4-month online Fall course. This program can be helpful to organizations and staff from youth mentoring and other youth development programs. The Professional Program in Fundraising and Volunteer Management brings together highly experienced practitioners as instructors from both small and large nonprofits. Because it is online, it is open to folks anywhere in the world. The program supports professionals while also building organizational capacity toward the fruitful engagement of donors, foundations, public sector, corporations, and volunteers. Some scholarships are available.
No-cost Webinar: Corporate Engagement: Current Trends, New Opportunities, & New Challenges
The UC Berkeley Professional Program in Fundraising in Volunteer Management is offering a FREE webinar open to the public, this Thursday August 12th 12:00-1:30pm, moderated by CMP's own Dustianne North, Director of Research and Evaluation, aimed at professionals in all nonprofit and public service sectors.
Workshop overview: Corporate social responsibility has become a major buzzword in today's business sector, seen as a key to a positive public image and the ability to attract and keep quality employees. These new opportunities for nonprofits to attract funds, visibility, and volunteers for programs are coupled with new challenges to nonprofits who want to engage businesses. This webinar will address attracting resource streams, including how to build and maintain fruitful relationships with businesses interested in supporting nonprofit work.
Dustianne will welcome expert panelists Karolo Aparicio (San Francisco Foundation) and Estelle Davis (San Francisco Exploratorium) for a lively discussion of this important topic in nonprofit management.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/corporate-engagement-current-trends-new-opportunities-and-new-challenges-tickets-162848653707?aff=lkdn
Announcing "Parent Engagement" Workshop, Thursday, April 14
CMP is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring to the national stage important recent learnings from our statewide discussions about the importance of caregiver engagement to match quality as well as racial justice!
Put on by MENTOR: the National Mentoring Partnership, Hank Roberts, of Peacemakers, Inc. and the CMP Racial Justice Workgroup will be featured, and CMP Research Director Dustianne North will moderate.
Thank you to Hank and all the California programs who have helped move this important discussion forward, to the benefit of programs everywhere! Please join us Thursday, April 14 at 10am PT to catch the national discussion. Here's the registration LINK
Gerbode Foundation Awards CMP Grant to Support Racial Justice in Mentoring Initiative
CMP has recently been awarded a grant by the Gerbode Foundation to support our California Racial Justice in Mentoring Initiative. Funding will go to furthering work on our Blueprint, which includes: organizing and sustaining and ongoing advocacy body, deepening the mentoring field’s competence in antiracism approaches to programming, advocating for mentoring as a justice system-diversion approach, and encouraging reallocation of policing and prison funding to mentoring programs and other critical services. Stay tuned to learn about progress on this initiative. Many thanks to the Gerbode Foundation for believing in this work!
Virtual Mentoring Platform Available through Be A Mentor
Be A Mentor offers virtual mentoring as part of its Volunteer Management System. This system is unique in the mentoring field in that it gives full control to the program coordinator. Through this platform, the coordinator is able to select mentors from a pool of background-cleared individuals by assessing specific skills, interests, and time availability. The program coordinator is also able to calendar virtual mentor/mentee match meetings. Additionally, staff has the option to provide virtual materials for mentors and mentees to work on. Zoom is embedded in this fully managed system for virtual meetings. For more information, please send an inquiry to contact@beamentor.org.
Featuring Low Cost Volunteer Screening Available During the Covid-19 Crisis
During the Covid-19 crisis, screening mentors can be much more difficult, because LiveScan and other screening process must be done in person. Be A Mentor is offering a low-cost, remote volunteer screening opportunity through Secure Volunteer.
- Total cost $40 - no additional rolling fee - no additional report fee to get the results
- Easy process from computer or mobile device
- More thorough than CA DOJ/FBI Reports
- Ongoing monitoring for subsequent arrests
- Volunteers can pay by debit/credit card - OR - Agency can be billed
For more information, please click on the link below.
https://beamentor.org/BAMCorporate/CMPBackgroudClearance.pdf
Changes in Program Activities During Covid-19 Outbreak
The Leadership Team of the California Mentoring Partnership hopes that you and yours stay safe during the Coronavirus Pandemic! We also understand that the way programs do business, including the methods used by mentors and mentees to stay in touch, will change because of the requirements of social distancing. During this trying time, CMP will continue to update California Mentoring programs with tips sheets and strategies that will address the changing face of youth mentoring in our state. Please go to our resources page for pertinent documents under: "National Resources." https://www.camentoringpartnership.org/resources
CMP Monthly Roundtables—Open to All!
For the past few months, CMP has been conducting Zoom Roundtables to address the many issues surrounding the Covid crisis, including its impact on youth mentoring programs. Representatives from youth development organizations from all over the state have been participating--we have had as many of 60 attendees on the call. During these monthly convenings, in addition to discussing best practices for virtual mentoring, we address systematic racism and steps organizations can take to strengthen their antiracism efforts. (As a result of these discussions, CMP has developed an active Racial Justice Workgroup.) Roundtables are held from 1:30 to 3:00 PM the second Wednesday of each month, and they are open to everyone, so spread the word! To register, please go to the landing page and click on the registration link.
CMP Seeking California Mentoring Programs as Research Partners
Do you have a mentoring program you are proud of? Are you interested in examining its impact in more depth? Do you want to be part of the formal body of research on mentoring in California? The California Mentoring Partnership wants to partner with you to do just that!
Our Research Workgroup is developing new research studies and identifying funding sources to further a California-driven research agenda for mentoring in our state. Funding opportunities often have a short turnaround time, and it can be tough for researchers to connect with the right programs in time to meet the deadlines.
To help overcome this barrier, we are creating a database of programs that are interested and able to participate in a variety of studies. Complete our survey here, which will help us understand your program, your interests in research, and your capacity to participate.
Once completed, we’ll keep you on our A-list and reach out as soon as an appropriate opportunity comes up.
Thanks in advance for your participation and partnership!
