Innovate Communities - Inspire Mentoring
October 2021
Background
Innovate Communities is a social enterprise who work with communities to create and deliver projects that work in real life and create a lasting impact.
Inspire Mentoring is a unique social innovation that grew out of Innovate Communities' work with young people in Ballymun and Finglas. The young people told them that they lacked additional support when in education and did not have access to professional contacts or networks. Using these insights, Inspire Mentoring was launched as a pilot programme in 2020 with 35 mentors and mentees.
Inspire Mentoring addresses the twin issues of Social Mobility and Social Capital. Specifically, that there are generations of young, talented people who lack the Social Mobility and Social Capital that results in equality of opportunity.
Aim of the Program
The aim is to connect marginalised young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with a professional who has volunteered to become a mentor.
Innovate Communities wanted to provide a digital platform and structure to facilitate excellent mentoring.
They wanted to empower the mentee to select the right mentor for them based on their needs. They wanted to ensure training and support is provided to mentor and mentees to ensure goals are achieved and that the mentoring relationship is successful and productive.
Our Solution
The PLD mentoring platform ticked all the boxes in terms of the training resources and mentoring journey that was offered. Innovate Communities were able to tailor the matching criteria to meet the needs of their mentees and to brand the site to be a seamless part of their own website.
Results
The programme has thrived since launch with participants actively forming relationships, setting up and completing goals and using the in-built video chat to meet.
Client Feedback
Why did you choose to work with PLD?
After a lot of research we felt they offered the best value for money and after meeting with them we were impressed with the approach to working with us.
How have you found working with PLD?
Excellent the team are very responsive and open to suggestions. During the building phase they supported us every step of the way to getting the platform live.
Do you feel you get value for money from the platform?
Yes absolutely, the team go above and beyond to support us.
