ATW Professional Mentoring Program – Seattle
Year One Executive Summary

Introduction
The Seattle chapter of ATW completed it’s first ever Professional Mentoring Program in the 2004-2005 year.  The program was modeled after like programs at other ATW chapters, providing an opportunity for professional women to connect via a mentor/mentee relationship, within the greater Seattle professional community.  In addition to modeling after other ATW programs, our objective was to incorporate industry standard mentoring guidelines and to align the program with mentoring best practices.

Program Leadership
The program was conducted by a group of four volunteers ~ Tara Vagen, Nicole Rutherford, Lori Sledge and Joan Martin.  Tara provided overall program guidance. Program development and execution tasks were distributed among the team.  Areas of focus included; recruitment, interviewing and matching process, training content development and delivery, social functions, surveys and developing the program administrative structure. 

Program Details
The guiding philosophical approach to our program was to provide learning materials that gave participants a place to start, ideas that they could pursue to enrich their mentoring experience, and reference materials to help out if they became stuck.  Additionally, we interviewed candidates and provided as close a match as possible in terms of pairing up mentees and mentors based on stated goals.

Once matched, trained, and with reference materials in hand, a timeline was provided padding in leeway for the pairs to determine a schedule that met their individual needs with checkpoints in the timeline to get everyone back together for experience sharing, learning, and networking.

At mid-point we did a check in with the participants and added in conference calls as an additional way to connect.  An end of program survey was conducted and a final gathering took place to celebrate successes and the overall experience, replete with certificates of completion.

Participants
We had 14 total participants.  Several were both mentor and mentee, yielding 9 pairings of mentor/mentee that participated in the full program.  

Participant’s employer or professional liaison included:

Results
Below are program events that were conducted during our 6 month program.

• Training & Orientation
• Conference call for “mentees” – forum on “what’s working”
• Mid-program social at Las Marquaritas
• Conference call for all participants – focus on “getting to success”
• End of Program Celebration at the Cheesecake Factory
• Online program survey

The program met its desired first year goal, worked through some kinks, learned some lessons, and we are prepping for another successful year of mentoring.

The end-of-program survey indicated that participants rated the value of the mentoring program as a “personal” benefit at 3.29% (on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the most favorable).

What’s to come in 2005-06

• Continuing with the “Athena” theme to help bring the program to visual life – Wisdom, Action, Leadership.
• ATW membership benefits exist for a member to participate as a mentor/mentee. The program will be extended to non-member mentees.
• Improved matching process.  
• Centerpoint Alliance ~ Career Management Workshops to support mentee/mentor career and professional growth.
• Training content is being tightened. Group training and mentee/mentor break-out sessions will be offered to participants.
• Mid-program survey & year end survey enhancements.

Program Expansion
Expansion for 2005-06 focus is on modest growth and to explore building alliances with corporations and technical colleges interested in mentoring programs.

Acknowledgements
Thank you to the following organizations and persons for their support and encouragement:

• ATW Professional Mentoring Program mentors and mentees
• Program volunteers
• WRQ, Inc.
• Modello Group
• Safeco Insurance
• ATW Seattle board members
• Karen Hydock, ATW national board member, mentoring programs

We look forward to continued feedback on the program from past participants, interested parties, and future participants and look forward to a great 2005-2006 program year.

For more information about the professional mentoring program, send email to ATWMentoring@yahoo.com.