What can a mentor do?

A mentor during the community building process can be really helpful in guiding the plan of action and being an approachable contact so that people can talk about any issues they may be facing. The main role of a mentor is to provide practical and emotional support (see below for examples). This may include regularly checking in on the mental well-being and progress of the team, sending weekly update emails and arranging weekly meetings to provide guidance and structure to an endeavour that can otherwise feel undefined. 

Practical Support

Provide structure

It's important to remember that in the pursuit of building a community, there may not be a clear and explicit end goal or output. Every community looks different depending on what the group needs. Therefore some structure in the form of routinely meetings/updates and approximate timelines can be really helpful. Setting achievable deadlines for specific tasks in these group meetings can also enhance productivity. 

See below for three templates that can be used to help group members feel prepared to share their ideas and progress in meetings.

Give advice and access to information/training

A mentor can provide advice on how to get started, set goals and offer insights and tips to help navigate challenges. The team may have limited access to resources or may not know where to find certain pieces of information. So it can also be useful for a mentor to help arrange access to such resources or signpost the team to appropriate contacts and services for further guidance.

Ensure sustainability along the way

Being passionate about a project is a wonderful thing, it can provide drive and motivation to develop a bunch of brilliant ideas. A mentor can help ensure that these ideas and goals are realistic and have some sustainable aspect built in so that they may last beyond the current project and cohort working on building community. 

Emotional Support

Foster an environment to grow together

A mentor can help create a safe space for people to work together and feel more independent so that they are confident in their own abilities. Within this environment, people can share challenges, support one another and grow together. Working with such a diverse team will inevitably lead to disagreements. However, by creating a safe space and promoting the importance of empathy, the team can welcome disagreements and navigate them effectively to turn conflicting ideas into creative proposals.

Reassure and reinforce expectations 

Setbacks and unexpected challenges are a natural part of any process. A mentor can reassure the team that they are on the right track and remind them that things don't always need to be perfect, or even complete, to hold value and be counted as progress. This reminder is especially helpful when tasks feel vague or open-ended, as it reduces the pressure and encourages experimentation. 

Celebrate achievements

Along the journey of building community, there will be plenty of tangible and intangible achievements. Tangible achievements could look like creating a website or social media account, hosting an event or developing resources. Intangible achievements could look like gaining confidence to engage with the public, building resilience to rejections and setbacks or strengthening connections by networking. 

While the visible milestones are easier to acknowledge, it's just as important to recognise the quieter achievements when helping to build community. It can be easy to forget the valuable impact of our actions but a mentor can reinforce morale and momentum by reminding the team to celebrate all types of progress.

Speaking from Experience

The Role of a Mentor:

My key duties as a PhD mentor during the DISCO Community Ambassador Project included:

• Facilitating and guiding the ambassadors in their work

• Arranging and running weekly meetings with the team 

• Flagging to the staff leads when students needed access to resources and raising any issues

Some Advice:

One of the key reasons this project was so successful was the decision to not be overly prescriptive about what the ambassadors should do or achieve. Providing only loose guidance allowed individuals the freedom to shape the project in their own way, often taking it above and beyond what we had initially expected. By allowing flexibility in your project, you can create a space for creativity and ownership so that innovation can flourish.

Biggest Challenge:

The greatest challenge we encountered was maintaining morale when attempts at public engagement appeared to fall flat. It was important to remind the team that such difficulties are a natural part of the process and not a reflection of their abilities. Reassurance played a big role in helping them stay motivated and it was useful to redirect energy towards other valuable tasks whilst another task seemed to progress at a slower pace. This shift in focus ensured that progress continued, even when immediate goals felt out of reach.