Title: Mentoring Initiatives Should Develop a More Social-Entrepreneurial Mindset
Facilitator and room number: Valérie Carette (HEFBOOM, Belgium); 1.205
Documented by: Annika Reinhold
Number of participants: 10
Who are you and to which institution do you belong?
MeMoRe is a transnational project funded by the European Social Fund. We develop an effective and sustainable mentoring model for the integration of refugees on the labour market, and will have special attention for the effectiveness and sustainability of mentoring initiatives which have (also) less qualified refugees as a target group. In this transnational project the following (ESF funded) partners and projects are involved:
- MeMoRe Flanders (Hefboom, HIVA – University of Leuven, Refugees in Action, Belgium)
- MentoMigri (Jyväskylä Educational Consortium, Finland)
- Bottom Up Integration (Integration in Sweden, Sweden)
- MeMoGa (Landesnetzwerk der Migrantenorganisationen Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany).
- IntegriF (Harz University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
Each partner brings different perspectives and contributions to the transnational goal. The coordination of the transnational project MeMoRe is the responsibility of Hefboom (Belgium, www.hefboom.be,). Hefboom strives to create a better and more sustainable society through its management consulting, financing and other services for companies, organizations and projects with a social purpose.
Starting hypothesis:
Mentoring initiatives should develop a more social-entrepreneurial mindset.
Sequence of content/methods:
After an introduction round Valérie Carette presented 10 thoughts about mentoring as a social entreprise
to initiate an exchange of ideas. She ended the session with a small exercise and a feedback round and handed out a self-evaluation tool to all participants.
Main arguments presented by the facilitator:
Project-based funding is very sensitive to politics, therefore financing often stops suddenly. This leads to short-term evaluations, which makes it difficult to prove the social impact of a project. Therefore, making a business model is important to be sustainable.
Three main question for the discussion:
What are potential problems of developing a more entrepreneurial mindset?
How can we make a social organisation interesting for the economy?
What are the challenges of a transition to a social entreprise?
Results of the session:
An entrepreneurial mindset increases competition. Mentoring cannot be sold as a standalone product, but
a value needs to be created.
Social entrepreneurship comes along with many highs and lows. To overcome the latter, especially
connections within the team and a larger network can help.
Main statements highlighting the results of the discussion:
- “We are working towards a common goal but with an entrepreneurial mindset you might become competitors.”
- “Social entrepreneurship can work in many contexts if you are inventive enough.”
- “The first rule is to ‘host yourself‘ to keep your energy high – and don’t forget to celebrate!”
One thing that was laughed about:
“Sometimes you wish you had a mentor for yourself.”
Further remarks:
Especially interesting for the economy are workshops and coaching sessions and high-qualified working personnel.
In order to make the organisation more sustainable and independent, it is important to work in autonomous self-managing teams.