Laying the Foundations: Mentoring Tomorrow's Next Gen Leaders

Kelly Tuminelli: Welcome to TriNet People Force. The theme of this year’s conference is passion, purpose and perseverance, and our next guest absolutely exemplifies this theme. I’m thrilled to be joined by a phenomenal leader, a TriNet client, and someone who shares my passion for youth mentoring and education. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Heather Wathington, Chief Executive Officer of iMentor, to talk about her amazing company and what it’s like to mentor tomorrow’s next-gen leaders.

I am so excited I got picked to interview you, because you may not know this, but in 2006, I started a mentoring program myself and it was a little different focus, to mentor middle school students, and in the Richmond, Virginia area, and I just was thrilled when the team asked me to interview you, rather. So can you tell me a little bit about your background and your journey and how you got to where you are?

Dr. Heather Wathington: Sure. Well, first of all, thank you, Kelly. It’s delight to be here and it’s so great to be able to talk about iMentor and sort of what we do. But I can talk a little bit about myself and how I got to this space by saying, I think I was working in a corporate place that will go unnamed and there was a really, really big win for the team; everything that we were working on and everyone was elated that we kind of avoided disaster. And kind of what I witnessed in the room was that everyone was super excited and I was not and I looked at everyone and thought, “There’s a passion that they have for this work that I don’t have.” This isn’t sort of my bottom line, what excites me. And that then led me on a path to figure out what was meaningful to me and where did I want to put, I guess, as Bernard Overstreet says, the stubborn ounces of my weight and where I wanted to be.

I really decided at that point it was investing in people and then it was a process of thinking about how and what made the most difference, and increasingly, I realized it is setting up the next generation, setting up young people, particularly when they’re at the point of being ready to launch, but they’re not quite there. That really does sort of animate me and excite me, which then led me to pursue a master’s in higher ed, a PhD in higher education and post-secondary, and then ultimately working as a professor, and then leading schools. So I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to work with young people and really think long and hard about how to propel the next generation.

Kelly: That’s wonderful. Well, why you don’t you... I bet there’s some people that don’t know what iMentor does. Can you just give us a little bit of background around the organization?

Heather: Yes. iMentor matches young people in our partner high schools with another adult that we work with to actually support young people from high school in and through college. They meet in 11th grade. And we work extensively with that pair to support the relationship and build a relationship between a young person and usually an experienced professional in a variety of areas and ways that our adults come to us and really want to invest, and they get to spend a lot of time with a young person.

Our starting point is in schools. And so we work with the entire school and our mentors come in at 11th grade and work with 11th and 12th grade, and then we follow our students into post-secondary. So usually the first and second year of their post-secondary or higher education journey. But often many of our mentors stay on long beyond that point and continue to support their students, our students, it’s all the same, but we’re super excited to be able to work with so many.

Kelly: That’s wonderful. So those mentor volunteers continue with the same student as they go on to secondary education?

Heather: Yes. The majority do. Some do really love sort of that high school experience and then some really love the post-secondary experience, but yes, most do work over time.

Kelly: Well, you’re talking about secondary education and I’ve read some statistics that mentored students are about twice as likely as others to complete college. You’ve seen some success stories, I bet, and I know our audience would absolutely love to hear some of them. Would you mind telling us one?

Heather: Sure. So I should say we are located, our cities where we work are New York, Chicago, Baltimore and the Bay Area, and I’ll share a story about a pair in Chicago. Desmond, who’s a student, and Kwaku was his mentor and when they first started working together, Desmond was not interested in college at all and they were actually matched based on their interests. They both were interested in football and basketball and so had a lot to talk about and a lot to gel around, but every time Kwaku brought up college and, “Let’s think about this. Let’s sort of work on this,” this really wasn’t very interesting to Desmond and then during the pandemic, they met virtually. And so it occurred to Kwaku the way in which I could potentially bring to Desmond the idea of college is present a number of different individuals. And so Kwaku was a graduate of a historically black college and so brought many others from historically black colleges into the virtual session on a weekly basis with Desmond so that he could hear about what it means to be an alum of an HBCU, learn about fraternities, sororities, everything that would happen, program of study, an important network and establishing a network so that it sets you up for the next job. And based on that and those many conversations and Kwaku’s work with him, ultimately Desmond decided to enroll and he’s currently a student at Morehouse College.

Kelly: That’s amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I’ve always found that with mentoring, it’s almost exposure. Desmond didn’t have exposure. Are there other contributing factors that really lead to that success that you can think of?

Heather: Yeah, I think... We believe it’s the personalization. The one-on-one, right? You have high school, you have college, you have all these systems and institutions that are working with students, but there’s something about that one-on-one relationship where someone gets to know you and gets to invest in you, and then gets time to think about, “How do I help them get from point A to point B, and what can I use, what can I bring to bear from my experience and from what I know to be able to support this young person and sort of what they want to do,” and we find that that matters deeply.

We also, as part of our model, have a fabulous staff at iMentor. Our program managers who work in schools, as well as program managers who work with students when they get into post-secondary education. Their primary role, though, is to support the pair. It is to support that relationship. So every program manager has a set of pairs that they’re working to check in on the relationship, and hearing about what a student might need, what a mentor might need to really be able to support that relationship so that that one-to-one magic can happen.

Kelly: So it’s almost a level of accountability as well.

Heather: Yes.

Kelly: So the mentor feels accountability towards the... I’m sorry, the mentee feels accountability towards a mentor.

Heather: Absolutely.

Kelly: They’ve got a support system to help them. Are there any other contributing factors or do you think that... Or has mentoring really changed in the last few years?

Heather: Yeah. I would say trust matters deeply. So both our mentors and mentees tell us about the importance of trust, whether they trust their mentor or not. But usually, I think 96% of them in our last survey said that they trust their mentor and so trust is a huge ingredient there, but I would say one of the ways in which mentoring has changed and we’ve watched change over time is the importance of social networks and really being able to connect to a mentor’s networks, other job connections, other supports really have played a factor. Many of our mentors connect our students with internships, they help them find internships, but some work in places that can provide those internships, but also, many of our students report that it helps. And some of them seek really engaging with the mentor to be able to have that network and that band of support opened so that they can land their first job.

Kelly: Yeah, no, that’s great. Now I’m sure... You mentioned Desmond’s story and how virtual actually really helped during the pandemic, because he was able to get exposed to a lot more people that he probably wouldn’t have otherwise if it was only an in-person program, but are there other things that may... How challenging was the pandemic for your program?

Heather: Oh yeah. Deeply challenging. When you think of a program that’s based on a one-to-one sort of relationship and being in person or in high school, our mentors come to the school every month, so incredibly disruptive. Our students really shared with us, almost about 50% of them lost a parent or a guardian, lost their job, I should say. They didn’t lose them, but they lost their job, were furloughed. So deep impact on finance and expenses. A third of the students really kind of disrupted their post-secondary path, whether they were on campus, off campus, if they wanted to switch majors. So a lot of change in transition there and I would say mental health, which we’ve learned a lot, but many of our students also reported that it just got tougher and tougher. In light of the first two challenges, it really became difficult psychologically and emotionally.

So we pivoted pretty quickly, as many organizations did, to be able to support the need. So we were able, with our wonderful investors and partners, to award students $275,000 in grants in that first spring of 2020 to support so many students who had needs at that time. We were also able to partner with an organization to provide students with therapists and sort of mental health supports. We were also able to set up video classes and a lot of things to really support. We have a curriculum that mentors and mentees are engaging around. So it really became important to try and set up video classes and other forms of asynchronous connection so that we could continue our program and students could continue to advance and build those relationships, but also their pursuits.

Kelly: Yeah, no, that’s wonderful. Everyone had to adapt and what you bring up on mental health, we saw that as we engage with all of our clients as well. So it’s not just students, but people in the workforce that have to adapt to a new way of doing things. It’s interesting. I’m looking right here and we have a polling question that says, “Do you participate in a mentoring program?” and overwhelmingly, it looks like the results are “No, but I’d really like to.” Oh, that’s pretty exciting. I think other people see the advantage of it as well.

Heather: Absolutely.

Kelly: No, you continue to innovate your program model to address really those challenges of the day. Do you have any new plans moving forward?

Heather: Yeah, so some of our plans, we have been pretty adamant about high school to college and that transition, and really helping students complete college. Well, we realize, I think as many do that people go to any form of post-secondary education, and by that, I mean technical school, community college, college, four-year colleges. Many students go there because they want to get a job and it is what our mentors are deeply steeped in. Most of them are working and have work experiences to share. So, much of what we’re doing is really trying to build that link for students into career. How can we help them think about their program of study and how can a mentor be really helpful with them, helping them think through every step so that they can path their way to career? And how are we helping them think about career readiness and the skills that they need to be able to land that first really important job? What are the ways that we can support our mentors in opening up their social networks so that students can land that first job?

So we’re definitely focusing more of our efforts on career and thinking more about, how can we strengthen our program, particularly around areas that cities like New York and other cities identify as high need careers. So tech, education, life sciences, how can we really support along those pathways to really help more students choose areas where they are likely to have great success and are really in need. So those are the ways in which we’re iterating and thinking about making sure that our program stays relevant and useful to students.

Kelly: If you’re not reinventing yourself, you’re standing still. So I think that’s wonderful. Now, this is a little bit of a side, but recently, the administration passed a student debt relief plan. Have you been able to support any of your secondary education students by helping give them advice on it or what do you think about that?

Heather: Yeah, I haven’t yet really talked about student relief, because for many of our students who are currently in the process, it doesn’t yet apply, but for many who have, it’s a tremendous benefit, particularly for low income students and students of color, who, of the 43 million individuals that stand to benefit from that student debt relief, many of them have come from low income backgrounds and often are still among the lowest wage earners currently. So I think it’s really a major accomplishment, I think, in policy for education and for many student borrowers who’ve taken out so much to pursue opportunity and I think that often gets lost in the debate. They’re pursuing opportunity and yet taking on so much debt. We’ve mortgaged that.

Kelly: It’s hard to see the tangible benefit in the future when you’re just worried about today.

Heather: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So we want more students to have opportunities, and so I’m hoping that future... Our congress and sort of administrations continue to think about how to support today’s students, because college costs remain astronomical.

Kelly: They do. They do. You’re so right. So when you’re thinking about your students and there are a lot of them, and you just gave us Desmond’s story as well, but there are a lot of them that just see that as a path that maybe they haven’t been exposed to, they haven’t really thought about, because it seems unachievable. Can you just give us some other examples of how you’ve supported students to see whether it’s secondary education or as you’re thinking about morphing the program at all, but to see the possibilities there?

Heather: So we really do work, since we work in the whole school, we don’t select students. Our intent is to really try and persuade every student to consider some type of training, some type of skill after high school. That is really, really critical for their ability to live, I believe, a choice filled life, but also to actually be able to action sort of in the world today. It’s skills and having a set of skills, and so often, it’s around bringing some of that into the classroom experience. So we work with our college counseling teams sort of at the high schools to offer an array of options and a number of ways in which to highlight that for students.

We do sort of spend a fair amount of time working with students on what options and possibilities are. So it doesn’t have to be a four-year, it doesn’t have to be a two-year, it doesn’t even have to be today, although we’d prefer that it would be when you graduate, but consider a delay. If you’re thinking about... There’s reasons why you think you can’t go immediately, can we consider what it would look like if you delay? So every student, we make sure has a plan before they leave high school, so that should they change their mind or choose to action a different step, they have a plan. And we actually see that in our data, many of the students who have said, “No, I’m not going to pursue post-secondary education,” when they graduate high school, we find that they enroll in college or some type of training program anyway that next fall. So we’re pretty relentless about trying to make sure that students have a set of options and consider a number of ways in which some type of credential can benefit them.

Kelly: Yeah, I think we’re all seeing that there were a number of students that delayed college just because of the pandemic and it’s really encouraging to see them all starting to go back, and from what I’m hearing from parents who are competing to get into... Their children are competing to get into college, it is getting tougher now that people are going back, but that’s why it’s great to have a mentor to help you through that process as well.

Heather: Absolutely. Absolutely. Our mentors are wonderful. I would say a recent story from a pair, one mentor, she was trying to support her student in thinking through safety school and your top choice, and so let’s get those two and let’s try and work with a few in between. And so the mentee was like, “I really don’t want to think about a safety school. I really just want to go here,” but the mentor’s there to guide and keep focused around sort of, “Let’s make sure you have options.” Ultimately, she did get into her first choice school, but she had options.

Kelly: That’s wonderful and having children that have applied to college and didn’t necessarily have a safety school as well, I was sweating it out myself.

Heather: It’s tough.

Kelly: It is tough. It is tough. We try to... As you know, being one of our clients, we have a number of CEOs that are trying to think about a variety of different things they need to run their business, but what kind of advice would you give them on corporate social responsibility and how they can get engaged to influence our next generation of leaders?

Heather: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. I would say for entrepreneurs that are starting, but businesses that exist, one place to start is by the values that you created when you began your business and the ways in which you thought about the values of how you’d want to be a corporate actor. And so how does that extend to how you might want to think about social responsibility, and starting from those very same points and thinking about sort of organizations that you can work with or connect to that exemplify those values and so that then it’s something seamless both for you, for employees and for the work that you do.

Certainly for us, I would say we think a lot about how to engage mentors to come in and work with many companies, large and small, to think about what is the advantage to your employees and to your team if you’re mentoring and investing in the next generation by mentoring a student.

So we have a real opportunity and pleasure, I would say, to work with a lot of large corporations, a lot of medium-sized corporations and some smaller ones as well around mentoring, and so we talk with... We go sometimes and talk with employees about the program, what it would look like, how they could invest, and it really does make a difference, I think, for our ability to be able to have mentors for every single student.

I would also say for small businesses, maybe you choose to mentor, iMentor or another mentoring organization like your own, where it’s in your community, and so your employees and your team can invest back into your community very thoughtfully, very strategically around supporting the next generation, and so I think those are ways in which starting with one’s values, but particularly if you’re a small business, there’s ways to leverage that within your community. There are many mentoring programs and other type of programs that are really thinking about, how do we develop tomorrow’s talent?

Kelly: So as a PR for all our people in the Bay Area, New York, Chicago or Baltimore, we have a spot for you.

Heather: Indeed, indeed.

Kelly: This one goes back a little bit in your experience, but a question I wanted to ask you is you included an excerpt from Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” in a statement you made to Girard College after the death of George Floyd. So tell us a little bit about what that poem meant to you and particularly what it meant at that really pivotal point in our history.

Heather: That poem has a lot of meaning for me. One, I should say in full disclosure, I used to be the CEO of the Maya Angelou schools in Washington, DC and just had the opportunity to meet Maya Angelou several times, but so just being able to run her namesake and really connect with the students in the mission around supporting young people to make that next stage was hugely influential sort of on my thinking and I think my development. And when I chose to use her words and her lines there during that time, it was really to speak to sort of liberation, the opportunity to sort of see what it means to be liberated and free, to during the time of George Floyd’s death, I think the country went through tremendous amount of unrest, but the project of actioning sort of our democracy, making sure that everyone could be free and has an opportunity to live out... Our creed is still a work in progress and so I wanted to be able to signal that work, a departure from the past, progress towards the future and having a vision for what that would look like, particularly to the young people we serve there.

Kelly: Absolutely. Well, to give people... As a parting remark, to give people a vision on where you have hope today, can you give us a few final words?

Heather: Yeah, sure. I believe that we are critical vessels for setting up the next generation. They inherit some of our problems. They inherit a lot, but they have everything that they need if we set them up to be able to solve them. And so I believe that it’s really important to invest in every way we can in the next generation so that they’re strong and able to lead the best life that they can, and lead us, I think, in this country and just worldwide to all of the change that we want to see. I think that that is absolutely possible.

Kelly: Well, I am so glad you came here and joined us at People Force 2022. This has been wonderful, Heather. Great.

Heather: Thank you for having me.