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Skills, thrills and personal development: how mentoring is helping social entrepreneurs thrive
Skills, thrills and personal development: how mentoring is helping social entrepreneurs thrive
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Skills, thrills and personal development: how mentoring is helping social entrepreneurs thrive
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
The UK is home to a thriving social entrepreneurship sector, one of the most successful in the world. But it faces a series of unique challenges around talent, learning and developing skills. What can we do to help? And what if the answer to many of these problems was staring back at you in the mirror? Many of the people we support are remarkable and passionate individuals. We are really incredibly proud of the work they do in changing the lives of individuals and communities in the UK for the better, solving social or environmental problems or effecting change. But more can be done to support them, so around the organisation we are thinking of new ways to help social entrepreneurs truly thrive. Through our mentoring and pro bono activities we develop socially conscious leaders in business both in the corporate world and on the ground.
AÂ recent evaluation funded by Actis highlighted the mutual learning and development that can take place when social entrepreneurs work with professionals who volunteer their time and skills. There is no doubt our social entrepreneurs increase their skills; 72% of our Award Winners accessing this support increased their skills in business planning, compared to 60% of our Award Winners not receiving this support, however our volunteer mentors benefit from this experience too; 71% of volunteers surveyed said their coaching and mentoring skills had significantly improved through volunteering, 70% also said their skills had significantly improved in developing others and had applied these skills in other contexts such as managing a team at work or in family relationships. Our Award Winners often tell us it is the volunteer mentor support that is considered the most valuable support over our financial awards.
Our volunteers are predominantly driven by a desire to ‘give back’ by sharing their skills and supporting a social cause, seeking personal satisfaction from doing so. Our recent evaluation suggested that volunteers are primarily motived by wanting to contribute to social enterprise (81%), to improve the prospects for social entrepreneurs (73%), to be part of positive change (70%), to apply skills in other sectors (65%) and for personal growth/well-being (58%) We recently met one of our volunteer mentors and were thrilled by their desire to support our social entrepreneurs to develop both themselves and their social enterprises to maximise the social impact they want to create. When we asked our volunteer why he started mentoring for UnLtd he explained: “The fact that you are doing something for the benefit of somebody else, and not for the benefit of yourself, or for your business, gives a kind of inner satisfaction.â€
If you are an individual with professional expertise and access to what our social entrepreneurs need – whether it is business consulting, marketing/PR, legal, finance/accounting, online social media/IT, HR, or academia – your experience will be hugely valuable. You could be a manager or owner of a small to medium-sized business, a consultant, senior executive or partner of a management consulting firm, law firm, accounting firm, PR or advertising company, you could be a civil servant with insights to share on effective public service delivery. Our Award Winners really need a wide range of experts with different skills to scale their social ventures and grow their ideas. If you are interested in supporting UnLtd’s Award Winners we would love to hear from you. It’s a chance to make a real difference to the great work of social entrepreneurs, and a wonderful opportunity to learn and develop your own skills too.