Employ to Empower works to help low-income entrepreneurs to overcome barriers. The most important part of what we do is match our entrepreneurs with mentors – business people like you.
Mentorship can be done in 3 different ways:
1:1 Mentoring
Here you’ll be paired with a mentor to help them get from idea to MVP. Each entrepreneur has completed our 10-week development course, and has been selected for 1:1 mentoring based on the viability of their idea, qualification for our micro-lending, and personal drive. Pass on your knowledge and experience starting up your own business, the hurdles, and the blindspots.
Commitment: 3 hours per month for 6 months
Group Mentoring
Group mentoring is very similar to 1:1 mentoring, but the participants in this cohort are typically entrepreneurs who also face mental health barriers in addition to economic or social ones. Besides their group mentoring, participants also engage 1:1 with our occupational therapist, to help work through their issues. Groups have 3-5 participants and also include a significant peer mentoring component.
Commitment: 2 hours per month for 6 months
Specialist Mentoring
Specialist mentors come in to share ideas about a specific topic such as social media marketing, online payments, graphic design, using a CMS, and so on. These are primarily short 30-45 minute info sharing sessions, followed by a Q&A. We hope for these to be a valuable tool to get our entrepreneurs in the right direction so that they can build on what they’ve learned from you, independently.
Commitment: 1 hour
Why do people mentor?
- “I live in Chinatown and I want to make it better”
- “I want to give back”
- “I miss my startup days, and want to relive them vicariously”
- “I’m planning on selling my business and move over a VC, and want to see if supporting other entrepreneurs is for me”
- “My company provides paid volunteering time, and I think this is a great cause”
These are just some of the answers we’ve heard when we asked Mentors why they joined. Whatever your reason is, the end result is that you’ll help someone who shares your entrepreneurial spirit, and your support will help them overcome enormous barriers.
Find out more and apply
To learn more about mentoring and to apply, please visit: https://employtoempower.com/get-involved/current-opportunities/community-mentor/ – or apply directly through LinkedIn.
Remuneration
This is an unpaid, volunteer position.