About me

Emma Tanner, Founder and CEO of The Princess Project

How it begun

We work out of the same building. I had heard about the mentoring programme and had been meaning to look into it for some time, but sitting next to Kerry [Funding for All, Project Manager] in a meeting and hearing her talk about the benefits of it was the push I needed to actually enrol!

The process

I found that mentoring helped me to be more intentional about thinking about fundraising and our overall strategy as well as specific items within that. It helped to identify areas where we were doing OK (which was a real encouragement!) as well as areas we needed to work on, and provided the tools we needed to improve in those areas.

Sometimes it was a challenge to fit it in around the business of life in the voluntary sector but my mentor was always very accommodating about moving meetings if something urgent came up or I just hadn’t managed to find the time to prepare for a session.

My mentor

I really enjoyed working one-to-one with a mentor, who had been specifically chosen as a match for our organisation due to his expertise in the field we are working in. It was great to be able to pick the brains of someone with a lot more knowledge and experience, and to get an objective input from outside our organisation as to how we were doing (for better or worse!).

I’ve come away with a much clearer sense of to how to manage our grant applications going forwards in a more organised, planned way. I also have new ideas about how to engage both existing and potential individual donors in the future.

Would I recommend it?

I would recommend the mentoring without reservation. It is a really great resource for the voluntary sector in Kent and Medway, and one I think everyone should take advantage of!

My top tips

Be prepared to be open and honest. It can be uncomfortable to be vulnerable about strengths and weaknesses, but I think the more honest you are with yourself and your mentor, the easier it is to identify the areas to concentrate on in your mentoring sessions, and the more likely it is that you will come away with some clear positive outcomes for your organisation.