Best of CASE District VI Award
 

Institution: University of Colorado Boulder

Title of entry: Forever Buffs Network Mentorship Program

About this entry: The Forever Buffs Network (FBN) Mentorship Program provides alumni and students with the most inclusive opportunity to connect in a one-to-one format. The program includes an automated milestone tracking process to coach mentors and mentees through their relationships. By hosting a mentorship program on a networking platform, we adapted to a changing culture of student and alumni, and alumni-alumni outreach. There are few college-specific mentorship programs within the institution, but none that met the growing needs of our alumni and students from across the disciplinary spectrum. We sought to create a space that allows them to intentionally connect regardless of their academic backgrounds. The Mentorship Program is open to alumni-alumni mentorship to particularly address recent graduates affected by the COVID pandemic. We measure success by looking at both the number of initial sign ups but also the number of mentorship pairs that complete the entire program and all of its milestones. This year, we partnered with the Office of the Registrar to pilot online recognition badges to further incentivize completion of the program. We also partnered with all of our colleges and schools, Student Affairs, and Career Services to market the program to our large student and alumni base. We developed a subgroup model for colleges without their own individual mentorship program to build a smaller community of mentors and mentees through the platform. This also created a new and unique way to engage with key donors and alumni volunteers.