Member News

Exchange member United Way of South Hampton Roads, in partnership with ForKids Inc and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia, has just had a successful first graduation from their Aspire program, a Mobility Mentoring^®-informed partnership. This partnership was made possible by Women United, a group of passionate women dedicated to creating a world of opportunity. The program boasts a host of learnings including:

• Warm referrals are best: Referrals from participants & community partners are the most successful
• ‘Readiness talk’ is key to success: In the screening and application process, when assessing fit for the program, mentors have learned to closely listen to “readiness talk” – are applicants ready to engage in transformational goal setting and long-term change in a multi-year program?
• Celebration frequency is key: Shifting to holding two graduation ceremonies each year to celebrate small group of graduates as they are successfully completing the program, rather than waiting until once a year to celebrate.
• Match the right meeting format to the right situation: There are some advantages to meeting virtually and some advantages to meeting in person – knowing when is key. While virtual meetings allow ease of scheduling, in-person events help to foster connections with others and community building.

These learnings led to the development of a new 12-18-month program, Strive (a Mobility Mentoring®-informed initiative), designed as a program for participants who weren’t quite ready for Aspire. In doing so, United Way of South Hampton Roads, ForKids, and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia has created a continuum of services from programs like rapid-rehousing to Strive to Aspire. Each part of the continuum allows an opportunity for participants to engage as they are at different places in their lives over time in longer-term Mobility Mentoring-informed programming. Lead Partner, ForKids, uses EMPath’s Certification Core Criteria for their own internal audit to assess and strengthen their Mobility Mentoring practices and structures. The utilization of our criterion and these on-the-ground learnings led to successful accomplishments such as:

• Successfully completed 256 goals
• Increased their annual income by an average of $14K+
• Collectively increased their wealth by $110K+
• Increased their credit score by an average of 98 points
• Plus … purchase of a home, earned an Associates and began Bachelors degree, received promotion at work,  a new business launched, acquired a car