Mentor's Toolbox
Striding Out helps individuals stride out to success. We achieve this through using professional coaching tools and techniques.
About You
Background Information
First Name
Heather
Last Name
Wilkinson
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
The competition is only open to people between 18-34 years-old and resident in UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark or the Netherlands. Does this apply to you
Country of residence of entrepreneur
UK
Tell us about your personal background. Why are you passionate about this issue? Making an idea a reality takes innovation, dedication and strong leadership. Do you have the necessary entrepreneurial skills to realize your vision?
Heather has worked in the social entrepreneurship and economic development sector since 2001, working for the private, third and public sector, as an entrepreneur, consultant and business coach.
She is passionate about helping individuals achieve success with the support of coaching and mentoring.
Heather launched Striding Out in 2005 to give young people access to professional coaching techniques and tools. She has actively built up a network of coaches to deliver and recently launched a range of mobile app coaching tools that can be used by anyone to support individuals achieve success. This includes the Mentor's Toolbox and Social Enterprise Toolbox.
She has generated over £2m worth of coaching contracts for Striding Out since it's inception and supports a network of coaches delivering coaching and training support to individuals UK wide.
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Striding Out
Organization Website
Organization Country
United Kingdom, London
Country where this project is creating social impact
United Kingdom, London
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
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Innovation
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Mentoring is about nurturing and supporting individuals to achieve what they hope for. Mentoring skills are beneficial for everyone to have and use in their work, life and community with their peers, children, parent, colleagues and friends on an everyday basis. Mentoring skills are often the basis for forming trusted relationships and friendships between people but these skills are not taught in everyday life. Instead we find tension between families, colleagues, peers and friends as they don't know the best way to support each other.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
We have created a Mentor's Skills Guide and Toolbox in the form of a mobile app that could be used internationally by any individual who want to develop stronger supporting relationships with others through developing mentoring skills. It provides guidance on developing and managing relationships and interactive tools to use with a mentee. It can be used in any type of mentoring relationship. The Mentoring Toolbox has initially been built in an i-phone mobile app and ebook, but we are keen to develop as an android and blackberry format to increase access to a wider audience.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
A teacher might want to establish a better relationship with their student, as a mentor. She will beable to read the Mentor's toolbox and learn a range of skills and tactics to develop a better relationship with her mentee and develop a constructive mentoring relationship. She will also beable to use the mentor tools in the mobile app to interact with her mentee and get them to assess their situation and if necessary come up with solutions and ideas for overcoming challenges or problems.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
There are currently a couple of mentoring apps available but neither are focussed on establishing mentoring relationships across a wide range of client groups and neither provide interactive tools to use with mentees. We are therefore a leader in this marketplace. Our pressing requirements are to develop the Mentor's Toolbox App in an andriod and blackberry format and to market the app to a wide ranging audience from teachers, parents, business advisers, career guidance officers, workplace mentors, etc. to maximise it's impact. Another mentoring organisation could follow in our footsteps with a competitive tool so it's important to innovate and to carve our market niche.
Select the stage that best applies to your business
Operating for more than 5 years
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
What is the social impact you have had to date and how you measure it?
Striding Out has practically supported through face to face coaching and mentoring over 7000 young people. We however wanted to extend the reach and impact of our work which is why we designed the mobile apps to expand our reach and work not just in the UK but internationally. Through the apps we can train individuals in coaching and mentoring skills internationally and empower them to support others with these tools. We launched the Mentor's Toolbox mobile app and Social Enterprise Toolbox mobile app in January and we have already had downloads worldwide, with very positive feedback.
Sustainability
How does your model address financial, social, and environmental sustainability?
Financially - we charge a small fee for the mobile apps, and this money is reinvested into marketing and further developing the app, and where possible supporting practical mentoring training programmes amongst young people in the Uk.
Socially - Our mentoring app aims to develop stronger relationships between individuals, to encourage social cohesion, trust and confidence. Through building the capacity of individuals to be better mentors, we will see a change for the better in a wide range of mentees globally.
Environmentally - The mobile app exists on the phone. It does not require paper or printing, and does not require any necessary output in it's use or application.
Awareness & learning
How do you see social entrepreneurship contributing to the improvement of developing countries?
Social entrepreneurship has a large part to play in the development of economies and societies internationally. Through the social enterprises Striding Out has supported, many of them work internationally and make an impact in a wide range of developing countries. Last year I travelled to Indonesia, Borneo, and Mozambique to see the work of a number of social enterprises who were supporting the sustainability of their local communities through educational projects.
What aspects of your stay in Uganda as part of the competition do you think you will find most challenging and rewarding?
Over the last 12 years I have been fascinated and inspired by social enterprises worldwide which is the reason I dedicated my career to supporting the sector. I continually love to learn how social enterprises operate and I will be inspired to see how operations work in Uganda, and help to support or offer assistance where I can to it's further development. I feel a sense of reward by helping individuals achieve their measure of success. Working in developing countries requires a certain strength of character to overcome the sadness of the poverty and poor conditions that can be found and are so different to our own. Any contribution I can offer during my time on the trip would provide me with a sense of reward and opportunity to add value.
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 | 16 weeks agoHeather Wilkinson updated this Competition Entry. |
| 16 weeks agoHeather Wilkinson submitted this idea. |
