We are pleased to announce that our Mentoring Program Launch held last Sunday was a resounding success! Thanks to all those who made it happen: our awesome keynote speaker, Lucy Sanders; panelists Lilibeth Gangas and Shireen Mitchell; our always-phenomenal Network Team Leads; and our mentoring volunteers. ImpactHub DC was a fantastic host and we are very thankful to them for providing us with a very roomy, tech-friendly space. Additional thanks to InfernoRed and The Iron Yard DC for providing the food for our event.

My biggest takeaway from this event was the importance of sponsorship in career advancement. I never realized that sponsorship is different from mentorship. As Lucy Sanders put it, “Mentors Advise, Sponsors Act” and sponsorship really pays off.

According to research conducted by the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), 44 percent of sponsored women will ask for high-visibility work vs. 36 percent of women who don’t have a sponsor. Also, 68 percent of sponsored women report a satisfactory pace in promotions vs. 57 percent of unsponsored women. Finally, I found this statistic particularly interesting: 85 percent of mothers who are sponsored stay employed vs. 58 percent of mothers who are unsponsored.

There is a price to pay for sponsorship, however. Because a sponsor is usually at a senior level in the organizational hierarchy, the sponsoring relationship is initiated by the sponsor and they call the shots. In addition, a sponsor expects loyalty and performance in return for putting their reputation on the line for you. Even though sponsorship is initiated by the sponsor, there are ways you can get a sponsor’s attention. I love the advice Lucy gave about seeking sponsorship:

“Put yourself in positions where potential sponsors can observe your work and gain confidence in taking a risk on your behalf — don’t just ask or expect them to be sponsors without having these kinds of informal interactions or opportunities.”

Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT)

In contrast with sponsorship, mentoring can take place at any level of the organization and there is no expectation of “payback” to the mentor except for the pleasure of seeing you succeed. You can also find many useful and engaging opportunities for mentoring outside of your particular organization, which is where Women Who Code DC’s Mentoring Program comes in.

As part of her keynote address, Lucy Sanders gave a stunning PowerPoint presentation. One of her most memorable slides from that presentation was titled “Lucy’s Myths about Mentoring.” The following are very important myths to debunk when you are looking for a mentor, both inside and outside of your organization:

  • Bosses Don’t Make Good Mentors — Although it’s not always possible, your boss can and should be a valuable mentor.
  • Your Mentor Needs to Look Like You — You should develop mentoring relationships with all sorts of people including men, women, people with different technical backgrounds from your own, different ethnicities, etc.
  • You Need to Like Your Mentor— While liking your mentor helps, you might not always like him/her and that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from the relationship or grow from the experience you have with this person. As our panelist Lilibeth Gangas shared, one of her most difficult relationships was transformed into one of her most professionally useful. Gangas continued trying to develop the relationship in a positive way and eventually, she succeeded.
  • Mentoring Is a Replacement for Hard Work — Mentors can give you advice, but you have to do the work to really move ahead in your career. The more you help yourself, the more your mentor can help you and give you the right advice and encouragement. One of the most important things you can learn from a mentor is how to better promote yourself.
  • You Can/Should Tell a Mentor Everything— As Shakespeare says, “Discretion is the better part of valor.” There are things you should tell a mentor and things you should keep private. That can be a difficult balance to find, but it is also a very valuable lesson to learn for your professional career.
  • You Must Take a Mentor’s Advice— You are the best gauge of what is useful advice for you and what isn’t. Go with your gut, but also be aware that there are some things your mentor might know that you don’t. In the end, you’re the one who has to live with your decisions, so make them carefully.
  • Mentoring is Enough— As we learned from our Mentoring Program Launch panel discussion, you should have a portfolio of mentors and sponsors (not just one or two), be willing to work hard, and work smart. Panelist Shireen Mitchell shared that she is always willing to take advice from anyone willing to give it. Surround yourself with mentors and sponsors who can help you, look for opportunities to mentor others, keep on learning and developing your own talents and abilities, and you will really soar in your career.

So what’s next? Our next mentoring-related event is slated for January 2016 and will be called “Moving Your Career Forward: Developing a Portfolio of Mentors and Sponsors.” We will provide more details as soon as we can.

We also have several other events in the works for 2016 including:

  • An Invite-only Event for Executives and CEOs on How To Make Your Business More Attractive to Technical Women. This event will focus on making tech leaders more aware of unconscious bias and underscoring the importance of sponsoring the women within their organizations. Lucy Sanders will be joining us for this event. NOTE: If you know a CEO or Executive who could benefit from attending this event we’d love to get her/his name, title, and contact info. Please send Natassja Linzau a message on meetup.com or DM her on Slack. We will include your “nominees” on our guest list.
  • Moms in Tech. At this event, we will discuss how you can get support and survive the late-night challenges and thrills of learning to code/improving your ability to code while raising a family.
  • Mentoring Women of Color. This event will increase awareness of mentoring and sponsoring opportunities and resources specifically available to Women of Color.
  • Latinas in Tech. This event aims to identify resources and ways to increase the involvement of the Latino community in technology. Spanish translation will be provided.
  • Mentoring Study Group. This will be an ongoing working group where we will delve into the Mentoring-in-a-Box materials developed by NCWIT.

If you weren’t able to make it to the event:

Want to be more involved in the conversation? Join our Slack #mentorship channel: http://bit.ly/wwcdcslack. Register for Women Who Code DC events on http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-DC and follow us on Twitter (@WomenWhoCodeDC) to keep up with new developments in our Mentoring Program. We hope to see you again soon!