Mentor
Relational Wealth of the Material Poor
If you think back on your life, chances are relationships have shaped you even more than education and job experiences. Entrust is about true friendship with a purpose - alleviating poverty and empowering communities. Many of us wish we had more mentors, both past and present, and deeper relationships of many kinds. We were created for relationships rich in trust, openness, and serving love. While Americans are rich in resources, training and business experiences in a functioning economy, these "mentors" often become the "mentees" when it comes to "rich" relationships. Developing-world mentees have much to teach Americans about the value of really knowing someone and developing loyalties forged through the joint need to survive and the cultural value of people over things. This is one of the many ways that our mentees will be mentors, exposing the poverty of the non-poor. That's why "Mutuality" is one of Entrust's values; those who intend to give end up receiving far more in return as they engage in relationships of mutual learning. We need each other.
Why Mentoring?
If your doctor misdiagnoses your sickness, he will likely prescribe the wrong treatment. Because of Western misunderstandings of the causes and nature of poverty, we just throw aid at the problem and are puzzled when it isn't fixed. When Helping Hurts (Corbett & Fikkert) describes the results of an informal survey asking both poor and non-poor audiences to describe poverty:
"While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than our North American audiences. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing, etc." (p.53)
So, while access to capital is important to poor entrepreneurs, it is not the whole picture as some aspects of the microfinance movement seem to imply. Entrust emphasizes real relationships which battle the isolation and shame with are core to the experience of the poor, and as their mentors value them as people and help grow their businesses, mentees regain their human dignity and grow into their God-given creativity and productiveness.
Local and International Mentors
Entrust develops mentors from the U.S. to come alongside business owners in developing countries. Perhaps more exciting is the development of local, seasoned business leaders as mentors for budding entrepreneurs in their own communities. We are in touch with such people in Haiti and Honduras and will be doing all we can to partner with them and undergird their efforts. The advantages of local mentors are obvious: the possibility of more regular contact and a deeper understanding of the cultural context with its particular challenges and opportunities.
The Long Haul
While our board and donors want to see businesses grow as quickly as possible, we strive to make these mentoring relationships as long-term as possible. Whereas our Western mindset values speed and efficiency above almost everything, we realize that change which lasts the longest and is most impactful often comes about very slowly. This insight is unearthed in Stewart Brand's The Clock of the Long Now and summarized in Andy Crouch's Culture Making:
"Brand's most important insight is that there is an inverse relationship between a cultural layer's speed of change and its longevity of impact. The faster a given layer of culture changes, the less long-term effect it has on the horizons of possibility and impossibility. My life as an American citizen is profoundly shaped by centuries of development in our political system, especially the ideals of governance ratified by the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and shaped by countless legislative and judicial decisions since. But my life is not at all affected by the fashions for men's wigs in 1787. By the same token, any change that will profoundly move the horizons of possibility and impossibility will almost always, by definition, take lots of time. The bigger the change we hope for, the longer we must be willing to invest, work and wait for it" (p.56-57)
So, after being paired up and meeting initially during a six-day Entrust Venture, the mentor-mentee relationship is maintained through twice-yearly visits and ongoing contact via email and Skype. We believe that both the tangible and intangible benefits of such friendships will exponentially increase over time as they are properly "aged".
Sneak Peek at an Entrust Venture
A team of 7+/- fully trained and oriented Entrust Mentors arrive in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and powwow with Blass Huete and the other leaders of the Covenant Business Network. CBN has gathered their membership of small and medium enterprise owners (as well as micro-entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs from their Abundant Life Church) for a conference we would jointly teach on the basics of business administration. This two-day conference would cover some of these topics: biblical integrity, business-as-mission principles, innovation, marketing, bookkeeping, cash flow, lead generation, etc. During the conference (if not possible before the trip commences), mentors will be matched with mentees (ratios yet to be determined) wherein the real magic begins in the context of real, long-term, mutually beneficial friendships. The mentors will help mentees process and apply the conference content to their particular businesses. The mentors will then serve as employees in the mentees' actual businesses over the next few days, offering coaching as appropriate. Plans for ongoing virtual communication are established as are plans to return 6 months later. The week ends with a re-gathering of all the mentors and mentees together to share and celebrate what has begun, and to pray for the success of the businesses and the community transformation which is the hoped-for result. Both groups are enriched by the experience, having their vision expanded for the creative potential of business. True bonds have been forged. Mentors leave changed because they have "consciously taken up their cultural power, investing it intentionally among the seemingly powerless, putting their power at the poor's disposal to enable them to cultivate and create" (p.231 Culture Making - Andy Crouch). Mentees rediscover their human dignity and God-given creativity, are freed from isolation and hopelessness, encouraged and empowered to create wealth and jobs with new friends cheering them on!
If you are interested in being a mentor, please contact us via the Talent page.
Take a look at this video from Partners Worldwide, which tells the story of a partnership that has grown businesses and ended poverty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M33ylCQbfvQ