"I found the power of a mentor to be surprising - how much it can push an individual to achieve things they thought were impossible on their own.

I thought I couldn’t build a million-dollar not-for-profit, and now I have. Being a person of colour, I thought some of these things were impossible. But having someone in your corner telling you to operate as a business, focus on the impact, raising funds. It keeps you centred and focused.

Kilfinan has genuine people, ready and willing to help. They made a deliberate effort to get the right person for me, and the matching process helped the mentorship become sustainable. It’s one of the best investments I’ve made in my life."

"My mentor didn’t come from my world. He had completely fresh eyes and ears to what I was thinking and saying, and he was invested in my success. It gave me a whole other lens I could put across my thinking and challenge a whole range of assumptions that I held. This ultimately gave me more confidence that I had actually interrogated my way of thinking.

It’s a huge privilege having somebody outside your world who is interested in helping you. You always need to learn. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, you always need someone who can bring a sharpness and freshness to your thinking."

"My mentorship helped me to enhance my skills in Board engagement, governance, leadership, and change management during a time of monumental change and existential risk for our organisation.

Through support from my mentor, my team and I were able to develop a strategic plan that doubled the size and income of our organisation to help more than 450 people with disability live their good life."

"The thoughtful partnering that Kilfinan provides through the program enables CEOs to develop trusted and supportive relationships with vetted professionals who can offer different perspectives.

This was particularly useful in a year that was unprecedented, a year in which traditional models of fundraising and working face-to-face no longer worked, revenue, work life and practice were turned upside down, need exploded, and the pace and volume of navigating the landscape was extremely challenging."

"It was great to have the support from a mentor who had experience in the real world – that top tier perspective as well as operational knowledge. My mentor was able to break it down for me and translate things into action. Sometimes the pain points were just really simple things."

"Watching people do fabulous things and knowing you were some small part of it. This is all why I’m doing this.

It’s been incredibly rewarding for me – far more than I anticipated. I value the trust and openness we have with each other. My mentee is happy to openly share her fears and be vulnerable. She trusts me to help her. It’s a gift she’s given me.

I’ve learned about myself that I’ve got more to offer than I thought I did. I deeply enjoy helping someone else."

"My expectations were massively over-achieved. I was very happy to take part in the program even though I hadn’t done any mentoring in the not for profit sector historically.

My initial intuition was that it was going to be a one-way street –a complete transfer from mentor to mentee. But as I’ve said to a number of people, there is an equal flow of value across the table. Whatever benefit my mentee got, I got an equal amount coming back the other way.

The program is a great credit to Kilfinan Australia."​

"He is a great gift. Very patient. I also value his relatability. I would have thought someone of his experience might. not relate to some of my concerns, but he always does, quickly and with great insight."

One of the things that’s been so impactful about his mentoring is that he taps into the whole person. Both in his reflections of his leadership journey, but also understanding the need for me to embrace every aspect of what makes me lead, not just the technical side."

"I didn't realise how much I needed the external regular support until I had it in place. Prior to working with Kilfinan I was relying on my Board and co-founder, but my mentor is a welcome change in perspective and is always upping my thinking to a new level."

“My mentor is really invested in our success, and really cares about the community we support. She has even brought her own team as well as her family to volunteer at the organisation.

Ultimately, if you care about something, you will ensure it is successful."

"My mentor is clear and kind. She doesn’t shy away from giving feedback in an honest but respectful way. She challenged me to be uncomfortable and step into challenge. She helped me become a more structured leader, navigate a lot of very tricky situations, become more assertive, and have better boundaries than I did in the past.

She helped me find my voice and believe in myself and my intuition."

"I’ve gained a lot of satisfaction from helping him achieve his goals; to see him transition through this stage of his career. Above that, I value his trust and his friendship. It was really special to me when he said in an interview recently, ‘I don’t know if we’ll have a mentorship like this forever, but I know we’ll be friends forever’.

Don’t underestimate how powerful mentoring can be, and yet it’s easy. You can create change by helping the leaders of these charities. Viewing the world through a not-for-profit is particularly interesting. Their work is important and makes such an impact. It’s been great to understand what outstanding leaders of the next generation are trying to achieve."

"My mentor is providing me with knowledge and coaching in an area I know little about – Australian politics. His advice has been instrumental in aiding me to lead twenty charities to advocate and lobby the NSW government to extend state care from 18 years old to 21 years for youth in foster and residential care.

When we secure this reform, it will have a profound impact with 300 fewer youth becoming homeless each year in NSW and a further 300 avoiding teenage pregnancies, unemployment and incarcerations."

“I take my hat off to her. What she has achieved as the CEO of her current organisation has been amazing. She’s been open and thoughtful, all in all, a great mentee. I didn’t feel like I was advising into a black hole, but that I was value adding.

My mentee didn’t follow everything I advised, but we’ve had great discussions on what was possible, and explored that on an intellectual basis. It’s important, as a mentor, that you’re doing something positive and that you feel you are adding value.”

"I worked closely with my mentor to unpack leadership challenges that I was facing as our organisation went through a very fast growth period. The opportunity to turn to my mentor with complex problems was essential to getting through that period.

I have worked more recently with my mentor on establishing a Board of directors that has greatly strengthened the governance structure of our organisation. This has led me being able to get the most out of the skills and experience of our Board members, and ensure that we are all guiding For Change Co to being its most effective in addressing our mission."

"Through my Kilfinan mentor, I was able to take a step back and develop our organisation’s capability and capacity.

By the end of my first year with Kilfinan, I was able to double the funding and number of staff of the organisation, which of course meant we were able to support double the amount of people who reached out to our service. This would not have been possible without the help and support of my mentor and the outstanding Kilfinan team."

"My mentor gave me all the time I requested to review business analysis and test assumptions. Critically, he advised on the expectations of a Board being asked to make decisions on significant investments into transformation and business growth.

He gave great advice, expanded my skill and also provided me with the confidence that I was driving the strategy, financials and governance in the right direction.

Kilfinan is a vital service for the sector that delivers enormous value – not only financially but critically to the social well-being of Australia.

"I couldn’t possibly stop working with my mentee because she deserves support. She is intelligent, well organised, very thoughtful, and resilient. She has got real courage to persevere through quite difficult times.

We are quite different people, but we managed to work out a rapport. I feel very lucky to be working with her."

"The great value of the mentor relationship in my view is that the mentee has the ability to be absolutely honest and frank about everything.

A slightly bigger picture observation about why I like mentoring is it’s an incredibly efficient way for me to fulfil what I see as a responsibility to give back – to pass the baton. The ratio of benefit delivered to time and effort expended is off the scale."

"Really, I aspire to be like her. We’ll discuss situations and she can relate it back to things that have happened in her career. She is very wise in her words and thoughtful. It’s not an automatic response. She really thinks and works through situations with me.

The work we have done is to assist me to gain confidence. The way others look at me was not the way I was looking at myself. She helped me gain a quiet confidence in my own ability. She really helped me navigate a new environment, adjusting to other’s expectations and shifting my expectations. Indirectly, the mentoring has helped strengthen the organisation."