sfG MentorNet logo and icon of pen and paper

Looking back on 2022, and looking forward to 2023…

 

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone! We hope you all got a slice of time off over the holidays to celebrate and spend with loved ones. 

The sfG MentorNet team enjoyed some time out of the office over the festive period and it has given us all a chance to reflect on what an amazing year 2022 was for us! 

Growing Relationships in 2022:

We made lots of new relationships through the year and these came in the form of customers, new connections in the mentoring community and through all the valuable interactions we made with everyone else who we spoke to along the way. 

Our customer base grew, which is really important for us as it gives us a chance to work with new mentoring programmes, and as many of you will know…every mentoring programme is different! So, having the chance to work with new schemes lets us learn so much more about how admins run their programmess, and also how mentors and mentees engage.

This information is useful to us as product developers, so we can begin to think about areas for improvement or additional features we can look to include on the sfG MentorNet platform.

AGCAS 2022:

We attended the annual AGCAS conference for our second year in 2022, and once again, this event did not disappoint – giving us the chance to speak with some really interesting people and organisations. 

The sfG MentorNet team came away from this years conference with some amazing leads, and we also had the opportunity to share how sfG MentorNet can benefit mentoring programmes. The event was so worthwhile that the sfG team will be at the AGCAS annual conference again this year, so, we will hopefully see you there in June!

sfG MentorNet Working Group:

2022 saw us run our first working group event, with some of the sfG MentorNet customers.

The idea of having a working group involving our customers had been something we had considered running for a while, but 2022 saw us get off the ground with the idea!

We brought together administrators who were running similar types of programmes, and we let them choose topics to discuss. The sfG MentorNet team facilitated the event and the admins gave their input. 

Simply put – it was awesome!

By bringing admins from similar programmes together and getting them to share how they run their programmes – including what works, what doesn’t, what their pain points are, and what their solutions have been… we saw a real support group and sense of community form.

The individuals taking part in the working group all share similar things – they all use sfG MentorNet and they all run mentoring programmes, but most importantly, they all aim to run the best, most effective programmes possible to ensure the best experience for their mentors and mentees.

We have more working groups planned for 2023, and we want to say a MASSIVE thank you to all who have participated so far! 

sfG MentorNet New development:

Thanks to all the valued feedback from our customers in 2022, sfG MentorNet saw lots of new pieces of development added to the platform.

As our customers know, all our development is based on the feedback from the people who use our platform. Our customers know the platform best as they rely on it day-to-day, and they know what they need the platform to do, to ensure they can run the most effective mentoring programme.

Here are some of the upgrades we have made to the system this year:

Mail Merge functionality –

Our new mail merge functionality is available to be used when sending out an email to users of sfG MentorNet.

Administrators can log in to the sfG MentorNet platform as usual then create an email as they normally would. From here, they can select the audience they want to send to, create the content – and now, they can add placeholders such as {firstname},{emailaddress} or something else. When the email is sent, these placeholders then pull in the individual user’s information automatically. 

The benefit of the mail merge functionality is that admins or mentors can now make emails more personalised when sending them out to large audiences. This functionality also helps to save time.

Ability to send out questionnaires –

As well as being able to include {firstname} or {emailaddress} in the emails administrators send out from sfG MentorNet, they can now send out links to pre-made questionnaires as well!  

All the placeholders are located in the same place, and accessed the click of a button. Within the list of placeholders that are displayed, administrators will now be able to find any questionnaires that they have set up within the sfG MentorNet system.

All that administrators have to do is select the questionnaire they would like to include in the email, click ‘send’ and users will then have an easy, quick, and simple way to access the questionnaire.

sfG MentorNet Awards:

In 2022 sfG MentorNet was delighted to be nominated for the Digital Initiative award at the Highland Business Awards in Inverness, run by the Chamber of Commerce

We arrived at the fantastic venue (Drumossie Hotel) and did lots of mingling with other businesses and our fellow nominees. 

The sfG MentorNet team were delighted to get the news that we had won our category and our Product Manager, Ben Hosie, stepped onto the stage to receive the award on behalf of the team. 

Ben had this to say, “I was honoured to be able to go and receive the award on behalf of the sfG MentorNet team. We try to work tirelessly throughout the year to ensure our customers receive the best online mentoring platform and support possible. This award just shines some recognition on the amazing job the team have done to deliver this goal.

Ben Hosie, sfG MentorNet Product Manager - collecting the award for Digital Initiative at the Inverness Highland Business Awards

Digital Initiative award was awarded to sfG MentorNet
Picture: James Mackenzie

Final Thoughts:

Here is to a fantastic 2023 of supporting clients old and new – and we hope to see our customers and followers at a few more awards shows, in the future.

If you are looking for an online mentoring platform to help facilitate your mentoring or coaching programme – the sfG MentorNet team are feeling refreshed and ready to talk you through out features.

To enquire for a free demonstration, just send us a hello!