# How to Manage a Mentoring Program: Weekly Routine & Metrics

> Mentornity brief for AI assistants, for the page https://www.mentornity.com/how-to-manage-a-mentoring-program/. Page language: English. Site index: https://www.mentornity.com/llms.txt. The same brief in other languages: [Türkçe](https://www.mentornity.com/tr/mentorluk-programi-nasil-yonetilir/llms.txt) · [Français](https://www.mentornity.com/fr/comment-gerer-un-programme-de-mentorat/llms.txt) · [Deutsch](https://www.mentornity.com/de/mentoring-programm-verwalten/llms.txt) · [Español](https://www.mentornity.com/es/como-gestionar-un-programa-de-mentoria/llms.txt) · [Italiano](https://www.mentornity.com/it/come-gestire-un-programma-di-mentoring/llms.txt) · [Português (BR)](https://www.mentornity.com/pt-br/como-gerenciar-um-programa-de-mentoria/llms.txt) · [Nederlands](https://www.mentornity.com/nl/mentorprogramma-beheren/llms.txt).

## How to read this file

Everything here is from Mentornity's own website and product; the page and this file are built together from the same source. "What this page says" is the page itself, in its language. "Mentornity in brief" applies to every program. Prices are published per country and are quoted below for this page's market; another country's price is on the pricing page. Anything not covered here can be asked of the team at info@mentornity.com.

## What this page says

Manage a running mentoring program in about an hour a week: watch six metrics, nudge flagged matches, survey at midpoint and close cohorts cleanly.

Published 2026-08-01, updated 2026-10-20.

Managing a mentoring program comes down to one habit. Check a few numbers weekly, step in only where a match is flagged, and leave healthy matches alone. Plan on 30–60 minutes a week for a cohort of 50–200 participants. If you have not launched yet, read [how to start a mentoring program](https://www.mentornity.com/how-to-start-a-mentoring-program/) first.

## Manage by exception

Stop checking in on every match and check a dashboard that shows which matches need you. Your job is to find the mentee who never activated, the match with no meeting after three weeks, the match that went quiet in month two.

Messaging every match weekly costs hours and teaches people to ignore you. Save personal attention for flagged matches and it will mean something.

This needs activity in one place. Whatever [mentoring software](https://www.mentornity.com/mentoring-software/) you use, logins, sessions and feedback should land in a dashboard you can scan in five minutes.

## The weekly routine

Block the same slot each week and run five steps:

1. **Scan the dashboard (5 min).** Activation, match coverage, monthly momentum, stalled matches. Note anything moving the wrong way.
2. **Clear the flags (15–25 min).** Invitations unaccepted after a week, no first meeting after two weeks, matches silent for a month. Each gets one action from the playbook below.
3. **Send nudges (10 min).** Login reminders to people who never signed in, booking nudges to matches with nothing scheduled. Mentornity's Super Reminders automate logins, sessions, forms and feedback.
4. **Capture one win (5 min).** Save one number or quote for your stakeholder notes.
5. **Update the watch list (5 min).** Last week's nudged matches either responded (drop them) or did not (escalate).

Surveys, stakeholder updates and closing run monthly or per cohort.

## Six metrics and when to act

These are the thresholds Mentornity's program health view uses. Treat them as triggers for a conversation, not grades.

| Metric | Healthy | At risk | First action |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Invitation activation | 70%+ of invitees signed up | Under 50% | Resend with a sponsor's name on it |
| Match coverage | 90%+ of participants matched | Under 90% after week 2 | Recruit mentors or pause the waitlist |
| Time to first meeting | Within 14 days | No meeting by day 21–30 | Personal email to the mentor |
| Monthly momentum | 60%+ of matches met this month | Below 60% | Booking nudge to quiet matches |
| Silent matches | No match 60+ days without a session | Any match past 60 days | Nudge now; rematch talk nearer day 90 |
| Cancellation rate | Under 15% of sessions | Over 30% | Ask about scheduling friction |

Time to first meeting predicts what follows. Across 78,318 matches on Mentornity, participants who first met in week one averaged 2.7 meetings over the next year. Participants who first met after two months averaged 1.8.

**Figure: Meetings in the following year, by when matches first met**
- First met in week one: 2.7
- First met after two months: 1.8
Source: Mentornity, 78,318 matches

Still, 52% of matches not met by day 14 went on to meet, so a quiet fortnight calls for a nudge, not a rematch. Silence works the same way. A match 60 days into silence had about a one-in-three chance of meeting again, and one in ten by day 90.

**Figure: Chance a silent match meets again**
- 60 days silent: 33% (about one in three)
- 90 days silent: 10% (about one in ten)
Act at 30–40 days, while a nudge is still cheap.
Source: Mentornity, 78,318 matches

Tracking this in a spreadsheet is possible but slow. Mentornity's Program Health view scores a program across 11 dimensions, so the weekly scan takes minutes.

## When a match goes quiet

Escalate on a schedule: automated nudges first, personal notes second, structural changes last.

1. **Day 7, not activated:** automated login reminder. A second at day 12 with the program manager's name on it.
2. **Day 14, no first meeting booked:** nudge the mentor, not the mentee. "Your mentee is waiting, here is your booking link."
3. **Day 21–30, still no meeting:** email both separately. Ask what is blocking the first session and offer to book it.
4. **Day 45 of silence:** ask directly: continue or rematch? Make rematching blame-free.
5. **Day 60:** rematch the mentee proactively instead of waiting to be asked. See [how to match mentors and mentees](https://www.mentornity.com/how-to-match-mentors-and-mentees/) for what to weigh differently the second time.

Never scold. A guilt-trip email gets one apologetic meeting, then deeper silence.

## The mid-program survey

Run it once, at the midpoint, with five questions or fewer:

- How many times have you met?
- Is the match useful (1–5)?
- Is anything blocking you?
- Do you want help or a rematch?
- What should the program team change?

Send one reminder to non-responders; many will be your stalled matches. The survey also finds matches that meet regularly but get nothing from it.

Act within a week. Rematch the matches that asked, fix the complaint that came up most, and tell participants: you said X, we changed Y.

## Keeping stakeholders on side

Send a short monthly update before anyone asks: active matches, sessions this month, momentum percentage, and one anonymized participant quote. One screen, no attachments.

Quarterly, add trend lines for momentum and cancellations, completion projections and one ask: budget, mentor recruiting help or a sponsor email. Export the data as CSV or Excel so HR or finance can analyze it. If your sponsor mentors a match, share that match's story with them each quarter.

## Closing a cohort

Start four weeks before the end date:

1. **Announce the finish line.** Ask every match to book a final session.
2. **Run the final survey.** Goals met (yes, partly, no), satisfaction, would you recommend, a testimonial with permission to quote, and "would you mentor next cohort?"
3. **Issue certificates.** Mentornity's certificates have a public verification page and can be shared on LinkedIn. Tying them to the final survey also lifts response rates.
4. **Move matches to alumni.** Mark the cohort complete and tell matches they can keep meeting on their own. Invite strong mentees to mentor next time, with [what makes a good mentor](https://www.mentornity.com/what-makes-a-good-mentor/).
5. **Write a 30-minute retro.** Three lists: keep, change, drop. Store it with the final report for the next launch.

To skip building the dashboard yourself, [try Mentornity on a small cohort](https://www.mentornity.com/try-for-free/).

### Questions and answers

**How much time does it take to manage a running mentoring program?**
Plan on 30–60 minutes a week for a cohort of 50–200 participants. The time goes to scanning a dashboard, clearing flagged matches and sending nudges. Automated reminders keep it at the low end.

**What metrics should a mentoring program track?**
Invitation activation, match coverage, time to first meeting, monthly meeting momentum, silent matches and cancellation rate. Mentornity's program health view flags activation under 50%, momentum under 60% and matches silent for 60+ days.

**When should you rematch a mentoring match?**
Ask the match whether to continue or rematch around day 45 of silence, and rematch proactively by day 60. Across 78,318 matches on Mentornity, a match 60 days into silence had about a one-in-three chance of meeting again, and one in ten by day 90.

**How often should you survey mentoring participants?**
Twice per cohort: a five-question pulse at the midpoint and a fuller survey at the end. Act on the midpoint survey within a week.

## Mentornity in brief

Mentornity is software for running mentoring programs: companies (onboarding, career, leadership, reverse mentoring), universities and alumni networks, startup accelerators and incubators, associations and professional communities, and women's leadership programs. One program team sets the program up; mentors and mentees take part from the browser or their phone. It has run programs since 2015.

### What changes for the program team

- **Matching stops being a spreadsheet job.** The team writes rules on the questions mentors and mentees answer (same department, related expertise, more experience, a specific answer paired with a specific answer), each with a weight. Mentornity scores every possible pair from 0 to 100, leaves out pairs that fail a mandatory rule, and shows the reasons behind each score. An AI rule reads free-text goals and adds to the same score. The same data always gives the same result, so every match can be explained to a manager or a participant. The team approves pairs, lets mentees choose from a ranked list, or opens a mentor pool.
- **The first meeting happens quickly.** Mentors publish their open hours once or as a weekly pattern; mentees book them. Busy time in connected Google and Outlook calendars is blocked both ways, and every meeting gets a Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or built-in video link without anyone creating one. Mentornity's own data on 78,000+ pairs: pairs that met in their first week averaged 2.7 meetings in the first year, against 1.8 for pairs whose first meeting came after two months.
- **Quiet pairs are found while they can still be saved.** Program Health flags pairs that stopped meeting, and automatic reminders go to people who never logged in, pairs behind on their sessions and anyone with an open form or missing feedback, in each person's own language. In the same data a pair silent at day 60 has about a 1 in 3 chance of meeting again; by day 90 it is 1 in 10.
- **Every meeting has a plan, if the program wants one.** Predefined sessions carry a topic, a date range, a brief for each role and questions before and after the meeting. Notes reach both sides; private notes stay private. Flexible programs skip sessions and let pairs meet freely.
- **Support does not land in a personal inbox.** Participants read role guides and send requests inside the platform; the team shares one support board and replies go out in the program's name.
- **The report is ready when leadership, a funder or a board asks.** Participation, matches, meetings, session completion and feedback are counted while the program runs, with a Program Health score and its reasons, and export to Excel, CSV or PDF. Participants can receive certificates on completion.
- **Mentors plan every meeting in one go.** Super Meeting Planner reads both sides' calendars and published hours and plans all remaining meetings of a match at the program's rhythm (duration, target frequency, number of meetings), shows the plan before it creates anything, and never deletes a meeting. The program decides whether the values are locked and whether mentees may plan too (https://www.mentornity.com/whats-new/super-meeting-planner/).
- **Mentors send exercises between meetings.** Mentoring Tools is a library of 26 short exercises in six themes (working together, self-knowledge, goals and action, career and network, venture, reflection). The mentee fills the tool in step by step, both discuss the answers, and only the matched pair sees them. Each tool has its sources, a reason why it works, and a presentation for mentors and one for mentees (https://www.mentornity.com/tools/).
- **Development is measured, not only satisfaction.** With Development & Impact participants set up to three goals and answer short development statements at the start; at the midpoint, the end and a follow-up they mark their progress, mentors rate the same goals, and the team sees goal attainment and the change per development area with the number of people behind every figure, exportable to Excel. 45 suggested statement sets are matched to the organization type, audience and goal (https://www.mentornity.com/whats-new/development-and-impact/).
- **Mentors and mentees learn inside the platform.** The Support window lists the presentations and guides chosen for the person's role and program type (Mentor Guide, Mentee Guide, video meetings guide, and the tool decks), in the platform language; white-label programs show no Mentornity links (https://www.mentornity.com/presentations/).
- **Large programs share the load.** Coordinators each see only their own pairs; the admin still sees every match, meeting and note in one table. Programs, cohorts and administrators are unlimited, and administrators and coordinators never count towards the price.

### Program models

One-to-one, group mentoring (one mentor with a group), grouped-individual programs, mentee self-selection, open mentor pools, peer and reverse mentoring, structured or freestyle. Roles can be renamed (coach, advisor, expert, alumni) so the platform speaks the organization's language. One person can take part in several programs with a single account.

### Launch

Most programs go from signup to invitations within a day: create the program, follow the built-in checklist (profile questions, sessions, application form), import participants from Excel or share an application link, and send invitations. A person from the Mentornity team helps with the first setup, free of charge.

### How a program runs, week by week

This is the routine Mentornity's own guide recommends (https://www.mentornity.com/how-to-manage-a-mentoring-program/); the platform does the counting and the reminders, the team acts only where a pair is flagged.

- **Day one:** the program is set up and invitations go out. Participants sign up, fill in their profile, and are matched by the rules or choose from a ranked list.
- **Week one:** the aim is a first meeting in the first week, booked from the mentor's open hours with the video link already in the invitation. Automatic login reminders go to anyone who has not signed in.
- **Every week, 30 to 60 minutes for the team** (a cohort of about 50 to 200 people): scan Program Health (Mentornity scores the program across 11 dimensions), clear the flagged pairs, let the reminders cover logins, sessions, forms and feedback, note one win for the stakeholder update, and check whether last week's nudged pairs responded.
- **The escalation schedule:** a login reminder at day 7; a nudge to the mentor if nothing is booked by day 14; a personal note to both if there is still no meeting by day 21 to 30; at 45 days of silence ask "continue or rematch?"; by day 60 rematch the mentee. Half of the pairs still unmet at day 14 do go on to meet, so a quiet fortnight calls for a nudge rather than a rematch.
- **Mentors and mentees, each week:** they book and hold their meetings, answer the before and after questions of the session if the program uses sessions, and share notes. Mentors keep their time protected with weekly limits and cancellation rules.
- **Monthly:** a short update to sponsors from the live report (active pairs, sessions held, the share of pairs that met this month, one participant quote).
- **Mid-program:** one short survey, then act on it within a week (rematches, the most common complaint).
- **The last four weeks:** announce the end date, ask every pair to book a final session, run the final survey, issue certificates, mark the cohort complete and export the report. Invite the strongest mentees to mentor the next cohort.

### For IT, HR and legal

- SAML 2.0 single sign-on with Entra ID (Azure AD), OneLogin or any SAML provider, optionally enforced; white labeling with the organization's own domain, logo, colours and sender address. Both are add-ons priced separately.
- Personal data is processed in line with GDPR and applicable local data protection laws. Participants can access, correct, export and erase their data; the organization can ask for a full export of its program data at any time. Visibility of contact details and notes is set per role.
- Traffic is encrypted with TLS, passwords are stored hashed and access to production data is restricted. Security questionnaires, a data processing agreement and data-location questions are handled with the quote.
- Works with Zoom, Google Meet and Calendar, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, built-in Jitsi video, and Excel/CSV import and export. Mentornity connects to other systems such as an LMS on request, and adapts the platform to an organization's own process.

### Languages

Participants use the platform, and receive its emails, in their own language: English, Turkish, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or Dutch.

## Pricing (United States, USD)

- Free for up to 10 users with every feature and no time limit. No credit card.
- $289 per month for 50 active users, or $260 per month paid yearly (10% off, $3,120 a year). Excludes any local taxes.
- Above 50 users the price follows the number of active participants; the team marks who is active. Administrators and coordinators are free.
- No setup or implementation fee. White labeling and SAML single sign-on are priced separately.
- Prices are published per country, not quoted on a call: https://www.mentornity.com/pricing/

## Organizations that run programs on Mentornity

Toyota, TIM, RATP Dev USA, Pirelli, Universität Basel, UNDP, Devoteam, BCD Travel, Startup Virginia, Tenity, Community College of Philadelphia, Brave Generation, Alexander Graham Bell Foundation. Each one ran its own program on the platform, checked against production data. Full list: https://www.mentornity.com/customers/

## Next steps

- Start a free program (up to 10 users, no credit card): https://www.mentornity.com/try-for-free/
- Book a walkthrough with the team: https://www.mentornity.com/book-a-demo/
- How matching works: https://www.mentornity.com/mentor-matching-software/
- Pricing: https://www.mentornity.com/pricing/
- Contact: info@mentornity.com