business mentorship
network

Both mentees and mentors submit an application in which they outline details of their farm business, production type, previous business experience, and mentorship goals.  We use this information to make matches prioritizing alignment of mentorship goals, production type and geographic proximity.  The Business Mentorship Network (BMN) Coordinators facilitate the matchmaking and introduction processes.

If you have a mentor in mind already, you may indicate this on your application and we will follow up with that mentor on your behalf.  We cannot guarantee that a mentorship match will be made with this mentor, but your suggestion will be taken into consideration.

Applications for a new cohort open October 1st with a deadline for submission by Oct 31st. The matches are made over the course of November and December. The mentorship meetings will begin as soon as matches are confirmed, either in December or January of the following year. A majority of the mentorship hours are spent together over the late winter and into early spring with meetings once a week.

Following the farmer calendar, the meeting schedule is negotiated between mentor and mentee to best fit their production timelines and availability. In the busy summer months, contact often shifts to periodic check-ins and focused problem solving so both mentor and mentee may focus on the operation of their farm businesses. In the fall, mentors will support mentees to reflect on their season and integrate lessons learned. The formal mentorship is complete by November, with mentee follow-up components wrapped by the end of December.

The webinar series will run once a week through January to February. Mentees will be supported to submit a blog in March and again in September / October. Kitchen Table Conversations will begin in April and run through to September. Final program evaluations will be due by mid December. Down the road Young Agrarians will be in touch with a survey tool, to see how you are doing over the long-term.

As there is generally more interest in the program than we can support, we are unfortunately not able to accept every applicant into the program.  If your application is unsuccessful, you will be notified by a BMN Coordinator.  Please don’t be discouraged.  Sometimes the difference between a successful application and an unsuccessful one is an additional season of experience, so we encourage you to reapply next year!

Every applicant is invited to watch the webinars and attend the Q&A sessions, and our BMN coordinators are more than happy to provide you with more resources. Our coordinators can also connect you with additional YA E-learning programs such as the Business Bootcamp for New Farmers where you can learn some of the business basics that you’ll need to get the most out of the mentorship program.

The mentors who participate in the BMN are encouraged to use the coach approach to mentorship.  This means they will be driven by curiosity about your ideas, experience and goals, and support you to create a plan that works for you. They will share their own experience and expertise and work with you to find the right answers for your situation. This approach is designed to empower you to build your skills to effectively manage your unique business over the long-term.

The E-Learning Webinars cover a wide range of topics including business structure, human resources, financial management, tax filing, marketing, and more.  The webinars are pre-recorded, which means that you can watch them as many times as you like.  We offer follow-up Q&A sessions on each topic where you can ask seasoned farmers and industry experts questions specific to your farm operation.

The webinar series is free of charge and if you are matched with a Mentor then you will be asked to pay $100 to participate. If cost is a barrier, please let us know.

The program includes 30 hours of one-on-one mentorship, however the time commitment from each mentee will be closer to 60 – 70 hours over the course of the year, including attending orientation, watching the pre-recorded webinars, attending the Q&A sessions, and following up on insights with mentors.

The BMN Program is conducted over the timespan of a year, however your informal relationship with your mentor may last longer than that.  You will also be introduced to a community of farmers who you may continue to have conversations with throughout your farming career.  The formal mentorship program begins in December / January and concludes the following December.

The application will ask you to share information about your current farm operation and describe your current business practices. We will also ask you to develop clear goals for your farm business and what you hope to receive from the mentorship. In addition, we ask that mentees provide us with information about their total area of land in production, volume of food produced, and gross revenue from the current year, as well as the year spent in the mentorship program. This allows us to track some immediate impacts of the mentorship program, and to celebrate the mentees’ growth. If you don’t have systems in place yet to track this, the mentorship process will help you develop those.

The BMN Program puts  the mentee in the driver’s seat: mentees will coordinate their meetings with their mentors and their mentorship conversations will center around goals they set for themselves. To get the most out of the program, we encourage mentees to put the effort into following up on resources provided by their mentor, by participating fully in the webinar Q&A sessions, and committing to take actions to work toward their goals.  Since the formal mentorship program lasts a year, we encourage mentees to take full advantage of their conversations with mentors and make their time together meaningful.

The Kitchen Table Sessions are open-format google meet-ups hosted by program Coordinators where mentees can talk about anything they’d like to discuss.  Ask for advice from other mentees, share solutions, ask questions, or find out how others approached a problem; this is free time for mentees to use for support, help, and conversation.