How to find mentors and sponsors
Mentors guide. Sponsors advocate. Learn how to build both relationships.
Before You Start
Goal: Understand the crucial difference between mentors and sponsors — especially for women — and learn strategies to build both of these critical relationships.
Article: How to Find a Mentor at Work—and Why You Need a Sponsor More
Meeting Agenda · Approx. 60 mins
- Member Updates · 10 mins
- Icebreaker · 10 mins
- Key Takeaways · 5 mins
- Discussion Questions · 20 mins
- Write It Down · 2 mins
- One Action · 10 mins
- Wrap-Up · 5 mins
👋 Member Updates · 10 mins
Go around your Circle and share personal updates. Keep them brief and focused on significant changes or important decisions since the last time you met. It's OK not to have one every month. If you have a One Action update from last time, share that too.
🧊 Icebreaker · 10 mins
Invite everyone in the group to share. Keep answers to one or two minutes per person.
Has anyone ever advocated for you in a room you weren't in? What happened as a result?
💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins
Most people have mentors. Far fewer have sponsors. That gap is especially costly for women — and it's largely invisible.
- Mentors and sponsors do fundamentally different things. Mentors advise you; sponsors fight for you.
- Women are disproportionately under-sponsored. Research consistently shows women have less access to sponsorship — which directly affects promotion rates, visibility, and advancement.
- Sponsorship has to be earned through performance and visibility. Sponsors stake their reputation on you. Building that kind of trust requires demonstrated results and genuine relationship.
- Mentorship and sponsorship is also something you can offer. If you're in a position of influence, actively mentoring or sponsoring someone — especially someone from an underrepresented group — is one of the most concrete forms of allyship you can take.
- The ROI of sponsorship is enormous. Being sponsored — or becoming a sponsor — can change the trajectory of a career in ways that mentorship alone cannot.
💬 Discussion Questions · 20 mins
Move through the questions at the pace that suits your Circle. You don't need to cover every one. Pick the prompts that resonate most.
- Take a minute to think of a senior colleague whose work genuinely interests you. What's one substantive question about their thinking (not your career) you could ask them this week?
- What's one way you could make yourself useful to a potential mentor or sponsor before you need anything from them — sharing information, offering help, making their work easier?
- Think of people who have advocated for you in your career — introduced you to a senior colleague, put in a good word for you, advocated for you to get an opportunity. How did you build the relationship with them? How can you build similar relationships with others?
- Thinking of those advocates — have you closed the loop with them by thanking them and sharing how their advocacy helped? If not, you can plan to do so.
- Are you in a position to mentor or sponsor someone? Who comes to mind and how could you help them best?
✍️ Write It Down · 2 mins
Take a few quiet minutes to connect the discussion to your own life.
Note down any action items you want to take as a result of today's discussion — thanking a mentor or sponsor, offering help, or asking a genuine question.
🎯 One Action · 10 mins
Commit to one concrete action — big or small — you'll take before next meeting. Go around the Circle and share (1 minute or less per member). Vocalizing it helps hold each other accountable.
What concrete step could you take this month to either develop a sponsoring relationship — or to begin actively sponsoring someone else?
📅 Wrap-Up · 5 mins
Before you break, plan your next meeting and close on an energetic note. Go around your Circle one by one and finish the sentence:
Now I am feeling… (choose one word).
- Set the day, time, and location
- Choose the next topic or resource
- Confirm who's leading the discussion
- Decide how you'll stay in touch in between