The contributor of this article is the Reverend Mark V. Scott, director of community partnerships of Big Brothers Big Sisters of
Big Brothers Big Sisters’ origins, like many American institutions, have some connection to faith communities. It was to a church men’s group that Ernest Coulter (founder of BBBS) took his little fellow to look for a man who would stand up and be part of a child’s life. Since then, mentoring agencies have labored to build partnerships with congregations; this labor has produced mixed results over the years. The advent of Amachi five years ago ushered in a new era of congregation partnership development for the mentoring movement.
The breakthrough occurred in the days between Thanksgiving 2000 and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day 2001. During these 60 days or so, the Reverend Dr. W. Wilson Goode, Sr., father of Amachi and champion of BBBS, went to 50 pastors in Philadelphia with a compelling message of how they could change the lives of some vulnerable children. Eight of the pastors said no thanks. Forty-two said yes and generated 450 volunteer inquiries. The first match made in March 2001 is still active today. Rarely, if ever, in the history of mentoring has one recruiter produced so many volunteers from so many untapped sources in so short a period of time.
Agencies that are mentoring children of prisoners have been trying to repeat the Philadelphia Thanksgiving-MLK Day experience ever since. There have been some effective practices developed and some lessons learned along the way. Agencies are still learning how to define and measure a quality partnership with a congregation. The following suggestions of what is and what is not a quality partnership are based on five years of learning from agencies across the country.
A quality partnership between a mentoring agency and a congregation (or congregations) is:
- between two peers or equals;
- strengthening the core mission of both organizations;
- producing relationships between selected congregation members and children (some of whom are related to members and others who are not related to members) that are strong and lasting;
- lead by a congregation volunteer coordinator (known to all the congregation members and is fully supported by the leadership) who translates for, brokers between, and informs both organizations;
- full of satisfied and engaged customers, including
- the agency leadership team,
- the congregation leadership team (senior and junior clergy, deacons, mothers, lay ministers, cantors, department heads, group leaders, and cell leaders),
- the congregation volunteer coordinator,
- mentors matched to youth in the congregation and outside the congregation,
- youth matched to mentors in the congregation and outside the congregation, and
- families of youth matched to mentors in the congregation and outside the congregation;
- supportive of each other’s mission;
- increasingly lead, invested in, and sustained by the congregation;
- supported by every member and every staff person, of both organizations, who are working together to serve children; and
- challenging members and every staff person, of both organizations, to grow into all they were purposed to be.
A quality partnership between a mentoring agency and a congregation (or congregations) is not:
- a program that works to convert children to a particular faith;
- an opportunity for a mentoring agency to access a long list of potential volunteer inquiries;
- a handshake and piece of paper with no evidence that any children were ever served or any competent follow-through; and
- a program sitting on the margins waiting for funding to disappear.