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Mentoring program names may seem unimportant, but they play a pivotal role in engaging employees. Before you launch a mentoring program, take some time to review the important points, tips, and examples we provide below.
In doing so, you’ll come out with inspiration and lots of ideas for a program name that captures the culture you want to build with your mentoring program.
Why is it important to have a good name for your mentoring program?
The mentoring program name is how you introduce your program and capture the interest of potential mentors and mentees. Additionally, a clear and compelling program name will help increase your program's engagement while reflecting the culture you aim to spread through your program.
This is why it is important to choose a good name to be your long-term choice. After all, it is only fair to brainstorm thoroughly and come up with something catchy, unique, and meaningful if it is to represent your company’s values.
How to name your mentoring program?
Choosing mentoring program names is easier said than done. It requires some thoughtful consideration and evaluation. Will the name entice employees? Will it attract them to participate in the program? Does the program name reflect your goals and vision?
Let’s unpack these several factors before providing examples of program names.
Consult your goals
Begin by reflecting upon the goals that drove you to offer the mentoring program. What purpose do you hope to accomplish with it?
You could take the SMART approach when deciding upon the goals for your mentoring programs. Experienced mentors of the world approve of the SMART model because it helps design mentorship goals on the following pillars:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Action-oriented
- Realistic
- Time-bound
With the driving reasons in written form before you, inspiration is more likely to strike and help you select a title that reflects the program's targets. For instance, many mentoring programs presently are designed to fulfill the following goals:
- Building more connected cultures in hybrid or remote workplaces
- Making room for success for the new hires through onboarding programs
- Preparing and offering training opportunities for new managers before they assume leadership roles
- Mentoring programs could also come into existence to support diversity initiatives.
- Mentoring employees with high potential for taking leadership roles in the organization in future
What type of mentoring program do you have?
As mentioned above, take stock of the goals that led you to offer the program programs. Do you wish to accelerate your mentees' professional and personal growth and development? Does the program aim to guide them and offer continual feedback and advice from industry experts?
Write down your goals in the form of a list and let it guide you in choosing a name and the type of mentoring program you should offer.
Look at examples of other mentoring programs
Identifying your mentorship program niche will help you run a thorough search and look at other mentoring programs with similar themes. It will add to your inspiration for your program and help you discover loopholes in yours while also learning about the competitors in the field.
Brainstorm potential names
Brainstorming has since long been a popular technique to set creative juices in motion and help individuals develop innovative ideas. Some ways in which you can generate the best mentoring program names are:
- Creating a list of relevant words and adjectives describing your target audience. Then mix and match to explore how each sounds
- Adding names to your list of words
- Googling for ideas and words to craft a unique program name
- Listing down words that belong to your industry
Shortlist names
After completing the above steps, you’ll surely have a sizeable list in front of you. Then start analyzing each to keep those that are meaningful and others that are less attractive and convincing. You could start with a list of 15 to 20 prospective names for your mentorship program.
Get feedback from leaders and participants
This is the time to pick a winner, but we recommend against being a one-man jury. There's nothing to say you can't select a winning name yourself, but remember, the mentorship program will cater to an audience too.
Hence, you could handpick leaders from your industry or circle, as well as participants and take their vote on your shortlisted names.
Tips for finding ideas for your mentoring program
When brainstorming ideas for your mentoring program, you may follow a simple formula to seek inspiration. Let your ideas be based on the following:
Audience + goal of program + “mentoring program”
Hence, some great structures for crafting mentoring programs could be:
- New hire + onboarding + mentoring program – programs of this structure can focus on building connections between remote teams or launching buddy programs for new hires etc.
- High potential + career development + mentoring program – these mentoring programs should cater to leaders and their younger or junior employees. The focus of such programs could be on succession planning, leadership development, and high-potential training.
- Manager + leadership training + mentoring program etc. - the focus of these could be onboarding processes, training for new managers, employee resource groups, etc.
At the crux of every mentoring program is the intense focus on meaningful development in an individual belonging to an organization.
From establishing a stronger and more productive corporate culture to cultivating and refining employees' skills, they achieve multiple targets simultaneously.
33 Creative mentoring program names
When choosing mentoring program names, remember to:
- Make them reflective of the values and goals of your company
- Make them catchy, memorable, and meaningful
- Make it unique and creative, and try not to copy other titles in existence already
- Avoid difficult and lengthy names
- Choose a program name that would be marketable and an asset for promotions
Some great examples of mentoring program names are below. Consider each and decide whether adding “mentoring program” at the end is necessary.
- Encourage and engage
- Succeed in and prevail
- Knowledge is power
- Marketplace gurus
- Positive impact
- Team Prometheus
- Motivation station
- The forte force
- Empower talents
- Mentor point
- Changing perspectives
- Believing in yourself
- Continued insight
- Learning league
- High five force
- Thoughts to thoughts
- Achievement corps
- Aspirations and expectations
- The gift of perspective
- Attainment alliance
- Wisdom is energy
- Personal enrichment program
- Unattainable one
- Empowered to pursue
- The essentials
- Mentor masters
- Grounded in trust
- Intentional investments
- Team protégé
- Dare mighty things
- Eyes on the throne
- Wisdom knacks
- Epilogue of success
Need help planning the rest of your mentoring program?
Mentoring program names can't be anything that appeals to you. When brainstorming ideas for a catchy and attractive program name, one has to ensure that it is easy to pronounce, remember and write.
Mentoring program names can often look fancy on paper, but when people try saying them aloud, they may appear vague and unexciting. Choosing a name that falls flat on the ears could fail to rouse anticipation and individuals' desire to attend it.
Finally, if you’re picking a mentoring program name, you’re likely planning everything else that goes into making a successful mentoring program. Our team at Together provides the best resources for building a mentorship program. To keep learning, you can check our guide to best practices for building a mentorship program, our templated activities or discussion agendas, and more on our blog.
