Whitelion Mentoring Program
ProjectCase Study
Project Summary
1.IDENTIFYING INFORMATION
1.1Lead agency
Whitelion
1.2Key drivers
The staff member at Whitelion has been the key person responsible for the overall Mentoring Program. Portland House Foundation has played a major role in supporting the mentoring program that works specifically with young people currently in custody at one of the juvenile justice facilities.
1.3Project Partners
Philanthropic Trust / Victorian Government / Community OrganisationPortland House Foundation / DepartmentofHuman Services / Whitelion
The R. E. Ross Trust
Medibank Community Fund
Freemasons Public Charitable Foundation
1.4Date commenced
The program has been operating since 2000. Partners have joined at various stages throughout its development.
Portland House commenced its funding support for the program in 2004.
1.5Objectives of the project
The purpose of the Whitelion Mentoring Program is to support vulnerable young people, either in custody or in the community, to connect with a positive volunteer mentor form the community. There are a number of distinct services provided as part of the broader Mentoring Program to cater for the needs of young people in various situations, but different components of the Program all have a preventative focus. It is prevention in the sense of assisting the young person not to re-offend, rather than intervening at the earliest possible stage in a vulnerable young person’s life.
While all the mentoring programs do have this preventative focus, they do intervene at different stages – some work with young people in custody or out of home care, others with at risk young people in the community.
2.BACKGROUND AND IMPETUS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
PROJECT PARTNERSHIPS
2.1History and background of the lead organisation
Whitelion was established in 1999 to support and assist highly vulnerable young people to change their lives. It now operates in four states, including Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia.
Whitelion provides opportunities, relationships and a community for young people involved in the Youth Justice System or at risk of involvement. This is achieved through role modelling, mentoring, employment and Indigenous programs, outreach services, and through prevention programs run in rural and metropolitan communities.
The organisation has a focus on leadership, growth, organisational efficiency and sustainability, coupled with strategic alliances and strong relationships with its stakeholders. The inclusion and engagement of various sectors of the community in its work has and continues to be an innovative approach in the statutory setting, making it one of the leaders in the specialist youth services sector in which it operates.
Over the 12 years of its existence, Whitelion’s support group has grown significantly and is made up of people from business, the media, sporting organisations, the entertainment industry and the general public.
2.2Nature of participation of other partners
The partnership functions through different funding stakeholders providing support to specific elements of the broader Mentoring Program.
The Department of Human Services provides support for the mentoring of young people who are preparing to transition from out of home care to independent living, while the Portland House Foundation and Medibank Community Fund provide support for mentoring young people currently living in custody at one of Melbourne’s youth justice facilities. The collaboration is not formally structured, however the flexibility provided by the different funding streams enables Whitelion to be “agile” in its service delivery and meet the needs of the young people.
As this is not a structured collaboration that involved parties coming together at the outset for a mutually agreed purpose, there has never been a clear and shared understanding of what can be achieved, or probably even an agreement that the arrangement is a collaboration. Currently, Whitelion facilitates the collaborative nature of the relationships between the various stakeholders, predominantly through funding partnerships and working with each funder on an individual basis.
2.3 Process for the development and work of the project
A reading of the international materialsuggests that collaborations form a continuum of engagement between the lead agency and the funding partners, from networking, coordinating and cooperating through to collaboration. On this basis, the Whitelion Mentoring Program falls into a co-operating category. This involves exchanging information and sharing resources. It requiresa significant amount of time, a levelof trust between partners, and an abilityfor agencies to share turf. It often involves independent co-funding.
Whitelion regularly meets with each funding partner on an individual basis and keeps them involved. It is believed that this is the best approach, unless there is demonstrated added value to program outcomes by coming together more frequently to share information and learnings.
A highly structured collaboration does not appear to be warranted in this instance, particularly if it generates a greater burden of additional paperwork, time demands and increased accountabilities, and does not contribute to improved outcomes.
Whitelion does however believe it has a genuine collaboration with Portland House Foundation, which became a funding partner because it saw the opportunity to add value to an existing government funded program run by Whitelion. The approach of Portland House Foundation is to invest in the ‘vision and acumen’ of people and non-profit organisations, and to follow their lead in setting priorities and managing the delivery of benefits from dollars granted. Structured collaboration is an important element of the funding relationship, but the level of involvement of the Foundation can be quite minimal if involvement does not add anything to the activities being undertaken, or help secure the best use of funds available.
Portland House sees its relationship to government funding as one in which the philanthropic dollars can be the catalyst or initial funding for pilot programs, sometimes offering new or expanded approaches. It can also provide complementary funding for parts of a project or program funded by government, strengthening or emphasising particular elements that are considered important. The Foundation will happily participate in a more active collaboration with other stakeholders, if requested, and believe the strength of any collaboration depends on how well the partners understand their skills sets and what each partner brings to the table. While Portland House Foundation has acquired significant knowledge of the policy and operational aspects of the mentoring program by being a partner, they do not seek active involvement or influence at this level, and rely on Whitelion to lead and contribute on policy and operations. The Foundation has an interest in content, and expects to learn and be informed, but does not see itself as the expert. "In thinking about a more structured collaboration, the Foundation would want to be confident that a more formalised structure would not detract from Whitelion’s current ‘lightness on feet’, ability to be flexible and to adapt quickly to new policy, program or funding developments".
Genevieve Timmons, Portland House Foundation
Following participation in The Philanthropy – Government case study and group discussions, Whitelion can see the potential benefits of establishing a more explicit and formalised approach to collaboration, perhaps starting with a reference group which could add value by bringing together people with expertise in this work. In this way, it will become clear whether some of the barriers/obstacles facing the various Mentoring Programs could perhaps be better resolved and it could contribute to shaping strategies and sharing knowledge to improve the program.
2.4Major milestones and relevant timelines
Each mentoring program has individual funding agreements, targets and milestones.
These milestones and targets vary depending on the scale of the program and the nature of the mentoring provided. All Whitelion mentoring services are considered as ongoing elements of the organization’s service delivery.
2.5Governance arrangements
This partnership is governed by a number of arrangements, as a result of having multiple funding stakeholders involved. The Mentoring program must therefore address the governance requirements of each individual stakeholder as outlined in both philanthropic and government funding agreements. This lack of structure across the collaboration results in differing processes and arrangements across each program.
2.6Current status of the project
The Mentoring Program is seen as an ongoing program for Whitelion with no anticipated finish date. Whitelion is keen to see the program continuing as long as funding continues and as long as the various components of the Program remain effective. It does however believe there should be clarity with each partner about how they see their future commitment.
Whitelion indicated that they are not looking for an exit strategy, but rather for a “continuation” strategy.
2.7Success factors
Regular meetings with funding partners and keeping them involved has been one of the factors of the Program’s success.
The trust, respect and good will established with each of the funding partners is also a success factor, as the relationship with each one has added value to the individual mentoring programs.
In addition, Whitelion has gained additional learnings from the roundtable sessions held by Portland House which brings together its grant recipients to discuss strategic directions of the work they are undertaking. These opportunities promote collaboration between grantees who are building quite sophisticated funding collaborations themselves.
2.8Major Challenges
One of the major issues to be considered in thinking about moving toward a more formalised collaboration among key stakeholders would be to clarify lead organisation and governance arrangements, so that it doesn’t become too burdensome for the partners and it is accepted that Whitelion drives the collaboration.
It would also be important to establishclear lines of communication and clarify what each partner wants to get out of the relationship, in order to meet the needs of stakeholders and clients.
2.9Evaluation
Whitelion had developed evaluation strategies as part of the Mentoring Program and builds costings for this into funding agreements. As assessing the impact of these programs on young people can be difficult, the current framework is being reworked to ensure greater rigour.
3.ASSESSMENT OF THE PROJECT AGAINST EACH DRAFT
GUIDING PRINCIPLE
Given that this is a fairly unstructured collaboration, with individual partnership agreements with the each of the funding bodies, many of the principles were not relevant to the current arrangement. Funding partners became involved at different stages of the Program’s development, and do not meet together as a group.
3.1Understand each other’s roles, policies, priorities and limitations
As the funding partners do not meet together with Whitelion around the overall development of the Mentoring Program, it is fair to assume that there are varying levels of understanding around this. From Whitelion’s perspective, they are clearer about government policies and priorities than those of their philanthropic partners. However, this is changing as philanthropic funding becomes more targeted and openly articulated.
As the funding bodies do not meet together, it is unlikely that there is a good understanding amongst the government and philanthropic funders of each other’s roles, policies and priorities.
As with the other case studies, the limitations of each partner is not well understood – this is often not clear until a situation arises which requires greater clarity in this regard.
3.2 Engage each other early when the potential idea/interest/need for a collaborative approach is being considered
The project was initiated by Whitelion, with various partners becoming involved in different aspects of the program over the nine years of its operation.
3.3 Clarify expectations
Because the partners were not all involved from the outset, there is not a shared understanding at this stage of what can be achieved or what the added value might be through a more formalised collaboration.
3.4 Ensure sufficient time to develop trust and agreed approaches
This has been developed between Whitelion and each of its funding partners, through high levels of communication and feedback on the social return of their investments in the Program. Many of these partnerships have developed as trusting relationships and Whitelion recognises that these do take time to develop.
3.5Agree to processes for selecting organisations to be funded and the nature
of projects to be jointly supported
This is not relevant to this arrangement, as Whitelion initiated the partnerships in relation to its own Mentoring Program.
3.6Ensure the right people are at the table
Not relevant, as the partners do not come together around the table. This is something that Whitelion is keen to explore in the future. It is felt that there could be great benefits in bringing the partners together and developing a joint understanding of how each stakeholder adds value to the service delivery. In considering bringing partners together however, Whitelion does not want to create additional paperwork and/or accountability requirements that could be burdensome.
3.7Ensure there is an evaluation framework
As per 2.9, it is agreed that this is important, and is currently still being developed to ensure more rigour than in the past.
3.8Develop an exit strategy for both or either party
There is not currently an exit strategy, but Whitelion does have some idea of commitments and time frames with each partner. They agree that a more collaborative approach to this could be useful, but would want it developed on the basis that funding continues as long as the program is effective. Whitelion is looking for a continuation strategy, rather than exit strategy for individual programs, although recognises that there is the need to plan for funding from particular stakeholders to cease.
3.9Communicate frankly throughout the project time frame
Communication betweenWhitelion and individual stakeholders is strong, but not necessarily between stakeholders. It was considered that opportunities to come together and provide insight into each partners’ role in the collaboration could enhance relationships and help deliver better outcomes for young people.
3.10Develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
There is no overall MOU with the partners in the Mentoring Program, rather there are funding agreements with individual partners. There are MOUs with the other service delivery agencies that also provide services within the Mentoring Program. Whitelion tends to look at developing a ‘statement of intent’ which provides a shared understanding of how different stakeholders can work towards common goals.
3.11Other comments
While the Whitelion Youth Mentoring Program does not currently represent a true collaboration, both they and their funding partners are keen to explore how to move towards this. They believe that a set of guiding principles will be a positive step to assist in this.
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Whitelion case study 2012