A Handbook for Mentoring Future Union Leaders

Mentoring is an essential tool for moving unions forward: It can help less experienced members and staff learn new leadership skills and how to navigate the political terrain of their union settings. A new handbook,The Next Generation: A Handbook for Mentoring Future Union Leaders, gives valuable advice and concrete tools for developing mentoring programs for union members and staff, and implementing them.

The handbook defines and describes various types of mentoring, outlines strategies for addressing potential roadblocks in the mentoring process, and presents key lessons from programs that actually work about how to make mentoring programs effective and sustainable.

This guide can be used to begin a new mentoring program or to shore up one that’s already in place. It’s a must-read for those looking to create and sustain mentoring programs that empower, prepare, and train future union leaders and keep unions strong.

The handbook was written by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and produced with funding and support from the Berger-Marks Foundation.