One Person - One Hour Campaign
Guidelines to Create a Powerful, One Hour Mentoring Session
What Mentoring Is:
Mentoring is when someone with experience or perspective supports another person to help them grow, make informed decisions, spark new ideas and see new possibilities or pathways. It’s not about telling someone what to do - it’s about sharing lived experience, discovering new insights and encouraging their personal and professional development. To mentor is to offer support, guide, inspire, encourage and uplift another.
Mentoring is about creating a safe and trusted space where reflection, growth and transformation can flourish. It empowers individuals to feel seen and heard, overcome challenges, ask questions free from judgement and grow in confidence.
Why Your Involvement Matters:
- One hour can shape someone's life, career or business.
- Builds connection through genuine human support.
- Your participation encourages and inspires others to mentor.
- It raises awareness and shows you support mentoring.
- It shortens the learning curve by passing on real-world experience.
- Leave your legacy by your sharing skills, wisdom, insights.
Why This Campaign Matters:
- Economic Impact – Drives demand for mentoring to empower entrepreneurship, business growth, innovation, and bridges skills gaps.
- Inclusive & Accessible – Addresses loneliness, isolation, and unequal access to support.
- Nationwide Unity – Cross-generational, cross-sector mentoring strengthens our entire society.
- Mental Health & Wellbeing – Boosts wellbeing, confidence, resilience, and reduces stress.
- Learning & Development – Accelerates personal and professional growth through sharing - Receive CPD credits and certificate for taking part.
Golden Rules for a Powerful Mentoring Session:
- Be fully present, patient, and open to their journey.
- Listen to understand, not to solve, fix or rescue.
- Empower them, your role is to unlock potential, not rewrite their path.
- Share insights and stories, not instructions - mentoring is a dialogue, not a directive
- Lead with respect, humility, empathy and curiosity so you can experience the power of mentoring..
Before the Mentoring Day
- Decide who to mentor - someone who’ll benefit from your knowledge, skills, experience or perspective.
- Schedule your session time with your mentee - virtual or in-person.
- Please review our safeguarding checklist HERE
Before the Mentoring Hour:
- Create the space - Choose a quiet, private setting - free from distractions.
- Put your phone on silent to give 100% attention to your mentee.
- Prepare for the session - water, notebook, check tech: audio, video, Wi-Fi, platform access.
During the Hour
- Align expectations: clarify the session focus, and desired outcomes.
- Begin by asking: “what could make this hour valuable for you?”
- Set Boundaries - be clear on what support you can and cannot offer.
- Hold the space - Aim to listen more than you talk - 70% listening, 30% talking.
- Share your relevant experiences but try to avoid turning it into your story.
- Invite the mentee to challenge, ask questions and be open to their perspective.
- Share valuable lessons from past mistakes, failures and real lived experience.
- Consider who you could introduce them to? Networks or opportunities.
- Other resources are available HERE
Closing the Hour
1. Consider Three Actionable Steps
- Agree on three clear, realistic actions they could implement next.
- Aim to make them specific, measurable, realistic and time-bound.
- If appropriate, offer to make introductions or recommendations. A powerful mentor is an advocate.
2. Reflect and Feedback
- Invite your mentee to reflect and seek feedback: “Looking back on today’s session, what insights or takeaways feel most valuable to you, and is there anything that could have made the experience even clearer or more supportive?” Remember: feedback is a gift!
- Share what you learned as a mentor too.
- Thank them. A genuine thank-you affirms their effort, builds trust, and strengthens their confidence in themselves and their mentoring journey.
Celebrate Your Contribution
- On 27th October - post a photo, video or reflection from your session.
- Download your CPD credits and certificate (Mentor & Mentee) HERE
- Upskill your mentoring best practice - take the FREE Mentor health check and receive CPD credits and certificate HERE
- Share your story and celebrate the impact you made to inspire others to mentor, this empowers others to step up to mentor or seek support.
- Download your supporters sign HERE
- Download a Thank You card HERE
Join us on Social Media
Wishing you a powerful session, and thank you for making a difference!
SAVE THE DATE - 27th October - Let’s Get United in Mentoring
© National Mentoring Day
