This National Mentorship Month, Housing& is elated to share a successful mentor-mentee partnership as part of its GenerationHousing& initiative, which provides emerging leaders with resources and mentorship to help them thrive in their careers. Housing& is also so pleased to share that 20 pairs are in this cohort, and 105 pairings have taken place since program inception in January 2022.
This week, Executive Director Courtney Battle moderated a discussion between mentor Christopher Donald, Executive Director and CEO of the DC Housing Finance Agency, and
mentee Marquan Jackson, VP of Resident Services for True Ground Housing Partners.
“It’s deeply important to me… that we set up the next generation of actors who are going to be in these communities and who are going to be transforming the city.” – Christopher Donald
Donald and Jackson connected in the inaugural class of GenerationHousing&’s mentorship program and immediately, “lightning struck in a bottle”. Christopher Donald describes Marquan as “[him], 20 years ago”, and as men of color in the DC area, they share a lot of common humanity and experiences in this space. For Donald, a crucial part of this partnership is being able to offer advice, saying that Jackson has an opportunity to learn from his previous decisions.
“Great mentors ‘blocked and tackled’, came into [my] life and asked about [my] problems, gave [me] advice, and offered to make calls and open doors for [me].” – Christopher Donald
Christopher previously worked with Marquan’s CEO at True Ground Housing Partners (formerly APAH), giving him the ability to impart knowledge about how best to work within the organization and with the CEO. That knowledge has been extraordinarily helpful to Marquan – his team has grown from a staff of 4 with $2.2 million in delinquencies, to a staff of 23 with a less than 1% eviction rate for nonprofits.
In a mentor-mentee relationship, the onus is on the mentee to see who they’ve got in front of them, what they need, and what they can offer to the relationship, according to Donald. Even if the relationship doesn’t work, keep the individual in-network – because relationships and networking are crucial to success in this space.
“Be a teacher and a learner.” – Marquan Jackson
As we celebrate National Mentoring Month, we look forward to seeing our mentor-mentee pairs thrive and make meaningful contributions to building a stronger, more inclusive community development field.
