To be a general DFC mentor, you must be an enrolled graduate student at one of Leadership Brainery’s 13 member schools. To be a law mentor, you must be a current candidate or recent (within the last two years) graduate of a JD or LLM program.

In order to be a mentor, make an account on Dear Future Colleague and select "Current Graduate Student" as your user type. Then, once you're on the platform, click the Mentorship widget on the top right of the homepage and fill out the mentorship application.

Matching occurs every Tuesday, however, our matching is based on the needs of our mentees. It may be several weeks or months before we find a mentee who’s a good fit for you and your experience. If it has been an extended amount of time since you registered to be a DFC mentor and you still have not been matched, check your spam folder for a match notification email from “Dear Future Colleague.” Aside from being matched, we encourage you to post tips and resources on the main feed and feel free to visit the Network tab and message prospective graduate students who share on their profile that they’re seeking help.

Our mentorship relationships last for a minimum of three months with periodic survey check-ins. However, you are welcome to extend your relationship with your mentee if you both agree that it is needed. There will be a question on your Third Month Check-In asking if you and your mentee wish to extend the relationship or if you would like to be matched with a new mentee.

We ask that all of our mentors watch our DFC Mentor Training Video. This video includes some basic platform information and expectations from our team, some quick tips on how to be a great mentor from Dr. Portia Singh, and some deeper questions and exercises from Catherine Wong, M.Ed. to consider as you embark on this relationship.

DFC requires that you meet with your mentee for a minimum of two hours per month. However, you are welcome to meet with them more frequently if necessary.

Our team prefers that you contact your mentee through the DFC platform using direct and video messaging. However, we understand the need to email, text, or call your mentee as needed, as long as the two of you have agreed on those communication pathways.

If you’ve contacted your mentee through the DFC platform and they don’t respond within one week, please contact DFC Support at dfc@leadershipbrainery.org. If you have started your relationship and your mentee is suddenly unresponsive, please give them a call using the number on their DFC profile. If you do not see a number or you still cannot reach them, please contact DFC Support.

Your monthly check-in surveys can be found in the mentorship milestones. To get to the milestones, log on to DFC and click mentoring --> mentoring relationships --> see relationship details --> milestones. Find the survey that matches where you are in your mentorship relationship (either second month check-in or end of relationship), and copy and paste the survey link into your browser. Make sure to click "Milestone Complete" after you've completed your survey! You can also locate them under the Mentorship Resources tab here.

Any issues with your mentorship relationship can be submitted to DFC Support at dfc@leadershipbrainery.org and a team member will contact you to resolve the issues.

If you did not receive an approval or denial email or a match notification email and you believe you should have, check your spam folder and contact DFC Support at dfc@leadershipbrainery.org.

It's totally reasonable to take some time off from mentoring, or to focus on one mentee at a time. However, you may want to adjust your mentoring settings on Dear Future Colleague so that you aren't contacted by potential mentees. To adjust these settings, you can:

1) Click on your profile and find the "Settings" gear

2) Click on the "Privacy" tab

3) You will see a list of actions -- who can send you messages, who can schedule on messages, google, etc. Please click "Hide"

4) Once you have greater capacity, you can move those actions back to "All" or you can limit them to only your assigned mentee.