Program Outcomes

The Diploma in Social Responsibility & Sustainability Program
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Mentor

Transform your perspective, your career and/or your organization. In this program, participants receive a year-long mentorship from a Subject Matter Expert in their chosen field of development. Your Mentor Leader will guide you through your Capstone Project, Assignments and even CSR/Sustainability challenges you may be facing at work or in your career.

Mentorship

Each participant is paired with a uniquely matched mentor—a senior professional practitioner, thought-leader and subject matter expert in the field of your capstone project. Mentors will share insights from their practice in sustainability, social responsibility and ESG and support your growth throughout the program.

Our mentors come from:

  • Corporate ESG, sustainability and social responsibility roles,
  • Consulting ,
  • Non Profit Organizations,
  • Non Governmental Organizations and
  • Public Service

How Mentoring Works

When you join the program you will be asked to identify the general focus of your capstone project and the characteristics of your ideal mentor. We will then proceed with a Mentor Matching process that matches your unique needs to the subject matter expertise and characteristics of potential mentors.

We share the profile of possible mentors with you for your consideration, and if you agree, recommend an initial “discovery meeting” between you and the proposed mentor.

If you both agree it is a good match, we formalize the arrangement with Mentor/Mentee Agreements and Mentor Contracts. If however, after that meeting you feel that the match isn’t quite right, we will start the process over again until you have confidence that your assigned Mentor will provide the capstone and career support you need.

Seema Rizvi (2024 Grad) receives a President’s Capstone Award for her project: “Breaking Chains, Building Bridges: Advancing Towards Sustainable and Just Supply Chains in Canada“

Once a Mentor Match has been made, you will meet with your Mentor at least monthly (often twice monthly) starting in October, to discuss your Capstone Proposal, Assignments and your Capstone Project. Your Mentorship ends upon graduation. Your mentor can nominate you for a “President’s Capstone Award” if your project meets an Exemplary status on the rubric.

Mentoring a “Labour of Love”

Many of our Mentors are long time graduates of our 25 year program, who participate in this process to “give back” to this profession. Mentorship is a “labour of love”. Mentors often say they gain as much from this work as they contribute. Mentors will often provide career advice, a sounding board for sustainability, ESG or Social responsibility challenges at work and always help you make connections with their network.

Meet our Mentors

Below is a sample list of our Mentors. We currently have over 34 Mentors in our program. The Mentor group changes each year to match the subject matter expertise needed by students in the Cohort. Here are a few of our long time Mentors:

“This program was central to transitioning my career to Corporate Social Responsibility /Sustainability. I made valuable contacts and landed a CSR contract during the program. The learning from the faculty, materials and my classmates has been invaluable as it strengthened my existing areas of expertise and closed the gap in others. The outcome was a skill-set to be a catalyst for impact and create economic, social and environmental value through sustainable business.”

Eric Saavala (Class 2017/2018), Head, Corporate Sustainability, Raymond James Ltd. and Executive Director Raymond James Canada Foundation