Spotlight on Grow to Lead: A Conversation with Mentors Donna Ball & Nicole Dawe

When you reflect upon your life so far, do any mentors spring to mind who helped you get to where you are today? Perhaps a special teacher, an inspiring coach, or someone from your community who's always been there when a helping hand is needed? Have any of those individuals ever inspired you to give back by becoming a mentor to someone else? Now's your chance.

Business & Arts NL's popular Grow to Lead mentorship program is back for another round, and we're seeking leaders from the private sector to mentor leaders from the arts community. By sharing your experiences, skills and expertise, you'll help these leaders, and their organizations, grow and thrive - ultimately helping strengthen the creative sector in Newfoundland and Labrador. And through working with your mentee, you're sure to learn a few things along the way as well, and hopefully make a new connection.

We were fortunate to have Donna Ball sign up as a mentor with Grow to Lead last year. As chair of Kittiwake Dance Theatre's board of directors, and someone who has volunteered in the arts sector for three decades, Ball is no stranger to the local arts community. She's mentored both formally and informally for years, she says, and felt she had something to contribute to the Grow to Lead program.

Donna Ball

"It began informally for me 25 years ago, when my office hired a new university graduate who was very bright and inquisitive yet very green with regards to the workplace. We spent a lot of time together sharing knowledge about our operations but also bigger picture things like career aspirations and how to pursue those," recalls Ball (who also offers consulting services in non-profit governance).

Last spring and summer, Ball worked with the executive director of a major arts organization through Grow to Lead and says the experience was a rewarding one that helped her grow as well.

"I learned a lot about my mentee’s organization, some challenges they were experiencing at the time and how she personally was navigating through those. I believe our conversations were helpful and that gave me a real sense of satisfaction. After every session together, I had new ideas and renewed energy for the work that I do. I learned much from those conversations," she says.

"Mentoring has always been a positive experience for me. I get a sense of joy in helping others and learning about their progress, observing their career development and goal achievements. For example, my original mentee from 25 years ago is now a vice-president at a major Canadian university," she adds.

"Mentoring is a relationship, so the learning and growing can be two-way. Sometimes when we are wrapped up in our day-to-day, we may not realize that we have something to offer. But mentors’ professional and life experiences – even those thought minor – can make a big impact when shared."

For Nicole Dawe, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, Grow to Lead provided a fitting opportunity to give back to the non-profit arts world, where she got her start (she was a music teacher before transitioning to arts administration with Lady Cove Women’s Choir and Shallaway Youth Choir).

Nicole Dawe

"I'm a young mom in a non-profit leadership role and I'd been trying to figure out how to volunteer in a way that felt meaningful and fit my time, and this was a really good sort of bite-sized way for me to give back that had a lot of flexibility," she says.

"And this gave me a way to feel like I was more connected with the arts community than I get to be in my current job...and also getting to feel like I was paying forward some of that leadership I've gotten throughout my career."

Like Ball, Dawe also worked with the executive director of a local arts organization in 2023. The conversations she had with her mentee, she says, also helped her reflect upon her work within her own organization.

"There was a lot of reciprocity in it and in how things were shared and in how people approached working on things together. It was just a really nice little community to be a part of," she says.

"Especially when we did the group sessions, I felt like I was learning a lot from the other mentors and the mentees as they would talk through some of the challenges or opportunities that they were working on. I felt like I took away a lot personally...in terms of helping me think about things differently or think about how I might do something differently as well."

Ready to sign up to be a mentor with our *Grow to Lead program? Click here (deadline to apply is May 16).

*Mentorship pairs will work together for at least 3 hours/month for 10 months (until February, 2025). Mentors and mentees will each receive a $1,600 honorarium out of respect for the valuable time given to this work, and each pair will have access to discretionary funds for further training or consultation.

To learn more about Grow to Lead, check out our previous Spotlights with mentorship pairs Susan Sherk & Jessica Brown, and Geoff Davis & Diana Daly.