Creating a mentorship program

Asks & Offers gives your members a structured way to ask for help and offer support. Use it to create a mentorship program, or as a flexible space for networking, career advice, volunteering, and other member-to-member connections.

How Asks & Offers works

360Alumni does not use an algorithm to create formal matches from limited profile data. Instead, Asks & Offers lets members discover relevant requests and offers, then choose how to connect.

Members can respond in two ways:

• Publicly: Post a reply on the Ask or Offer discussion board.
• Privately: Send a message directly to the person who created the post.

This approach supports mentoring relationships while leaving room for informal, one-time, and community-wide exchanges. You do not need to add a “willing to help” flag to member profiles; Asks & Offers assumes members will approach one another respectfully when they have a relevant reason to connect.

Turn on Asks & Offers

1. Go to Admin > Customize > Features > Asks & Offers.
2. Turn on Asks & Offers.
3. If your community is closed, choose whether the feature is available to all users or only Full Access users.
4. Enter a name and description for your program. Use the description to explain its purpose, such as career mentoring, peer support, or volunteer connections.
5. Set the welcome messages for Offers and Asks. Each message includes a title and description, where you can share participation guidelines and examples.
6. Specify the questions members will answer when creating an Ask or Offer. Each post includes three questions; the first question becomes the post title.

After you activate the feature, members can find it under the Connect menu.

Set participation expectations

Clear guidance helps members create useful posts and respond appropriately. In your welcome messages, explain:

• Who can post an Ask or Offer.
• What kinds of support are appropriate for your community.
• How much detail members should include in a post.
• When to reply publicly and when to send a private message.
• Expectations for respectful, professional communication.

For a mentoring program, you might ask members to describe the topic they need help with or can support, their relevant experience or goals, and the type of connection they are looking for.

Understand notifications and following

When a member posts an Ask or Offer, 360Alumni notifies everyone following Asks & Offers. Members can unfollow the feature at any time.

Members will automatically start following:

• Their own Ask or Offer discussion board.
• Any discussion board where they post a reply.

This keeps participants informed as conversations develop without requiring formal matches or manual enrollment in each exchange.

Encourage participation

Asks & Offers works best when members see real examples of support taking place. Share success stories regularly through your community communications to show how members have connected, received advice, or found opportunities.

You can also prompt participation with specific themes, such as career transitions, industry advice, local connections, or volunteer needs. This helps make Asks & Offers a useful part of your alumni engagement tools and mentoring program software.

Related articles

• Post an ask or an offer
• Configuring features & welcome messages
• Messaging Users in 360Alumni
• Adjusting your notification settings
• Sample community guidelines