Unlocking Potential: How Digital Mentorship Supports Immigrants in Canada 

Many newcomers in Canada holding foreign credentials face significant challenges when seeking meaningful employment. Provincial credentialing requirements, often complex and difficult to navigate, can leave qualified immigrants feeling overwhelmed. Mentorship programs are an effective solution, providing essential guidance and networking opportunities to help newcomers develop the confidence and tools they need to secure meaningful employment.

While mentorship provides newcomers with career feedback, support, and industry knowledge, its effectiveness can be hindered by a lack of mentors, mismatched expectations about the mentorship outcomes, and lack of access. Recruiting diverse mentors and providing greater access can enhance these programs’ effectiveness. Programs with the potential to scale, well-staffed by affiliated immigrant-serving organizations, and tailored to the unique needs of newcomers, as well as Canadian’s labour market, are needed to help immigrants unlock their potential and create a more inclusive economy.

Digital Mentorship: A Path Forward

In 2023, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund partnered with PeaceGeeks and Immigrant Networks to pilot the Skilled Newcomers and Professionals Partnership (SNAPP), designed to provide more accessible mentorship opportunities to immigrants seeking to enter the workforce and other job-seeking clients. As a funder, we saw the value in testing an approach that aims to create a more inclusive community by reducing systemic barriers to newcomer employment. Tested across 12 immigrant-serving organizations in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, SNAPP’s goal was to help newcomers navigate the job market, form connections, and develop skills. By connecting job- seeking mentees with mentors who provide tailored guidance, SNAPP advances economic opportunities and supports immigrant inclusion in the workforce, proving that digital mentorship can be life-changing.

Insights from the Pilot: Bridging Gaps and Creating Lasting Change

We spoke with Jennifer Freeman, CEO of PeaceGeeks, about lessons learned from the program.

MAF: What gaps in the newcomer-serving sector did PeaceGeeks identify during the pilot?

Jennifer Freeman: Canada’s newcomer-serving sector is incredibly robust, and I’m often reminded that Canada is regarded as a leader in this space globally. Yet there are still significant gaps that need to be addressed. Many newcomers struggle to find or access services at the right time due to a range of factors, including language barriers, geographic isolation, and long wait times. Additionally, there is a lack of awareness about existing services, leaving many unsure where to turn for help. Despite strides in digital services since the COVID-19 pandemic, newcomers often rely on informal channels like YouTube, Facebook groups, and WhatsApp for information. This informal approach can miss tailored, professional, and accurate guidance that can be key to successful workforce integration.

MAF: How does SNAPP address these gaps and challenges?

Jen: Mentorship’s value is widely recognized as helping people enter desired career fields by providing insights into industry expectations, networks, and career advancement. However, traditional programs face challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified mentors, especially in specialized professions. Many organizations struggle to find suitable mentors for newcomers, and creating programs from scratch is time-consuming and resource intensive. With SNAPP, we sought to create a scalable digital solution that would address these issues. By connecting multiple organizations and mentors through a shared platform, we were able to provide a broader pool of mentors to match with newcomers. This digital platform not only increased access to mentorship but also made the process more efficient, helping to match mentors with mentees based on their profession, background, and career goals. For organizations without mentorship programs, SNAPP allowed them to offer mentorship programs without the heavy lifting involved in creating one from the ground up. Organizations simply need to sign up and join the platform, and they can start offering meaningful mentorship opportunities to their clients.

MAF: How did you navigate challenges during the pilot project?

Jen: While the SNAPP pilot made significant strides in addressing mentorship access, it was not without its challenges. One of the initial hurdles was convincing settlement organizations to participate in the project. Many organizations are already stretched thin with limited resources and were understandably cautious about taking on additional projects. To overcome this, we communicated that the SNAPP platform was free and designed to complement existing services rather than replace them.

Another challenge stemmed from the competitive dynamics within the sector. Many organizations have spent years building trusted relationships with clients and mentors, so there was some apprehension about sharing these resources with others. We reassured them that the platform would not undermine their efforts, and instead, it would help expand their capacity to serve more newcomers.

Technologically, we also faced hurdles. Together with Immigrant Networks, we initially worked with a commercial software provider, but we quickly realized that the SaaS company’s off-the-shelf platform wasn’t adaptable enough to meet the needs of immigrant-serving organizations and newcomer clients. This led us to develop SNAPP in-house, so that we could customize the platform to better serve our target audience: settlement organizations and newcomers.

MAF: What were some interesting insights from piloting the mentorship platform?

Jen: The results of the pilot were promising, demonstrating the feasibility and deep interest of a shared digital mentorship platform. SNAPP increased access to mentorship for newcomers who had previously been unaware of these services, with over 100 connections being made between 60 newcomers connecting with 48 mentors. Newcomers reported high satisfaction with the platform’s user-friendly design and the quality of professional matches. Settlement organizations also appreciated the simplicity of the platform, which alleviated concerns about technological complexity.

The pilot showed that digital mentorship is particularly effective for clients with mobility, gender, or time constraints, and that the scalability of the platform can ensure it reaches a larger and more diverse audience than traditional mentorship programs can alone. Moving forward, the goal is to promote digital mentorship as a complement to in-person employment services and ensure effective digital tools can be more widely adopted. Offering shared or collective access to digital platforms so that multiple settlement organizations can use newcomer-centric technology offers newcomers access to resources they need to succeed.

Broader Impact Potential of SNAPP

While a single approach won’t suffice to help all newcomers land jobs, pilots like SNAPP show how digital innovations can enhance mentorship programs, helping them to be more tailored, geographically diverse, and relevant to newcomers’ expertise. The Fund is privileged to support bold ideas that support immigrants to ease into an exciting new chapter in their lives as valued community members in a more inclusive and equitable economy.

Sifat Yusuf and Ani Gurtsishvili (Mariam Assefa Fund, WES)