Organization seeks volunteer mentors for military spouses

June 13, 20192 minute read

American Corporate Partners (ACP) has invited AWESOME leaders to volunteer for the Active Duty Spouse Mentoring Program. The goal of the program is professional development – either supporting spouse efforts finding a job or helping them prepare for the next level in their career goals. This gives leaders the opportunity to reach back to help other women — one dimension of AWESOME’s 2019 Symposium challenge to Reach Beyond and Achieve More.

In addition to helping military spouses, becoming connected to ACP as a volunteer mentor could open opportunities to introduce new talent to the supply chain field. This also provides an opportunity to apply and strengthen mentoring skills.

Founded in 2008, ACP aims to ease the transition from the military to the civilian workforce. ACP is the only nonprofit organization engaged in national corporate career counseling for returning veterans and active duty military spouses. The spouse mentoring program is an extension of the program ACP has run for several years – with support from women’s leadership organizations such as Ellevate and and LeanIn — of providing mentors for female veterans.

Being a military spouse — and there are more than 600,000 spouses of active duty service members — often means moving every 2-3 years. At this point in their lives, they can benefit from mentoring that helps with career exploration, resume review, interview preparation, networking, career coaching, entrepreneurship and overall career development. More than 80% of these spouses have either a bachelor’s or a master’s degree.

According to a recent Chamber of Commerce Foundation study, 70% of military spouses do not believe their education or work experience is being fully utilized in their current job. Fifty six percent of working spouses reported they were underemployed in the 2018 Blue Star Families annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey.

For more information and to find out how to become a mentor or discuss employment opportunities for your organization, contact ACP.