After seven years and 1,500 participants from more than 60 countries, the WWF Mentoring Team felt it was time to take the Global Mentoring Programme to the next level—and introduce a digital mentoring platform. The goal was never to replace the human element that makes our programme special, but to find a way to scale its benefits and make it accessible to a wider audience across the WWF Network without increasing the workload. At the same time, we wanted to stay aligned with rapid technological developments in the digital age.
A six-fold increase in mentoring programme efficiency
The first digital mentoring cohort, launched in October/November 2025, confirmed that we had made the right decision. With the support of the platform, we increased the programme’s operational efficiency by a factor of six, enabling the team to run larger cohorts with fewer staff required on the backend. This success demonstrates the power of using digital tools to augment human capacity—while still keeping the most important quality decisions firmly in human hands.
Helma Brandlmaier is Conservation Knowledge Manager at WWF International; co-founder and lead of the WWF Mentoring programme since its inception. She shares these insights from the WWF Mentoring team on key aspects of WWF’s journey to find the sweet spot between “Human and technology”.
Seven years into the programme, integrating a mentoring platform into a human‑run model made sense
WWF launched its Mentoring Programme with the support of Coach Mentoring Ltd in 2018 and gradually expanded it to all 9,000 staff across all functions worldwide. By the end of 2024, more than 1,500 staff from over 60 countries had participated, with demand for larger cohorts steadily increasing. While hand‑matching was still feasible, the coordination required became more burdensome than necessary in today’s digital age. The programme’s success had long been driven by the team’s innovative mindset and dedication—so exploring the added value of a mentoring platform was a natural next step.
© Jody MacDonald / WWF-US
Initially, the team was concerned about losing the “human touch” when moving toward digitalisation. However, a deeper exploration showed that it was entirely possible to combine the best of both worlds.
We explored the landscape of platforms and the experiences of other organisations. It was important for the team to obtain an overview of what digitalisation in the mentoring sphere really meant, particularly keeping in mind the specific needs of WWF’s longstanding mentoring programme. We discussed the opportunities and potential risks in going digital. A key insight was the need to be clear about what we wanted the digitalisation to help us with, what to delegate and what to keep in human hands. Being intentional and reflective about digitalisation was key for WWF.
1: Choosing the mentoring platform that fits our needs
As we looked ahead, we identified five key elements that would help WWF’s global Mentoring Programme continue to grow:
- running larger cohorts with fewer people required on the backend,
- giving the programme a more professional look and feel,
- gaining better visibility into the “health” and progress of our matches,
- automating administrative steps, and
- improving feedback and reporting options.
At the same time, we were committed to keeping final matching decisions firmly in human hands. The human touch is a core strength of our programme, and we did not want to lose it. Striking the right balance between digital efficiency and meaningful human involvement became an important challenge—and a deliberate priority—for the team.
There are many excellent mentoring platforms on the market. With a mature programme already in place, the WWF team had a clear understanding of what we needed. Mentorink stood out because it offers a high degree of backend human control—an essential feature for WWF. With the admin led option in this platform, the WWF team can configure the matching algorithm themselves, review the machine‑generated shortlist, and manually select (or “queue”) candidates for the final shortlist before making the ultimate matching decision. The process is significantly faster than before, yet it keeps full decision‑making authority in human hands. Importantly, it also preserves the team’s ability to engage with programme participants before finalising any match.
Evolution of the WWF Mentoring Programme
Over the years, the WWF Mentoring Programme has continued to evolve, responding to new opportunities and challenges. Earlier phases included tapping into the expertise of WWF Alumni, working with Mentoring Ambassadors to support matching for quality outcomes and reaching more women as well as staff from the Global South.
In 2025, the new challenge was digitalisation: introducing a mentoring platform with the ambition of scaling the benefits. Achieving a six times higher efficiency in the first digital cohort was a positive surprise for the team.
Cristianne Close, Deputy Chief Conservation Officer, WWF International: WWF‘s mission is to change the world for the better: to have a chance of success we need to bring out the best in our people. The mentoring programme has been instrumental in doing just that, creating a web of growth, support and exchange across the world that creates connections not just in the moment, but across time, as past mentees pay their experience forward by becoming mentors. Every innovation needs a visionary — and Helma Brandlmaier has been the engine behind the growth of the programme. Starting with little more than a spreadsheet, a handful of willing collaborators and a sense of what mentoring can be, Helma has grown the mentoring programme into an efficient and human heartbeat of the WWF network.
2. Piloting and testing how the digital mentoring platform enhances human work
There is no better way to understand a new digital environment than to test it. In early 2025, the WWF team ran a small pilot cohort to gain first‑hand experience with the platform and assess how it performed in practice. This pilot helped us refine key programme features before launching the first large cohort in October/November 2025. The Mentorink team was highly supportive throughout, helping us adapt the platform to our specific needs.
Our key insights from piloting the mentoring platform
SPEED – The backend of the platform was easy to learn, enabling a small team to efficiently operate a large cohort.
TAILORED INFLUENCE – The ability to configure the matching algorithm to fit WWF’s needs proved powerful. Learning how to fine‑tune a strong matching algorithm is a skill in itself—one the team is gradually mastering with ongoing support from Mentorink.
ELEGANT SHORTLISTING – Viewing scores and areas of overlapping interests and skills at a glance allowed the team to queue candidates quickly.
RISK MANAGEMENT – The team still cross‑checked top‑scoring candidates using human judgement to validate the best matching options.
REDUCING HUMAN ERROR – The team appreciated that, with automated logic and real‑time data updates, it is no longer possible to double‑book a mentor by mistake—an invaluable safeguard.
ROBUST DATA CAPTURE FOR MONITORING AND REPORTING – The platform’s built‑in monitoring and reporting tools proved extremely helpful. While designing meaningful questions and an M&E framework remains the responsibility of the human team, the platform supports data capture by prompting participants to provide feedback at the start, after each call, and at the end of the mentoring journey.
REGULAR REMINDERS FOR PARTICIPANTS – Automated nudges and prompts helped participants make full use of the materials, guidance, and tips prepared by the team.
EASIER COHORT HEALTH MANAGEMENT – The platform provides clear backend visibility into the “health” of each match. The team can see whether mentees and mentors meet regularly, whether new calls are scheduled, and how participants rate their interactions. Mentorink even offers a “red‑listing” feature that flags unhealthy or inactive matches. This allows the human team to quickly identify pairs that may need support—and intervene or re‑match if necessary.
DEVELOPING A MENTOR POOL – The platform allows mentee and mentor applications to remain in the system, to be duplicated, and to be set to active or dormant. Since finding enough mentors is always a challenge, retaining mentors in the system for future cohorts is a significant advantage. In the Oct/Nov 2025 cohort, over half of WWF’s mentors were returning participants. Moving forward, mentors will not need to re‑apply—saving them time and building a flexible, sustainable mentor pool.
WWF’s decision to go digital has streamlined several processes and made operations easier for the team—while keeping high‑quality matching and final decisions firmly in human hands.
3. Overcoming challenges linked to digitalisation
© Nick Riley / WWF-Madagascar
Strong human connection remains essential to the success of any mentoring programme—whether a platform is used or not. When too much responsibility is delegated to a machine, there is a risk that participants may feel less engaged or even alienated. This can ultimately undermine trust in the programme. In today’s highly interconnected world, effective mentoring thrives on genuine human connection and a supportive environment. Mentoring is grounded in the social nature of humans; our brains are wired for connection, and social interaction is inherently rewarding.
WWF’s strong engagement with participants has been a major contributor to the programme’s success so far. It matters how participants are welcomed, how they are connected with a cohort of peers, how thoughtfully they are matched—taking personality and interpersonal fit into account—and how consistently they feel supported. It also matters that they can reach out to a real human being, someone with a name they recognise.
How did the WWF Mentoring Team mitigate the risk of participant disconnection?
The team implemented several measures to ensure that the shift to digital tools did not weaken the human experience of the programme.
Interactive briefing sessions – Seventy percent of programme participants accepted the invitation to meet the Mentoring Team and to experience a sense of cohort connection before the official start. The interactive virtual briefing sessions, delivered by Coach Mentoring Ltd, helped participants strengthen their understanding of the mentee and mentor roles and learn best practices at a high professional standard.
The team also wanted to build a personal, human‑centred connection with participants. During the briefings, they explained how final matching decisions are made—how human judgement shapes the algorithm, and how shortlisting is carried out through a close collaboration between people and technology. It was important to the team to make it clear that humans make the final decision. This intentional transparency helps reinforce trust in the process.
Sending messages from real humans, not only from the platform – The WWF team appreciates the automated messages and reminders generated by the mentoring platform, as they support the programme’s workflow and increase efficiency. However, to avoid losing the personal connection with participants, the team also sends additional emails written by real humans. These messages include team member names and offer participants a direct opportunity to reach out for support when needed.
Ensuring high‑quality human‑centred matches – The quality of the match is one of the most crucial elements of WWF’s Mentoring Programme. Over the past seven years, great care has been taken to ensure thoughtful matching, often relying on personal knowledge of individuals and their communities. Pairing mentees and mentors from diverse teams and different cultural backgrounds adds an additional layer of complexity.
The digital platform has accelerated the shortlisting process and supported the team in making final decisions.
However, the WWF matching team does far more than review scores or surface‑level similarities in interests and skills. They draw on their experience to consider additional dimensions such as personality, levels of seniority, and the intuitive sense of what makes a truly good human fit.
One important quality‑control step the team has intentionally retained is consulting with mentors—and, in some cases, mentees—to validate proposed matches before finalising them.
Conclusions
WWF’s recent experience using a digital platform to scale the impact of its Global Mentoring Programme shows that digitalisation, when done thoughtfully, can create a genuine win–win. Digital tools become a powerful opportunity when they are introduced with the clear intention of augmenting what humans do best—while staying attentive to programme needs and proactively mitigating potential risks.
So far, WWF’s transition into the digital space has been highly successful. With the support of the platform, the programme is now operating six times more efficiently, while still keeping humans firmly in the driver’s seat at all key decision points. This balance ensures that speed and scale never come at the expense of quality, trust, or the deeply human nature of mentoring.
Benefits of Mentoring
For WWF, Mentoring has a huge value both for the organisation and for the individual. It enhaces cross-departmental and cross-regional connections, supports knowledge sharing among skilled and engaged conservation professionals. It benefits the organisation through increased productivity and better problem solving and decision-making skills, improves motivation and builds career paths. Mentoring has proven to be a powerful means of social learning and learning on the job, deepening skills, insights and connections of WWF staff across the world.
The programme is instrumental in spreading the experience within the organization towards achieving conservation goals.
The programme is run by the WWF Knowledge Unit, the Talent Management Unit, Mentoring Ambassadors who support the matching, the Mentoring consultancy Coach Mentoring Ltd. and Mentorink, the new WWF Mentoring platform. Contact for questions: wwfmentoring@wwfint.org.
WWF Mentoring core team
- Helma Brandlmaier, Conservation Knowledge Manager, WWF International
- Prisca Eunice Ntonga Tollero, Snr Specialist talent Management, WWF International
- Kaitlin Schleis, Senior Coordinator, Finance Practice, WWF International
- Anna Van der Heijden Conservation Knowledge Manager, WWF International
- Ylva Johannesson Conservation Knowledge Manager, WWF International
- Marielouise Slettenhaar-Ket, Conservation Knowledge Manager, WWF International
- Patricia Schelle; Head, Global Conservation & Knowledge; Global Conservation, WWF International
