FAQs

You can see all upcoming events here, hit register to save your spot.

Once you have registered for a live event, you will see an ‘add to calendar’ button appear. Click there to add straight to your personal calendar.

Or alternatively, you can add it to your calendar from the email you will receive after signing up.

You can see all the replays from live events you have registered for here on your dashboard, they will be uploaded to the dashboard 24 hours after the live session.

If you cannot attend the session live after registering, you will stil have access to the replays when they are uploaded.

After registering for the live event, you will see the ‘Ask a Question’ button appear, you can pop your question in there for the mentor to answer on the day.

Yes, you definitely can!

Find the mentor on the platform, and submit a request to meet with them!

No! Our mentoring is totally unlimited, so you can have as many sessions as you need 😊

Straight away! As soon as your account is activated, you can start requesting sessions with our mentors.

All our mentors are volunteers and come from a huge range of backgrounds!  We have volunteers who join us from corporate companies like NatWest, Visa and BT as part of their volunteering programmes.  But we also have lots of mentors who run their own businesses and want to help other founders to build successful businesses.

This means that you’ll always have a wide range of experts to meet with who will all bring valuable support and guidance as you progress through your business journey!

Woohoo we’re so excited you’re ready to request your first 1:1 mentoring session with our community. 

Here’s how to get your first session booked in:

• Click ‘mentoring’ from your Dashboard
• Select the topics you’d love help with from the selection bar
• You can browse our list of mentors and choose your preferred mentors, but we recommend using our Quick Match feature so that we can match you with the best mentor for your request!
• Click ‘next’
• Tell us what support you need – be as specific as possible so that our mentors know what support you need
• Select your knowledge level on the topic 
• Let your mentors know if there’s any accessibility requirements you have for the session
• Click ‘Tell us when you can meet’
• Tell us your availability throughout the week – the more availability you give, the more chance we have of matching you!
• Click ‘submit’!

We’ll then send your request to our mentors and we’ll let you know if anyone can make the times you’ve selected!

Most requests will get an initial response within 2-3 working days. However, as all of our mentors are highly-engaged volunteers, it may occasionally take us a little longer to find the perfect match for your specific request.

Rest assured, you will always be notified as soon as a mentor has accepted your request, and your session will then be scheduled! To ensure every session is high-quality and the mentor has adequate time to prepare, we implement a 48-hour buffer for booking all sessions.

As all of our mentors are volunteers, they will only have a certain amount of time each week to fulfil 1:1 requests.

As a result, on some occasions the mentor you’ve selected may not be able to meet you for a 1:1. If this happens, we’ll try our best to match you with another one of our amazing mentors so that you can get the support you need quickly.

If you only want to be matched with the specific mentors that you’ve selected as your ‘preferred’ mentors, you can turn off mentor substitution here.   Doing this can reduce your chances of being matched and getting the support that you were looking for, so we don’t recommend this option but the choice is always yours 🤗

We always try to match you with your preferred mentors, however, as our mentors are all volunteers, they won’t always have the time each week to help everyone!

If the volunteer you selected is not available, or does not respond to your request in time, we’ll send your request to other experts and see who can help.

If you prefer not to be matched with alternative mentors in these instances, please let us know by heading to your Account Preferences and selecting ‘no’ on mentor substitution.
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If we’ve scheduled a session with someone you don’t want to meet with, simply press the cancel button.

Simply:

• Log in and head to your Account preferences
• Select ‘Mentoring Preferences’ → Matching with Mentors
• Change your preference to “No, I do not which to accept alternatives to those I picked.”

We’ll then only send your requests to the specific mentors you select 😊

To join a 1:1 mentoring session at the scheduled time, simply press the “Join Call” button in your Dashboard or email.

As all our sessions are done via video call, you won’t receive an incoming call!  So please join your call at the time of the session and your mentor will meet you there.

If you need to reschedule a call you have booked, it’s no problem!

Simply:

• Find the session you need to reschedule on your Dashboard
• Select ‘Cancel/reschedule’ and click ‘reschedule’
• Select a new date and time

We’ll then send your reschedule request to your mentor. If they’re able to accommodate the reschedule request, you’ll be notified that the call has been successfully rescheduled 😊

If you don’t receive confirmation of the reschedule, please assume that the call will go ahead at the original time unless you choose to cancel the call.

Once your 1:1 session is confirmed with your mentor, it is super easy to add it to your preferred calendar (like Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, or others)!

You should see a button in the confirmation email we send you, as well as on your Digital Boost dashboard under the ‘Upcoming Sessions’ area. This will let you download the calendar file) that you can click to automatically add all the session details straight into your personal calendar!

For your 1:1 mentoring sessions, the valuable advice and discussions you have are intended to be just between you and your dedicated volunteer mentor. Mentors are not expected or required to record sessions, but if you feel strongly that you would like the session recorded, please mention this to your mentor ahead of the session. Both parties must consent in order for the recording to go ahead. 

Yes. If you’ve had a great call with a volunteer and would like to meet with them again, simply head to your Messaging Centre, find their chat and click ‘request follow-up call’ in the right hand corner.

No, right now we don’t allow this – this is so that we can protect the privacy of our volunteers.

But you can easily browse our mentor select page and find incredible mentors to connect and speak to!

Yes, it is possible to be matched with a mentor who is local to you! If you have the location-based matching feature active on your profile, you will be suggested mentors considering geographic proximity.

Ensure you are sharing your location here, and then go to submit a mentoring request. You will see the checkbox option to be shown mentors in your local area first under your chosen topic, from there you can request a session like normal.

You can update your location via your Dashboard here.

Yes, you can opt out of sharing your location by going to data & privacy via your Dashboard, and toggling off the location under ‘information shown to other users.’

At the moment, all our mentoring sessions are delivered virtually through our platform. Digital Boost does not currently offer the option to organise an in-person mentoring session through the platform (although we may offer this option in the future!).

However, some mentors in long-term mentoring relationships may offer the option to meet in-person on occasion. As in-person mentoring sessions are not offered through the Digital Boost platform, in-person meetings are held at the risk of the individual members. We recommend being mindful of your safety and privacy if you do choose to organise an in-person meeting.

Once you’ve finished a session, Digital Boost will send you a short feedback form to fill out on your Dashboard.

You’ll be asked to rate your mentoring experience and leave a comment about the session.

You can choose to keep this anonymous and any really lovely comments we share with your mentor on their Dashboard to let them know they did a great job!

You’ll be asked for feedback after every session and we’d really appreciate it if you could always try and respond each time as it helps our mentors to improve and us to keep developing our services.

Once you’ve shared your feedback on the site, we’ll review it and display any amazing feedback for the mentor on their Dashboard so they can see what a great job they did!

If you asked us to share your feedback anonymously, your name won’t be displayed when the mentor sees the feedback.

If you’ve left constructive feedback for the mentor, the team delivers this kindly to the mentor so that they can improve for future sessions.

We are truly sorry to hear that the volunteer was not able to join the call.

If you’re still on the call, you might want to try sending them a message via your Dashboard to let them know you’re there.

If they still don’t show, please let us know by using the feedback form on your Dashboard under the tab ‘Completed‘.

From there you can select ‘Leave feedback for the Volunteer, select 0 and check the first checkbox ‘The mentor did not show up’.

We’ll then contact your mentor to find out what happened and see how we can support both you and the mentor.

You can see all your feedback here!

You can see all your progress stats here!

Simply head to ‘Skills’ on your Dashboard and then you can select/unselect topics to update your preferences. Make sure to hit save before you finish so we can update your profile!

Simply log in to your account and select ‘Account’ > ‘profile‘. You’ll be able to update your profile and settings there!

Yes, you definitely can apply to be a volunteer mentor and share you knowledge with the community. To apply, go to your dashboard > account > ‘become a mentor’.

Add the topics you can help with, and your availability – we will review our application and be in touch! 🚀

We review all mentor applications and aim to approve all our volunteers within two working days of applying 😊 You’ll be notified when your application has been successful.

To speed up this process, please ensure:

• Your profile picture is clear, professional, and isn’t a logo for your business/company
• Your ‘about me’ section includes relevant information about you and your experience
• There’s no personal contact information or sales pitches in your ‘about me’ section

Yes we do! You can start our training here 😊

Yes we do! Try using our Cheat Sheets to plan your mentoring sessions 😊

Step 1: Become a Mentor! You’ll need to sign up to become one of our expert volunteers. This involves filling out a quick form to tell us about your expertise and experience.

Step 2: Get confident mentoring: we encourage you to start by trying your hand at 1:1 mentoring sessions. This is a great way to engage with founders and share your specialist knowledge.

Step 3: Masterclass Invitations: Once you have hosted several successful 1:1 mentoring sessions, you will be considered for opportunities to move beyond individual support and host small group Masterclasses or Workshops on your specialist topic.

If a Masterclass opportunity arises for which you are a good fit, you will receive an invitation on your Mentor Dashboard to participate. 

Yes, of course. We encourage all our mentors to learn as well as teach. To do so, go to the dashboard and your account, find ‘become a learner’. Add the information about you and hit submit!

When a mentee has requested a 1:1 mentoring session with you, you’ll receive an email and a notification on your Dashboard under ‘Requests‘.

Once you click through from your email or your Requests tab, you’ll be able to read about your potential mentee, learn more about their business and what they need help on and, in some cases, find out their ‘business health’.

Once you’ve assessed your mentee’s request you’ll be able to choose a date and time and then accept the session!

It all depends on what requests we receive from small businesses and charities! If you have skills in an area that’s high in demand at the moment, you’ll likely get a request pretty quickly.

Sometimes it might take a bit longer and if you’ve not received any after a few weeks of joining, check out our FAQ: ‘I’m not receiving mentoring requests, what should I do?’

1. Select the date and time that you’d like to meet with your mentee
2. Choose a call provider that you’d like to use to host your session. You can input your own Google Meets, Zoom or Microsoft Teams link OR we can create a free meeting link for you on Jitsi.
3. Once you’ve confirmed your meeting link, click ‘accept request’

Your confirmed 1:1 will now show on your Dashboard and under ‘Bookings’!

We’ll also send you an email to confirm your session is all set up 😊

Top Tip:
Add your 1:1 session to your online calendar so that you get calendar reminders about your session!

If a request has come through which you can’t make, simply select ‘decline’ and we’ll match the mentee with another mentor.

If you’re able to leave feedback about why you’ve decided to decline the request, it’ll help us to better match you in the future.

If you’re not receiving mentoring requests right now, don’t worry!

Our community will have periods when they need lots of support and other periods when they don’t need so much. So don’t lose heart!

Here are a couple of things you can do to increase the chance of receiving new requests:

• Log in regularly – this pushes you to the top of our volunteering page
• Add/update your mentoring skills so we can match you with the right mentees
• Add a profile photo if you don’t have one already 😊

When a session is confirmed, you will receive an email and notice on your Dashboard with all the call details.

Please note: the meeting is not automatically added to your calendar so make sure you press the “Add To Calendar” button in the email or on your Dashboard.

This integrates with all major calendars including Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook, and allows you to add this event to your online calendar!

When adding the meeting to your calendar, we recommend that you set a 24 hour and a 10 minute reminder.

If you need to cancel a session, please make sure to cancel through our platform, as cancelling an event in your personal calendar doesn’t cancel the event on our platform.

If you need to reschedule a call you have booked, simply find the call on your Dashboard, click ‘reschedule or cancel this call’ and then select ‘reschedule’. You’ll then be able to propose a new time to your mentee.

We recommend chatting with your mentee first to let them know you’ll be rescheduling and to see if there’s a good time for you both to reschedule for.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by a lot of requests coming in – don’t panic!

It’s likely you’ve got skills in topics that are popular with our community 😊

We understand you’re busy, so please only accept requests that you’re comfortable fulfilling and fitting into your schedule.

Once you’ve accepted the sessions you’re able to help with, please make sure to decline the outstanding requests. Don’t worry, the mentee won’t be alerted that you declined their request! This just helps us to redirect their request to other mentors in the community who may have the capacity to support them on this occasion 😊

If you feel like you’re consistently receiving too many requests, you might like to reduce the topics you’re offering mentoring in and/or change the number of hours you have available to mentor. 

Simply log into your account at the time of the session and click the ‘join call’ button on the session! Alternatively, we’ll send you a reminder email on the day of your call so you can also click the ‘join session’ link in that email too 😊

Yes! If you had a great experience speaking to the small business or charity, and you would be happy to speak with them again, you can offer them a follow-up call.

After each call, you’ll be asked to provide feedback. If you rate the session a 9 or 10, you’ll get the option to offer a “follow-up” with the organisation, so they can book a second call with you.

This will send them a notification that you enjoyed speaking to them and that you’re open to a follow-up call should they need it.

Alternatively, you can share your profile with your mentee so that they can book with you directly! 😊

Ensure you are sharing your location here, and then mentees requesting sessions based in your local area will be able to match with you.

At the moment, all our mentoring sessions are delivered virtually through our platform. Digital Boost does not currently offer the option to organise an in-person mentoring session through the platform (although we may offer this option in the future!).

You can update your location via your Dashboard here.

Yes, you can opt out of sharing your location by going to data & privacy via your Dashboard, and toggling off the location under ‘information shown to other users.’

Whenever a session is completed, you and your mentee will be asked to rate your experience and leave feedback. So all the feedback you can see on your Impact Dashboard is taken from real-life mentees and the feedback they gave you after their mentoring sessions 😊
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It’s always a lovely feeling when you know you’ve made a difference to someone, so that’s why we wanted to display real-life feedback on your Dashboard – so you can always see what a great job you’re doing!

We use the number of ‘completed’ sessions and Masterclasses on our site to calculate how many mentoring sessions you’ve hosted for our community.

We are truly sorry to hear that the mentee was not able to join the call.

If you’re still on the call, you might want to try sending them a message via your Dashboard to let them know you’re there.

If they still don’t show, please let us know by using the feedback form on your Dashboard under the tab ‘Completed‘.

From there you can select ‘Leave feedback for the mentee’, select 0 and check the first checkbox ‘The mentee did not show up’.

We’ll then contact your mentee to find out what happened and see how we can support both you and the mentee.

If your availability has changed, simply head to ‘Account’ > ‘availability’. You’ll be able to change the days and times you’re available there.

If you feel like you have new skills that you can mentor in, or you’d like to change some of the topics you originally selected, simply head to ‘Account’ > ‘skills’ and add/remove any interests!

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by a lot of requests coming in – don’t panic!

It’s likely you’ve got skills in topics that are popular with our community 😊

We understand you’re busy, so please only accept requests that you’re comfortable fulfilling and fitting into your schedule.

Once you’ve accepted the sessions you’re able to help with, please make sure to decline the outstanding requests. Don’t worry, the mentee won’t be alerted that you declined their request! This just helps us to redirect their request to other mentors in the community who may have the capacity to support them on this occasion 😊

If you feel like you’re consistently receiving too many requests, you might like to reduce the topics you’re offering mentoring in and/or change the number of hours you have available to mentor. 

You can find our terms and conditions here.

Digital Boost is a community built on a foundation of respect, professionalism, and support. We expect all members – whether you’re a small business, charity, or a volunteer mentor – to treat each other with courtesy and to uphold the following core values:

• Be Respectful and Kind: Treat everyone in the community with courtesy. We have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment, discrimination, or abusive language.
• Be Prepared: If you are a mentee, make sure you show up to your session on time and have thought about your challenges. If you are a mentor, be ready to share your expertise and insights to help the mentee thrive.
• Maintain Professionalism: All interactions, including 1:1 sessions and Masterclasses, should be conducted professionally.
• No Selling: Our volunteer mentors generously give their time pro bono (for free). Mentors agree not to sell their services to mentees, and mentees should not expect or ask for free, ongoing work outside of the session. The focus is purely on free, high-quality advice and learning!

By joining Digital Boost, you are agreeing to these values and helping us keep our community a wonderful place to learn and grow. If you have any concerns about interactions, you can always flag them with our team!

You can find our Privacy Policy here.