National NRM mentoring program renewed after great pilot results

Creating connections and fostering future NRM leaders

The first year of the National NRM Mentoring Program has delivered great results for regional natural resource management (NRM) staff across the country.

Participants have reported:

91% satisfaction with mentoring matches
98% satisfaction with mentoring meetings
94% likely to recommend the program to their peers.
80% of mentees achieved their goals

Leigh Blackmore from North East Catchment Management Authority in Victoria has praised the experience as ‘awesome’.

“Participating in the NRM mentoring program has been an awesome experience for me. I was matched with a General Manager of an interstate NRM, who was fully committed to the program, and helped me set and work toward longer goals, while at the same time providing guidance and support in working through day-to-day challenges.”

– Leigh Blackmore, North East Catchment Management Authority

The program connected 71 mentoring pairs from 35 of the country’s 54 regional NRM organisations in the initiative designed to strengthen leadership and support professional development across all roles, locations and career stages. Mentors and mentees matched were using a science-based algorithm to align their goals and experience.

Delivered in partnership with NRM Regions Queensland and facilitated by Brancher, the program combines regular mentor-mentee catch-ups with online training and interactive workshops, guided by NRM Regions Queensland’s NRM Leadership Capabilities.

The program has been renewed for 2027, with regional NRM staff invited to submit an EOI to participate here by 20 November.

Find out more about the 2027 Mentoring program

Knowledge shared across the country

The program enabled diverse experiences of NRM to be shared, with an average distance between mentoring partners of approximately 1,257 kilometres. The longest-distance pairing connected Healthy Land & Water in Queensland with Northern Agricultural Catchments Council NRM (NACC NRM) in Western Australia, around 3,754 kilometres apart.