Champions programs consultancy

Community champions programs, in which participants may alternatively be referred to as ambassadors or fellows, are often the key to successfully empowering emergent leaders in a community. We offer several services to clients who want support with their champions programs. These include: program design, training sessions for champions, the creation of program infrastructure such as playbooks, and program evaluation.  

If you would like to work with us on your champions program, please contact info@cscce.org to schedule a 30 minute informational call. 

Page contents:

What are champions programs, and how do they help?

Community champions programs recruit community members to take on tasks and activities designed to advance the mission of the community while also bringing champions together for peer support, training, and/or access to other resources. They’re often coordinated by a community or program manager, and usually involve scheduled programming such as co-working, skills sharing, webinars, and networking opportunities.

Through their actions, community champions can Maintain, Grow, or Evolve a community (see part 2 of the CSCCE Community Participation Model for more on the role of community champions). Common motivations for developing a community champions program include: 

A figure describing the various roles of community champions. Maintain: Champions support the day-to-day running of the community (e.g., by welcoming new community members or serving on the code of conduct committee). Grow: Champions support the growth and extend the impact of the community and its outputs (e.g., by referring new members or sharing resources outside the community) Evolve: Champions contribute to steering the direction of the community (e.g., by serving on a steering committee/task force or participating in focus groups)
The three broad functions of community champions. Taken from Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2021) The CSCCE Community Participation Model – Exploring the Champion mode. Woodley and Pratt doi: 10.5281/zenodo.5275270 Image credit: CSCCE

What we offer

Over the years we have worked with clients on various aspects of their community champions programs, including: 

  • Program design and development – including programming, member recruitment, and communications materials
  • Playbook co-development – supporting the creation of internal and/or champions-facing playbooks to codify key processes and templates, ensuring program sustainability
  • Hosting trainings for a program – e.g., delivering a private cohort of one of our multi-week trainings or a Mini-workshop series
  • Meeting design and/or facilitation – e.g., developing kick-off meetings and/or graduation celebrations
  • Evaluation and reporting – design, deploy, and analyze feedback via surveys, exit interviews, and focus groups

We have developed guides and tip sheets related to community champions and champions programs, which you can find curated on the Community champions programs resources page on this website. The page also contains links to related blog posts and presentations.

The 9 stages of creating a community champions program: 1. Making a case 2. Inclusive recruitment 3. Participation requirements 4. Onboarding 5 Rewards & incentives 6. Training & other support 7. Increasing engagement 8. Offboarding 9. Evaluation The figure shows an icon for each stage, and the icons are colored in a rainbow spectrum from red on the left to purple on the right.
The nine stages of a community champions programs, as defined by CSCCE’s community champions programs working group. Image credit: CSCCE