Office of Alumni Engagement

Volunteer to be a Community Ambassador

Description of Volunteer Role:


The Oberlin Alumni Digital Community is a community for all college and conservatory alumni to connect, network, learn, and engage, as well as to share information and alumni events. Guided by Oberlin’s mission and values, this diverse and inclusive community serves to unite alumni around common interests and passions and to encourage the respectful and free exchange of ideas.

This community is monitored for adherence to a set of community guidelines adopted by the Oberlin Alumni Leadership Council in September 2018. To review the guidelines, please visit this webpage. 

Community Ambassadors are official and invaluable volunteers of the Oberlin Alumni Association and will be recognized and thanked for their service. Record of such service will be noted in the alumni record of each volunteer. There may be opportunities for interaction with other alumni volunteers, on- or off-campus, in the course of one’s service. 

Community Ambassadors are responsible for: 

  • Curating and approving posts to the Oberlin Alumni Digital Community that comply with the community guidelines and help engage members, invite discussions, and build connection. 
  • Collaborating with members of the Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving team, members of the Alumni Leadership Council, and fellow community ambassadors regarding all matters related to managing the community. 
  • Actively communicating with the community ambassador team. 
  • Engaging with members of the alumni community in a thoughtful and respectful manner. 
  • Ensuring threads and comments that are shared are in the spirit of building community. 

Community Ambassadors are empowered to engage in these community-specific actions: 

  • The ability to create and curate compelling message threads and topics. Community ambassadors are expected to review pending posts to ensure they comply with the community guidelines. If a post does not meet the guidelines, ambassadors are encouraged to reach out to the alum to let them know why their pending post was not approved and ask that they amend their post. Posts and threads related to litigation cannot be posted to the Oberlin Alumni Digital Community and there may be times where ambassadors will be asked to make difficult calls as to what can be shared with the digital community. 
  • The ability to approve and welcome new members to the community. Accepting new members is a great opportunity to welcome new members to the Oberlin Alumni Digital Community and provide them with any resources they need to successfully engage with the alumni community. For clarity on who is able to join the group, please consult the guidelines. Alumni status can be confirmed by using the alumni directory. 
  • The ability to remove members. All admins and ambassadors have the ability to remove members from the community. In order to maintain equilibrium within the community, this action should not be taken lightly and must be done in full agreement with the ambassador team. Those who remove members are expected to communicate to the alum who is being removed from the group and provide an explanation for why they have been removed and indicate which guidelines the alum has violated. Members removed from the community may request membership after 90 days. 
  • The ability to turn off commenting on a thread if the conversation becomes too heated. 

Community Ambassadors will serve one-year terms with the opportunity to renew. After a year has passed, the Office of Alumni Engagement will open up the discussion with the Community Ambassador to evaluate the past year’s activity on the Oberlin Alumni Digital Community. If both parties agree to renew the term, the Community Ambassador will serve an additional year in their role. 

Volunteer to be a community ambassador

Thank you for considering volunteering as a Community Ambassador. Should you take on this duty, we look forward to working alongside you.