Anchored in Shared Affinity

The ties that bind 285+ ambassadors:

• Care greatly about changing mindsets and attitudes to improve the impact of the social and public sectors
• Believe “performance matters” and are passionately committed to the purpose of the community—advancing high-performance organizations
• Affirm and advocate for the Performance Imperative‘s definition and seven pillars of high performance
• Bring deep knowledge and experience in building great organizations capable of achieving meaningful, measurable, and sustainable results.

Clear Engagement Expectations

Ambassadors walk the talk by demonstrating that “performance matters” in their work.

All engage to . . .

• Advance the acceptance of and expectation for high performance—in their own way and in their own timeframe
• Stay reasonably abreast of the community’s online discussions and activities, contributing when and as they are able
• View the community as a resource for learning and assistance
• Help others in the community
• Bring in new ambassadors

For ambassadors seeking to be more actively engaged, they can:

• Proactively promote the community’s message, and work, e.g., Performance Imperative, within their organization, communities, and networks
• Regularly participate in online discussions, including providing feedback on issues facing the community, posting questions, and weighing in with relevant experiences and expertise
• Serve as a contributor, reviewer, and/or sounding board for community articles and posts, especially those requiring peer-review prior to public availability
• Serve as a leader, participant, advisor, or promoter in a micro-community to develop a specific project or advance an issue or topic
• Identify and/or nominate candidates for the community and help, as needed, to assess their affinity to community purpose and fit within the expectations of community participation
• Take on public speaking opportunities to promote the community and/or its works
• Publicly identify participation in the community via social media, LinkedIn profile, or bio
• Use and/or contribute resources for the Leap Ambassadors website.

Specific examples for how ambassadors can engage are here.

Value to Ambassadors

The community is a place where ambassadors can draw on collective intelligence, continuously improve, and be heard.

• Collective intelligence. The community benefits from the collective wealth and diversity of knowledge and experience of ambassadors. Our collaborative approach gives ambassadors the opportunity to share their insights, have those insights augmented and constructively debated via community exchange, and produce thoughtful works that consider diverse viewpoints. Cohort learning, whether through active engagement or passive observation, provides a powerful learning environment.
• Continuous improvement for professional development. Online exchanges, discussions, answering questions offer an environment of continuous learning and improvement. In this way, ambassadors demonstrate the potential of the community to help individuals address a specific need, gain relevant insights, and/or get encouragement and support for their efforts.
• Convenience and ready accessibility. We’re all busy. Demands on ambassadors’ time are intense and travel is expensive. In contrast, an online community lets ambassadors connect when they want, anytime, anywhere, immediately, and at little or no cost. Most ambassadors contribute to email conversations by responding in their own time—allowing not only for timely participation, but also for contemplation, research, consultation, etc.
• Disproportionate benefit of community externality. As described in a blog post on Forbes.com, “The…’potential value’ of a network increases exponentially as you add new interconnected nodes”—in our case, ambassadors. As more ambassadors build relationships with each other, the value of the network (and value to the individual ambassador) increases exponentially.
• Equitable participation, diversity of perspective. Online conversations and convenings are intentionally built on values of equity and inclusion so that everyone can  to be fully heard.

Gradual Growth Builds Strong Community

The community follows a thoughtful, disciplined process to identify, nominate, vet, invite, and onboard leaders into the community. Today, there are more than 285 ambassadors. While we see this incarnation of the community peaking at 300 ambassadors, we will continue to explore opportunities for growth in order to have greater impact on the social sector and it’s stakeholders.

Ambassadors Are the Community

Meet the Ambassadors here.

Benefit of Collective Knowledge

The community is a unique forum for learning, knowledge creation, sharing, and connection that is the result of the benefits of collective understanding, experiences, and knowledge spanning sectors, domains, and roles.

• Practitioner leaders in human services, healthcare, education, the faith-based community, and in state and municipal governments
• Nonprofit thought leaders, advisors and consultants
• Institutional leaders
• Research and academia
• Policymakers and influencers
• Progressive funders
• Business leaders

Community Develops Strategic Products

The community’s first strategic product, “The Performance Imperative” was the result of a full year of collaborative work by the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community. We knew that without a thoughtfully developed, thoroughly vetted definition of “high performance,” any call for raising performance in our sector would ring hollow. In addition to providing a common definition of “high performance,” the Performance Imperative also lays out in detail the seven organizational pillars that can help you achieve high performance.

Currently, the community is at work developing additional products to influence the field.

Link to Strategic Products

Ambassador Insights Build Off Community Exchanges

These curated pieces are crafted from online community discussions on important topics. They represent the views of all those who offered input on a topic and have also been presented to the full community for review. They are intended to help provide context, resources, and information.

Link to Ambassador Insights

LeapAmbassadors.org Website

The website serves as a repository for information about the Leap Ambassadors Community, its ambassadors, and products collaboratively developed by the community.

Leap Ambassadors Social Media

Social media channels, including a Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, allow for real-time message dissemination, sharing, and engagement. The community also organizes videos into YouTube channel playlists that align to the pillars in the Performance Imperative.

Ambassadors Learning, Working Together

It’s all about the ambassadors. Affinity, engagement, value, collective knowledge, and diversity of expertise and experience combine in collective power.

Specific Engagement Examples

Here are some specific examples of the ways that ambassadors engage.

• Social Media Support: One of the easiest and most beneficial ways ambassadors can advance the work of the community is to help spread the word on announcements, new offerings, and more, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Ambassadors regularly tweet or RT news from the community to or share high-performance articles and links to their followers. Many post relevant community news to their LinkedIn and Facebook pages.
• Community Promotion: Ambassadors bring the community and its works, e.g., PI, into their organization, communities, and networks through conversations, presentations, and adoptions. Many ambassadors are involved with a number of organizations and groups. They weave the community’s purpose, the messages of high performance, and its works into college classes, workshops, board meetings, and grantee convenings.
• Community as Learning Resource: It takes time to trust the asynchronous nature of online discussions, but ambassadors come to see the community as a valuable resource for learning, getting help, and gaining different insights via posing questions and requests. At times, these questions are triggered by a news article and other real-time events.
• Intellectual Contribution and Peer Review: Intellectual contribution is vital to how the community works collaboratively to develop its works, e.g., the Performance Imperative. And, all works published by the community require explicit peer-review by ambassadors prior to any public availability. Depending on the subject matter, ambassadors may author parts of a work, provide specific feedback, and contribute editorial assistance.
• Micro-Communities Participation: Micro-communities advance specific issues, interests, or actions and are led by ambassadors For example, the Performance Imperative Editorial micro-community was responsible for iteratively sharing versions and getting feedback related to the Performance Imperative, developing updates, and vetting drafts with the community to produce the next release of the Performance Imperative. The Performance Practice Micro-Community took the responsibility for developing a draft set of “proof points” that an organization can use to identify strengths, weaknesses, and progress made on the journey toward high performance. Currently there are micro-communities focused on equity, consultants, speaking opportunities, and growing the community.
• Growing the Community: Maintaining affinity and integrity are critical as we sustain and grow the community. Current ambassadors are vital to the identification/selection, invitation/onboarding, and engagement processes. Although the entire community is encouraged to nominate great candidates and vet candidate slates, there are ways that you can get more deeply involved in this important work.
• Public Speaking Engagements: The Leap Ambassadors support team receives requests from conference/event organizers to find speakers, presenters, or panelists who can help spread the messages of high performance and talk about the community and/or Performance Imperative specifically.
• Identification with the Community: Ambassadors have included their participation in the community in various ways, while maintaining the low-profile nature of how the community functions. Ambassadors havetweeted that they were honored to join the community, list the Leap Ambassadors Community in her LinkedIn profile, and mentions their participation in the Leap Ambassadors Community in their professional bio.