Guidelines to become an ambassador of Open Food Facts

🤔 Why become an Open Food Facts ambassador?

Our mission: Working together to make food transparency the norm. ✊

Becoming an Open Food Facts Ambassador provides you with the opportunity to lead the charge for food transparency in your country.

As an ambassador, you'll have the chance to actively contribute to a global movement, build valuable connections, and make a lasting impact on the community and food industry. 🥗

📋 What does it involve?

The role of an ambassador

An Ambassador of Open Food Facts is an individual volunteering to promote and advance the mission of Open Food Facts within his/her respective country. Ambassadors act as key advocates, fostering awareness, engagement, and collaboration with local communities, policymakers, food manufacturers, and other local stakeholders.

They play a crucial role in expanding Open Food Facts' presence internationally, driving the initiative to collect and share food data globally to empower consumers worldwide.

Possible goals

The following actions are suggestions only. You are free to take initiatives as long as they align with Open Food Facts' mission

1. 🌎 Community Building:
   • Meet and connect with Open Food Facts volunteers in your country.
   • Organize face-to-face events to strengthen community bonds.
   • Ensure all members have the necessary information and resources.
2. 💸 Fundraising:
   • Organize fundraising campaigns.
   • Respond to calls for projects.
   • Seek potential partners for collaborative efforts.
3. 🤝 Reaching Out to Partners:
   • Engage producers to contribute to the database in your country.
   • Connect with app reusers, support them, and encourage data sharing.
   • Collect feedback and testimonies from partners.
4. 📣 Raising Awareness:
   • Represent Open Food Facts at trade fairs.
   • Present the project at schools, networking events, etc.
   • Share event photos on social media for wider reach.

🛠️ Tools and resources to succeed in your mission

A strong support from the permanent team

• Keep in mind that you're never alone in your ambassador role, and can rely on each member of the permanent team based on your needs.
• The permanent team's role is to mentor you and help you define short/medium/long-term goals if necessary.
• Every month, a group call is organised with all the Open Food Facts ambassadors to share updates and learning, to growth together.
• At any time, feel free to seek guidance from the permanent team at contact@openfoodfacts.org, or directly via Slack.

Access to grants

• Interested in becoming an ambassador but you could do with a financial boost? Let's hope these 2 program will suit your needsː
  • 🚀 Rapid Grants - A grant to reimburse you for small expenses incurred in promoting the project
  • 🌎 Community Project Grants - A more substantial grant to give you the means to develop a real local structure, with a precise action plan!

Trademark policy

• Please consult our Trademark Policy. The goal of this document is to set guidelines regarding the use of the brand Open Food Facts.

Communication

• If you wish so, you can use an official email address to gain credibility with your audience firstname.name@ambassador.openfoodfacts.org or firstname.name@volunteer.openfoodfacts.org
• As an ambassador, you can also decide to handle incoming requests from your country and lead the local community. A country address (e.g. fr@openfoodfacts.org for France) can be created on request and added to our Chatwoot support tool. As an ambassador, we will be given access to Chatwoot, and to a range of email templates for handling the requests from the community, scientists, reusers, etc. and initiating the development of Open Food Facts locally.   
• Before speaking on behalf of Open Food Facts, please make sure you've read and understood the Communication Guidelines.
• Please, follow the Brand Guidelines for consistent representation.
• You're welcome to use the Presentation Kit and 1-pager for effective communication.
• Access email templates, logos, illustrations, and social media assets. More info about Delegating communication to local communities.

Community support

• Please consult our Community Management Guidelines to find best practices on how to animate a local community.
• Add yourself to our Community Map and feel free to reach out to other volunteers around you.

Your perks as an ambassador 🥳

• Extend your network in the food industry and learn more about the ecosystem of food transparency
• Promote your empowering experience to your professional or personal network.
  • If the experience is a success between us, we would be delighted to write a recommendation on LinkedIn, for example, or give you our recognition in some other way.

• Get a free Open Food Facts T-shirt, and stickers.
• Join the Open Food Facts Days for free.

📋 Requirements

How to become an ambassador?

• Contact us at contact@openfoodfacts.org explaining briefly your motivations, adding as the subject of the mail "🍊 Ambassador Program Application"
• You will then have an online meet-up with a member of the permanent team of Open Food Facts to discuss about how the project is organised but also about your motivations and ambitions to try and develop Open Food Facts in your country.
• If your project seems in line with the goals of Open Food Facts, the next step for you will be to sign the following documents to officialise the recognition of your role of ambassador:
  • The Open Food Facts ambassadors' charter

What are my duties when I am an ambassador?

• Complete and maintain the Wikipage of the country you are representing
• Join the bi-monthly Ambassador's call (ideally, no more than 2 calls a year should be missed). A moment to exchange good practices and with other ambassadors and ask any questions you may have in your project. A member of the permanent team will always be there to support you.
• Complete the short follow-up questionnaire every 3 months (it helps us understand the actions taken and the results observed)

End of recognition process

• In the event of non-compliance with the rules set out in the ambassador charter and the code of conduct, Open Food Facts reserves the right to withdraw the ambassador role immediately, revoke access to documents and any other rights associated with the ambassador role.

By following these guidelines, you will contribute significantly to the Open Food Facts mission and foster a thriving community of volunteers in your country. Thank you for your dedication to food transparency!