The LIRS Ambassador Network is open to anyone, regardless of age, profession, or geographic location. We’re looking for leaders who are committed to serving immigrants and refugees and representing the work of LIRS in their local communities and beyond.  

Ambassador expectations are as follows –   

• Attend Ambassador Orientation Series and complete the Intentions Survey 
• Take Action – plan to dedicate time and energy to integrating it into your life. While the LIRS Mobilization team will be there to provide resources, trainings, and support, it is the responsibility of the Ambassador to ensure they are working with their community and leveraging their strengths to support LIRS in welcoming immigrants and refugees.  
  • • While this will look different depending on the person and their interests, you should plan to dedicate time each week to the Network, whether posting on social media, staying abreast of immigration news and issues, attending a training, or meeting with your local community. 
    • You get out what you put in. This Network is for leaders and self-starters. 
• Submit Quarterly Impact Reports and collaborate with other Ambassadors and LIRS staff to brainstorm best practices 

LIRS defines volunteering as immediately and directly meeting a need by giving of your time. This makes volunteering different from advocacy, for example, where the effect typically is not immediate or philanthropy, which is not inherently time-consuming. These and other expressions of aid are all equally important but distinct ways of answering the question, “How can I help?” 

In the past LIRS supported volunteer engagement exclusively by referring interested people to local affiliate offices. Moving forward, LIRS is expanding our opportunities for volunteers across the country to include such programs as writing letters to immigrants in detention, partnering with English language learners for conversation practice, and more. 

Ambassadors are welcome to participate in any or all of our volunteer opportunities. However, they are first and foremost invited and encouraged to develop fluency in LIRS’ outreach efforts in order to become spokespeople and mobilizers within their communities. Ambassadors make a greater degree of commitment to use their gifts and passions to uniquely transform their respective spaces into havens of welcome and hubs of action as representatives, advocates, philanthropists, creators, or conveners. 

Ambassadors are invited to use their unique interests and skills to make an impact through 5 core roles: Representative, Advocate, Creator, Convener, and Philanthropist.

• Representative: Represent LIRS at meetings and events in your local community, including brief presentations about ways individuals and communities can get involved
• Advocate: Focus efforts on learning about and advancing for policies around welcoming refugees and protecting asylum seekers
• Creator: Use your talents to lift up the experiences of immigrants and refugees and amplify the work of LIRS through your medium of choice: blogs, poetry, sermons, social media, and more
• Convener: Host events to engage new communities and individuals in LIRS annual programs and campaigns.
• Philanthropist: Inspire transformative generosity in support of immigrants and refugees through the LIRS mission

We’ll provide resources, tools, and ideas for potential actions associated with each role, but the sky is the limit! Ambassadors are encouraged to think creatively, mix and match, and discern how they can best use their gifts and show up in the world as an LIRS Ambassador.