The Community Ambassador Program supports local, in-person Pokémon GO communities around the globe by empowering their experiences. Community Ambassadors can receive special perks for their communities, like item codes and swag for giveaways, access to Niantic representatives for special feedback sessions, and other opportunities to support their community’s growth.

Individuals who run in-person events in their area, grow their communities, and create and connect safe spaces for Trainers to play can apply to become one of Niantic’s Community Ambassadors.

A Community Ambassador is not a Niantic employee, contractor, representative, or volunteer.
A Community Ambassador is someone who voluntarily runs events in their local community with the gratitude and assistance of Niantic. Niantic recognizes how much passion and hard work it takes to bring people together, and this program is built to help leaders do just that.
We do not restrict what a Community Ambassador says or does; they have the freedom to give positive or negative feedback publicly. However, we do require that interactions are professional—all feedback should be respectful, constructive, and should never attack the people who work on the game.

Diversity. Pokémon GO Trainers include people of many nationalities, identities, and ethnicities. We want to ensure that our Community Ambassadors do, too.

Professionalism and quality of character. Being a Community Ambassador means that you’ve been recognized by Niantic. Our Community Ambassadors should always treat others with respect, honesty, and kindness.

Positivity. We know that communities grow in the image of their leadership, and the best communities are built by creating and highlighting the positive instead of focusing on the negative. Opportunities for critical feedback should be treated with respect—never with cruelty or anger.

Integrity. Communities should avoid cheating in all forms. That includes discussing cheating or using bots, websites, or other tools that encourage cheating. Community Ambassadors should always do their best to ensure that their communities remain cheat-free.

Niantic uses Silph Road’s level and ranking system to track in-person community activity. Community leaders who have reached Rank 4 on the Silph Road’s community pages are eligible to apply to become a Niantic Community Ambassador. You can learn more about the Community Pages on the Silph Road here. Once they reach Rank 4, eligible leaders can fill out this form to apply. Once it’s submitted, the applicant will go through the vetting process.

Niantic has partnered with the Silph Road to help with the vetting process and to ensure that candidates meet our standards. Upon applying to the program, applicants will go through the following checks.

Pokémon GO account checks for any history of cheating.
Background checks for recorded incidents involving the safety of families and children.
A series of customer service and community checks. These checks help verify that the community is moderated and has common sense rules. This process also checks to see if complaints have been reported against the applicant in the past six years.

Not all applicants are guaranteed to become Community Ambassadors. Community Ambassadors may lose their status at any time if they engage in any behavior that can be considered against our standards, is harmful to their community, or violates our Terms of Service.

You can learn more about The Silph Road’s checks here.

We require that communities are respectful, family-friendly, and exemplify a willingness to support each other in a friendly, constructive manner. In order to qualify and remain in good standing, communities must meet the following requirements.

Community leadership must be over the age of 18. Community leadership should have rules and regulations in place to ensure all members must be over the age of 13.
Communities must be public and accessible for anyone to join.
Your community cannot be locked behind any form of paid gate, such as a Patreon or Steady membership.
Communities should be Rank 3 on The Silph Road’s Community Pages. You can learn more about their Community Pages here.
Communities must have a presence on Campfire and use it to organize their events in order to receive in-game rewards.
Communities must be family-friendly.
Communities cannot publicly advocate for or share information about cheating.
Your community should have rules and regulations to govern what happens if members of your community discuss cheating.
Communities with high amounts of cheaters or public discussion of cheating will be removed from the program.
Communities must be actively moderated and maintain a set of rules that encourage good behavior.
Communities must maintain an active, positive space for members.

We will periodically check community hubs to ensure their content is meeting our requirements. Failure to meet requirements will result in immediate removal.

In order to receive incentives, events must always do the following.

Be held safely. If there are potentially dangerous elements involved, such as inclement weather or other harmful environments, Community Ambassadors should cancel events or reschedule for an alternate location.
Be held in-person and focused on in-game experiences, such as Raid Hour, Community Day, Battle Days, or other events. Incentives will not be supplied for events in which the community does not meet in-person.
Be scheduled and collect RSVPs using the Silph Road and Campfire.
Have at least five attendees.
Have a Community Ambassador present.

Community Ambassadors who register and run events through our program will receive special incentives like item codes and swag to share with their communities for Community Days and other events.

Community Ambassadors will also be able to provide feedback directly to Niantic. They will have access to one-on-one opportunities to learn more about us—and for us to learn about you!

As we continue to grow and develop the program, we may extend additional opportunities and benefits to help you foster a healthy and safe community for others to play in.

You can email communityambassadors@nianticlabs.com with any questions.

Community Ambassadors’ accounts must be in good standing and pass a check with Niantic in order to qualify. Additionally, your community space may not actively encourage or advocate for any sort of cheating. To help you navigate this topic and help you avoid violating the Terms of Service, we are providing the following examples to assist you.

TRICKS: If something happens inside of the Pokémon GO app, without any external influence, then this is not cheating. If you perform any action inside the app that leads to an unexpected, but possible, behavior, this is not considered cheating.
Tricks are OK to talk about, but are not confirmed or supported by Niantic.

PHONE CHEATS: If you leave the Pokémon GO app and change something about your phone’s settings to impact gameplay, this is cheating. This may include manipulating standard functions on your phone through its settings, such as switching GPS on and off or changing time zones in the settings.
Talking about phone cheats or encouraging members to use them should not be allowed on your community hub.

THIRD-PARTY CHEATS: Using a third-party device or third-party software to manipulate data or the Pokémon GO app, or using a manipulated third-party version of Pokémon GO, is cheating.
This category includes using a bot to play Pokémon GO or using software to manipulate your GPS signal.
Talking about third-party cheats or encouraging members to use them should not be allowed on your community hub.

These are only a few examples. If you are unsure, check the Niantic Terms of Service. We can’t foresee all the ways someone might cheat in Pokémon GO, so if you encounter something that feels wrong but is not classified as cheating in our guidelines, act with caution. Talking about cheating is a serious topic for us and can cause a community and its Community Ambassador to be immediately removed.

If you or your Community Hub have had any previous issues with cheating, please let us know so this information won’t affect our relationship in the future. An offense that occurred before you joined the program does not exclude you from participation as long as you are open about this.