Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Community Program Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Community Program Manager is responsible for designing, launching, and operating structured community programs that increase member engagement, foster advocacy, and drive measurable business outcomes. This role combines program strategy, community operations, content and event programming, partner and stakeholder coordination, and performance measurement. The Community Program Manager works cross-functionally with product, marketing, customer success, analytics, and engineering to translate community insights into product improvements, marketing activations, and scalable community-led growth initiatives.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Community Coordinator / Community Specialist
Program Coordinator / Events Coordinator
Customer Success / Support Lead

Advancement To:

Senior Community Program Manager
Head of Community / Community Director
Head of Community-Led Growth

Lateral Moves:

Product Marketing Manager (community-led)
Developer Relations / Developer Advocate
Partner Ecosystem Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, own, and execute multi-year community program strategy (ambassador, mentorship, beta, volunteer moderation, alumni, or regional chapters) that aligns to company objectives such as acquisition, retention, product adoption, and advocacy; set OKRs and measure program ROI.
Design and launch a community ambassador program including recruitment criteria, onboarding curriculum, role descriptions, incentive structures, governance, performance metrics, and quarterly engagement plans to scale advocates globally.
Build and optimize onboarding and lifecycle journeys for community members, driving activation metrics (e.g., first contribution, 7/30-day retention) using tailored content, email sequences, triggers, and in-platform guidance.
Plan and execute high-quality virtual and in-person events (webinars, meetups, conferences, office hours, hackathons) from concept to post-event reporting, ensuring clear objectives, speaker sourcing, production logistics, promotion, and attendee follow-up.
Create and maintain playbooks, policies, and SOPs for moderation, conflict resolution, contributor recognition, and content governance to ensure a safe, inclusive, and consistent member experience.
Partner closely with Product and Engineering to recruit, structure, and manage product beta programs and research cohorts; collect and synthesize community feedback into product requirements and roadmaps.
Establish and instrument community health metrics and dashboards (DAU/MAU, new members, active contributors, response times, sentiment, NPS) using analytics tools and deliver regular insights to senior leadership to inform strategy.
Lead community content strategy: create and curate tutorials, AMA formats, highlight reels, case studies, and community-generated content that drives SEO, discoverability, and member education.
Manage community platforms and tools (forums, Slack/Discord, social channels, membership portals, CRM integrations) including configuration, moderation tooling, tagging taxonomy, and lifecycle automations.
Recruit, train, and manage volunteers, moderators, and contractor community leads; set expectations, run cadence calls, and implement recognition and reward programs to retain top contributors.
Design and own monetizable community programs or value-add services (premium memberships, certification cohorts, partner tiers) in collaboration with Revenue/Partnerships teams to generate incremental revenue and deeper customer relationships.
Run cross-functional campaigns (product launches, feature migrations, community-led marketing) with clear briefs, timelines, and KPIs, ensuring coordinated comms across email, social, blog, and in-product channels.
Create A/B tests and iterative experiments on messaging, event formats, reward structures, and onboarding flows to optimize engagement and conversion metrics using a hypothesis-driven approach.
Serve as the primary escalation point for complex member issues and reputation management, triaging and coordinating resolution across Support, Legal, and Product as needed.
Develop localized program variants and regional chapter playbooks to support global growth, working with local leads to adapt materials, events, and governance to cultural and legal requirements.
Build and maintain strong relationships with external partners, sponsors, and ecosystem contributors to co-create programming, secure resources, and amplify community reach.
Oversee program budgets, vendor relationships, and procurement for platform subscriptions, events, swag, and incentives; negotiate contracts and measure spend against impact.
Lead quarterly and annual planning for community programs, aligning resources, timelines, OKRs, and cross-functional workstreams; present program performance and roadmap to executives.
Champion accessibility, inclusion, and diversity initiatives in all programs and content to ensure equitable community participation and representation.
Develop member recognition systems and career-pathing for top contributors (badging, certifications, speaking opportunities) to incentivize long-term engagement.
Facilitate stakeholder workshops, community advisory boards, and feedback sessions to co-create program priorities and validate strategic directions with members and internal partners.
Maintain up-to-date knowledge of community best practices, platform capabilities, moderation advances, and competitor programs; continuously benchmark and implement improvements.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc reporting and exploratory analysis requests for community performance; collaborate with analytics to create automated dashboards and weekly/quarterly reports.
Contribute to the organization’s community data strategy and roadmap, including taxonomy design, event tracking, and CRM integrations to ensure reliable measurement of member journeys.
Collaborate with product managers, data engineers, and growth teams to translate community use-cases into event schemas, tagging standards, and product requirements.
Coordinate with marketing and content teams to repurpose community stories into SEO-optimized content that drives organic acquisition and thought leadership.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when community features or tooling requests require engineering work; maintain a prioritized backlog for community product needs.
Assist Customer Success with customer escalations originating in community channels and help surface community-based renewal or churn risks.
Support legal and compliance reviews for new programs, terms of service updates, and GDPR/CCPA considerations related to community data and communications.
Manage vendor relationships for event platforms, moderation tooling, and engagement analytics; evaluate new vendors to optimize program operations and costs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Community platform administration (e.g., Discourse, Khoros, Vanilla, Circle, Higher Logic) — setup, permissions, tagging, and moderation tooling.
CRM and marketing automation experience (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot, Braze) for member segmentation, lifecycle campaigns, and reporting.
Analytics and measurement: proficiency with Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, or similar to track funnels and member behavior.
Basic SQL and spreadsheet modeling (Excel/Google Sheets) to extract, analyze, and visualize community KPIs and cohort retention.
Dashboarding and BI tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI, Metabase) to build executive-facing reports and automated insight pipes.
Event and webinar platforms (Zoom, Hopin, Airmeet, Eventbrite) including production logistics, registration flows, and attendee analytics.
Content management and SEO fundamentals for repurposing community content into blog posts, resource pages, and documentation.
Project management tools and processes (Jira, Asana, Trello, Notion) to run programs, timelines, and cross-functional deliverables.
Experience with moderation workflows, trust & safety principles, and incident response playbooks.
Familiarity with community growth tactics (referral programs, ambassador incentives, gamification) and basic A/B testing methodologies.

Soft Skills

Exceptional written and verbal communication tailored for diverse audiences (executives, developers, non-technical members).
Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration skills; ability to influence without authority.
Strategic thinking with a bias for data-driven decisions and measurable outcomes.
Empathy, active listening, and conflict resolution skills to manage community disputes and escalate appropriately.
Leadership and mentorship experience to grow volunteer moderators and community leads.
Adaptability and comfort operating in fast-changing environments with ambiguity.
High attention to detail for event logistics, program governance, and content accuracy.
Facilitation and public-speaking skills for leading webinars, panels, and community workshops.
Creativity in programming and campaign ideation to keep community offerings fresh and valuable.
Time management and prioritization skills to balance day-to-day operations with long-term program investments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience in a related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Communications, Marketing, Business, Public Relations, Sociology, Human-Computer Interaction, or related discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Communications
Marketing
Business Administration
Public Relations
Human-Computer Interaction
Sociology
Community Management / Social Sciences

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3–7 years of professional experience in community management, program management, events, or customer-facing operations.

Preferred:

5+ years building and scaling community programs (ambassador programs, chapters, mentorship, or volunteer moderation) with demonstrable results in engagement, retention, or revenue impact.
Prior experience working cross-functionally with product, analytics, marketing, and partnerships in a SaaS, platform, developer, or consumer community environment.