2021-2022 ANNUAL REPORT

Every year I sit down to write this short message to encapsulate our work during the past year, and this message is rarely easy to craft. We have considerable successes to celebrate, like running two cohorts of our flagship class, launching our Indigenous Immersion Initiative, completing our second annual Leadership Montana for Legislators workshop, and so much more. Big programmatic wins, to be sure.

And then there is an underlying current of this work that we do not always talk about, but we always feel – at least I do. It is a current that keeps our organization moving forward with consistent pressure to build a better Montana for all of us.

Leadership Montana is about bridging divides, and in big and small towns across our state, our members are doing that every day. Whether it is getting courageously curious with an opposing viewpoint or suspending our judgment even for a moment, we are modeling the way for those in our influence, thereby changing their behavior as well.

This is a powerful current, capable of changing the collective trajectory of our future. Nearly twenty years ago, our Founders sat around a table together and said, “we have to do something to change our society”. I believe we are witnessing that something…that slow but steady, powerful current shaping our landscape.

You are that something, that current. In this report, we will hold up a powerful mirror to show you all that you are doing to build a better Montana.

Be well and lead well,

Chantel M. Schieffer
President & CEO
Class of 2010, Masters 2019