Turn Up Your Voice: Taking Action for Community Change

The application for the 2025 cohort will be announced later this spring! Stay tuned for additional information!

Rural Leaders Cohort pose in front of League of Oregon Cities Building

Turn Up Your Voice: Taking Action for Change is a collaboration between the Center and Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) uniquely curated for rural women and gender expansive community leaders. Our inaugural cohort engaged 21 participants from 14 counties. in 2024, we engaged a cohort of 28 from 16 counties. This learning community has been a unique opportunity to bring together changemakers who may not otherwise have met, to catalyze cross-sector pollination through building trust-centered relationships and connections to the Oregon State Legislature.

Our curriculum is built to explore dimensions of power and how they intersect to make changes in rural communities possible.

Participants are invited to engage in a hybrid learning experience comprised of five sessions. The first three sessions take place virtually followed by an overnight learning experience in Salem Oregon and a cumulating virtual debrief. This program is an emergent initiative and we are excited to engage alumni to co-create how we continue to build this network to meet the needs of rural leaders and their communities.

What to Expect

During our sessions, we'll learn together about navigating local and state government, defining and championing community priorities, developing compelling issue and candidate campaigns, and creating action plans that make things happen!

Session One: Power Within (virtual)
Session Two: Power For (virtual)
Session Three: Power With (virtual)
Session Four: Power Over (Salem Oregon)
Session Five: Power Forward (virtual)

We seek opportunities for ongoing engagement of our alumni including Oregon Rural Day and RDI's biannual conference, Regards to Rural. CWL & RDI are committed to reducing financial barriers to participation. We work to provide lodging, transportation and meals to participants to make participation possible.

Additional information for the 2025 program will be coming soon!

Meet our Featured Alumni

LaNicia Duke

From Tillamook to Terrebonne, LaNicia Duke is challenging assumptions about the Black experience in rural Oregon

A book and a possible run for office are on the horizon. “I’ve definitely heard from others that my voice is needed at a different level. I'm trying to get myself together for that.”

Jalet Farrell

How a Hostel in the High Desert Became a Hub of a Community

Spoke’n Hostel, which caters to cyclists and other adventurers, is one of the many manifestations of Farrell’s love of rural Oregon and her dedication to promoting the place she’s called home for the past decade.

Debi Lorence

With financial support from the Ford Family Foundation, Lorence teamed up with Valerio to launch a community group whose first goal was to guide area stakeholders through a visioning process.