WOMEN

Generous ranch owners offer their ranch locations free of charge to our program and help to organize catering services, thereby keeping Circle membership fees low for participants. Women in Ranching provides a team of facilitators who work with the landowners and ranch staff to bring a cohort (we call them circles) of about 20 women together. Each circle comes together for a one-year, two-gathering course, with ample opportunities for peer to peer learning, leadership building and intentional community development. We emphasize permission, emergence and acceptance.

Women in Ranching Circles catalyze action: books have been written, partnerships have formed, business concepts have become reality, monthly rural women’s groups have taken shape and these women have begun to say YES to their dreams. These gatherings create meaningful progress in ranching through building an intricate, resilient network of dynamic social capital that is centered in empowering and supporting women’s work on the land. Our facilitators hold space for these women to explore roadblocks and find strength in their unique voice.

The first Women in Ranching Circle was hosted in 2016 by Paicines Ranch, in California. Two years and several convenings later, WinR found a permanent home with the Western Landowners Alliance, a West-wide organization advancing policies and practices that sustain working lands, connected landscapes and native species.

Today, we are a growing collaborative of women who convene on host ranches to learn, play and find a renewed awareness of inner abundance and resiliency. These gatherings activate women to connect and share with each other and strengthen our collective voice for the betterment of our rural communities.

Women in Ranching (WinR) emerged in direct response to an expressed need: working-lands women throughout the West were seeking ways to connect with one another, to promote leadership and inspire creative solutions for how best to support a growing resource of female leaders.