The LEAD (Leadership, Entrepreneurial, Apprenticeship, and Design) program is a Native leadership development opportunity designed to support emerging changemakers and community advocates. This opportunity has been available since 2008 and has an incredible alumni network of over 150 community leaders who support the program and its participants. The program presents culturally grounded solutions for the advancement of Native communities. We believe that every person holds inherent strengths and sacred value; we do not operate under a top-down leadership model. The LEAD program thrives when it primarily draws from the wisdom within each diverse cohort. We seek to forge a collaborative regional network of Native leaders that nurtures and fertilizes our cultural ways of knowing and being and helps realize a better future for generations to come.

Program Overview:

The LEAD program is a three-month leadership development experience from April 2024 – early July 2024. Through those months, cohort members will be guided through a series of growth and connection opportunities designed to create a comprehensive learning experience. Participants will move through seven enriching sessions with focuses on personal and professional development within the community, healing and self-nurturing, finding and strengthening your voice, civic and political engagement processes, ceremony and traditional medicine, career and passion exploration, the art of negotiation, and much more.

Applications for the 2024 Cohort are due by March 10. Apply here.

Selection Criteria

• Affiliation with an American Indian/Alaska Native tribe/band/Indigenous group (Does not require enrollment with tribe/band/Indigenous group)
• Interest and readiness to find your voice and use it to build upon Oregon’s Native advocacy efforts
• Willingness to stretch your comfort zone and to try new things
• Strong potential for increased leadership responsibilities
• Full participation in all Oregon LEAD program activities