91 Addressing urgency in grassroots organizations - If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door of leadership

Abstract

Abstract Grassroots (GR) organizations that develop pipelines of pivotal leadership are better able to respond to the multiple challenges of the day. As public organizations, social media and biased-literature intensify advocacy for the reduction and constraint of animal agriculture (AA), it is clear AA is under concerted attack. Producers must not only learn to cope with changes in weather pattern intensification and droughts, depletion of resources, dramatic policy shifts and more, they must defend the activist narratives. The need for well-informed, competent GR leader communicators to advocate for the beef community has never been more urgent to the future of the beef industry. The Young Cattlemen Leadership Program (YCLP), a partnership between AU Animal Sciences and the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association, is an outreach effort focused on the delivery of an integrated, customized blueprint of content workshops, legislative sessions, industry tours, conferences and mentoring for catalyzed leadership development to meet the current and future needs of a highly diverse state constituency. Based on survey feedback and case analysis, YCLP, now in its seventh cohort, is proving the effectiveness of the collaborative learning design model contextualized around issue topics surrounding AA as alumni have assumed multiple roles of leadership in the organization.