The Challenge

As a small mountain village, Cloudcroft depends on volunteers from the community to lead its local institutions: the government, school board, library, fire department, and numerous committees that help shape its public services. Despite these volunteers' critical roles, there is no formal effort to identify, recruit, or train these leaders. 

Most take office with no background or experience in their new roles. That lack of preparation can lead to oversights, mistakes, burnout, and missed opportunities.

The Goals

The objective of Leadership Cloudcroft is identify and help prepare leaders who are prepared to take charge in volunteer, civic, business, and community roles.

Participants will get practical knowledge about the issues facing the Village. Class members gain valuable knowledge and insights into the public issues shaping Cloudcroft's future through monthly sessions featuring expert speakers, immersive site visits, and collaborative projects.

We hope it will prove an invaluable educational, networking, and motivating resource.

The Program

The Class of 2025 will occur over five months: June through October 2025. There will be six class days, each focusing on a specific topic.

Classes will be held in a centrally-located space in the Village, starting in the morning and running til 3 p.m.

Classes are designed to be highly interactive, allowing participants to discuss issues with the faculty actively. We also anticipate small working groups collaborating on assignments to address particular problems.

The Curriculum

The program focuses on our top challenges: Governance, Infrastructure, Fire, Economic Development, Healthcare, Schools, and more.

We will take a deep dive into these topics. The faculty features people intimately familiar with a topic and offers a first-hand look at the challenges and opportunities. 

In some cases, we visit sites for a first-hand look, such as a tour of the village water/wastewater facilities.

How to Apply

Applications for the 2025 Class are being accepted now. The deadline for applications is May 28, 2025

Interested participants must submit an online application to the Leadership Cloudcroft Committee. The online form can be found here: Leadership Cloudcroft 2025 Class Application.

To keep class size intimate, we anticipate inviting roughly a dozen participants. 

If you have ideas you'd like to share with us for the focus and development of this program, please send them to us at: ideas@leadershipcloudcroft.com

Apply Now

How to Support

We seek three Founding Members for the Leadership Cloudcroft program who share our vision of a sustainable, annual program.

We also value any logistical support that helps us provide meeting space, materials, and lunches for our class.

If you are interested in joining us in launching this important program, please get in touch with us at sponsor@leadershipcloudcroft.com

Serving on the program's Advisory Board are Trustee Gail McCoy, Mayor Tim King, and Chris Hearne. The Executive Director is Hannah Dean.

Leadership Cloudcroft is produced by the Cloudcroft Reader, the voice of the mountain.

For more information please reach us at hello@leadershipcloudcroft.com