Akiptan’s Cohorts are Helping to Build Knowledgeable Borrowers!

Supporting Native American producers across Indian Country includes making resources accessible to support their operation. This encouraged the launch of Akiptan’s financial education cohorts for agricultural producers. The Cattle Rancher Cohort is led by our Program Officer, Justine Kougl and our Agribusiness Cohort is led by our Loan Officer, Garrett Golliher. Each individual cohort invites 5-10 clients to meet virtually for up to 5 weeks and work through our Cattle Ranch Curriculum and Agribusiness Curriculum. The intention of the cohorts is to open meaningful conversations with producers, their peers and mentors about their operation, while deep diving into visioning and planning, financials, business plan development, marketing and more! 

So much amazing information - I appreciated the breakdown in steps on how to organize your business and keep track of finances. - 2026 Rancher Cohort Graduate 

The Cattle Rancher Cohort is an indepth look at ranching, best practices for record keeping and planning combined with what the producer wants and needs. Justine works alongside the cattle ranchers to focus on the key business aspects of the operations. As a producer herself, Justine understands how much education can help an agricultural business and is eager to deep dive into the 8 modules in the Financial Management Guide for Cattle Ranchers. 

“The idea behind the cohort is to really help our producers focus on the why and how the choices we make today are going to impact their operations years down the road. When the curriculum was developed, we knew it had to be producer based and that we have to put that information into the producers hands in usable ways.” 

Justine Kougl, Program Officer  

The Agribusiness Cohort, offers a robust look at the agribusiness side of operations. Garrett goes over 10 modules from the Financial Management Guide for Native Agribusinesses, and works through real life numbers and financials as well as visits about where we get those numbers and what they mean for a business. The marketing modules help agribusiness producers take a closer look at their marketing skills, while providing an understanding of what their buyers (clients) are wanting.

“Agribusiness operators are looking at their numbers; their outputs and inputs and this cohort offers them a chance to listen to other producers' experiences. A lot of the producers in our most recent cohort had a focus around plants and producing value added products, which made this cohort super important in supporting them through all perspectives” - Garrett Golliher, Loan Officer 

Akiptan offers the cohort sessions virtually, which helps the team to reach producers from across the country. The cohorts have guest speakers that include Akiptan Loan Officers for the financial modules. Producers see the value in sitting down in an informal space with a loan officer, to ask questions, to go over a balance sheet and share real life knowledge. Bringing in outside voices to the sessions and hearing from a multitude of folks helps to bring ideas and gets conversations flowing.

Akiptan facilitates the cohort curriculums once or twice a year depending on the need. The team has dedicated a lot of time in developing the cohorts from a producer perspective and understands that the delivery of the content and the facilitation style go hand in hand.The goal is to provide the information to the producers so they can make educated and empowered decisions in their operation. The Programs team evaluates the cohorts after completion to make improvements and ensure the producers are learning all they need along the way."

We are excited to continue offering these producer cohorts supporting agriculture across Indian Country in more industries. Akiptan’s curriculums are available online on our website for independent study or can be ordered through our office. To learn more about the development of our cohorts, to order a cattle rancher or agribusiness curriculum please contact our Senior Program Officer, Dawn E. LeBeau at dawn@akiptan.org.