Are You Making It? Or Faking It? FREE Financial Workshop For Ranchers
Nov 17th, 2025
All Day

Where:
Miles Community College
2715 Dickinson St Miles City, MT

Description:
FREE Financial Workshop for Ranchers - hands-on sessions utilizing tools that are effective, efficient and useful for your ranching business. Introductory session to develop or improve financial tools
If you ask a rancher why they do what they do, they are likely to reply with things like wanting to leave the land better than before; working with their family; working livestock; or being a part of nature every day. Seldom will you hear the response that it is a profitable business sector and they plan to build a comfortable retirement from it. While the motivation to ranch is often visceral and heart-felt, the reality is that it is also a business, and hoping that things will get better next year is not a particularly healthy business model. It's also not a solid foundation for the next generation, if that is the goal. That's why Western Sustainability Exchange (WSE) has developed this workshop - to help build stronger ranch businesses so that ranchers can continue to do great things on the land they steward.
Participants in this workshop will build a solid ranch financial record keeping system to inform their business decisions objectively, as well as learn how to utilize techniques for communication and clarity within the ranch team. Instructors are a mix of ranchers and ag financial professionals who will not only instruct, but will provide one-on-one assistance during the class to help participants utilize the tools provided. This class is the introductory level of a 2-part series. This session promises to be very effective for anyone who is either developing their ranch bookkeeping system or for individuals who don't feel that their current system is providing the information they need to make the best decisions for their ranch business. Each ranch is encouraged to send more than one person, even if they are not directly involved in the ranch accounting, because it takes a team to run a business successfully and this workshop will help to get the whole team working in the same direction. For those individuals who are solidly versed in ranch finances, the next workshop to be held in early 2026 would be more useful.
Because most ranchers prefer to be outside ranching or crunching production numbers rather than creating balance sheets, there will be an option to participate in follow-up virtual meetings led by WSE's partner in this project, Eastern Montana Regenerative Agriculture (EMRA). These sessions are designed to answer questions and help keep participants on track while implementing a new system. Participants in this introductory workshop will also have the first opportunity to register for the next part of the series this winter, which will build upon the basics learned in this course.
To register, go to the WSE website: https://westernsustainabilityexchange.org/event/financial-training-workshop/

This series of workshops is free to participants thanks to a grant from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under 2024-38640-42985 through the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under project number WPDP25-030. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.