News
31 Kansas City–area members petition for a Heartland chapter
A petition backed by 31 member organizations asks NANA's board to charter a seventh chapter covering Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Thirty-one Kansas City–area member organizations have filed a petition asking NANA's board to charter a seventh chapter covering Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. The Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives led the filing, which followed the steps laid out in NANA's Chapter Launch Guide.
How the petition came together
Julian Achterberg, NANA's Director of Membership and Chapter Relations, said the idea surfaced first at a national conference, where several Kansas City–area member executives compared notes on how far they were each traveling for chapter events. None of the 31 signing organizations currently sits inside an existing chapter's core territory, which meant the petition didn't need to carve territory away from an existing chapter to move forward.
Gathering 31 signatures took roughly two months, longer than Achterberg expected, mostly because the guide requires each signing organization's own board to formally authorize joining a petition rather than accepting a staff signature alone.
What the petition asks
The proposed Heartland chapter would draw its initial membership from the 31 signing organizations, most headquartered within a few hours of Kansas City. Board member Celeste Vranas, VP Member Services at the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, is sponsoring the petition on the board.
"Our members drive four hours to a Mid-Atlantic briefing or fly to a Great Lakes roundtable. A chapter that starts in Kansas City means a chapter meeting they can reach by lunch."
— Celeste Vranas, Director-at-Large
What happens next
The board is scheduled to vote on the petition in June 2027
If approved, the chapter would launch January 1, 2028
Julian Achterberg, NANA's Director of Membership and Chapter Relations, is staff lead on the review
A chartered Heartland chapter would be NANA's seventh, its first new chapter since the current six were established. Until the board votes, NANA has six chapters.
The Chapter Launch Guide sets the bar the petition had to clear: a minimum signing membership, a proposed geographic footprint that doesn't overlap an existing chapter's core territory, and at least one signing organization willing to serve as interim chair. The Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, based in Kansas City, has agreed to serve in that interim role if the board approves the petition.
What a seventh chapter would mean for the map
NANA's existing six chapters were drawn around Chicago, Boston, Washington, the Pacific Northwest, Denver, and the Southeast, leaving a stretch of the central United States without a dedicated chapter. Achterberg said member organizations in that stretch have historically affiliated with whichever chapter happened to hold the nearest event, usually Great Lakes or Rocky Mountain, without a chapter structure built around their own region.
If approved, the Heartland chapter would follow the same governance pattern as NANA's existing six: an elected chair, a cadence of member meetings, and eligibility to propose its own signature programs once established. Achterberg said the petition includes no specific proposal yet for meeting cadence or signature programming, leaving those decisions to the chapter's first elected leadership if the board approves the charter.
The board's review will weigh the petition against the same criteria applied to any future chapter proposal, and a vote is not guaranteed to result in approval.