NMU 2011 marketing alumna Victoria Leonhardt has been appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to represent Upper Peninsula residents on the Rural Development Fund Board. The board is charged with advising the department on how to distribute tax revenue collected from mines to improve and strengthen local communities.
Leonhardt, an Independent from Marquette, serves as the leadership manager for GivingTuesday.
"I engage with leaders across the U.S. to support the GivingTuesday movement," she stated on her LinkedIn profile. "I spend my days encouraging communities to drive an enormous amount of positive change by rooting everyday actions, decisions and behavior in radical generosity—the concept that the suffering of others should be as intolerable to us as our own suffering."
The Rural Development Fund Board, housed in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, has oversight of the Rural Development Fund. Leonhardt's term on went into effect June 30 and expires December 31, 2025.