Titled “Rohrbach jumps onboard with Womentum” Jackson Hole News & Guide Contributor Jasmine Hall interviewed Womentum Program Director Elisabeth Rohrbach in March, 2024.
March 20, 2024
Nonprofit’s program director wants to see women thrive.
Womentum is on a mission to connect and inspire Wyoming women to thrive as leaders.
In alignment with those core values, one of the Jackson-based nonprofit’s mentees from the 2014 Womentoring cohort, was nominated to join the board of directors. Elisabeth Rohrbach became the Womentum program director in November and has a passion for helping women achieve their goals and dreams in the face of adversity.
“Gender inequality in the world, and in the United States, is quantified,” Rohrbach said. “It’s inarguable. You look at the gender wage gap. You look at every area of life, and equality doesn’t exist.”
But how do you defy the reality women live in?
It’s more than just believing, as Rohrbach does, that all people, regardless of sex, gender identity, sexuality, race or ethnicity, deserve to be treated equally and respectfully. Doors have to be opened, and support systems have to be created.
As Womentum’s program director, Rohrbach is part of a team that takes concrete steps to make it happen.
She facilities a nine-month mentoring program for 30 women each year, along with workshops and events that tackle difficult issues such as toxic societal pressures on women to be thin or speaking up for personal values.
These opportunities build mentor and mentee relationships, lifelong friendships and professional connections for the future. She has seen women organize potluck dinners, schedule weekly lunches or pursue their outdoor passions camping or backcountry skiing together.
“There’s an opportunity for different relationships,” Rohrbach said. “We’ve had over 500 women participate in the Womentum mentorship program, and now I would say 90% of my friends have done it.”
But it’s had an impact on her own life — not just getting to be the next program director of the nonprofit.
Rohrbach moved to Jackson in 2010, and like so many people she thought it would be for one winter. She was living in San Francisco after graduating from Connecticut College and earning a gender studies and anthropology degree. She even held on to her apartment.
One winter had her hooked. She decided to stay for the summer and ended up paying for someone to pack up all her boxes on the West Coast. She always saw herself working for a nonprofit, and her first job was at the Grand Teton National Park Foundation.
A few years into developing her community in Jackson, she decided to tackle the Womentum mentorship program in 2014. It led her down a path to find women she looked up to, such as Melissa Turley and April Norton, set her up with a job at the nonprofit R Park to build Rendezvous Park in Wilson and to join the Womentum board in 2018.
“You never know what’s going to come out of it,” she said.
Women bring so much to the community, Rohrbach said, and tapping into that power in Jackson is possible.
Rohrbach wants everyone to get the chance to participate in the nonprofit’s programs and encourages women in the community to look into Womentum. She said all the programs are subsidized, and there are also scholarships for financial support, which is in an effort to get women from all backgrounds involved.
She wants the entire nonprofit constituency to reflect the area.
“Come to our events, meet us, we’d love to have you,” she said. “And then just aside from the organization, try to find something you’re passionate about and put yourself out there. Take a risk. Ask that woman you think is real cool, but don’t know, for coffee.”