Over the past year, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani has been tucking business cards into a folder. It’s her small way of preparing for the future.

The cards contain the names of people she believes possess a strength that would make them valuable to a campaign, if not as potential elected officials. Maybe it’s an economic background, innate leadership qualities or a heightened interest in politics. Whatever the case may be, these Nevada residents struck her as people to keep in mind.

As Giunchigliani, a Democrat, approaches the end of her 28-year run as an elected leader in Nevada, building a new pipeline of talent has become her new mission.

“We have no bench,” she said. “We really don’t recruit people, train them and work them through public policy so they’re prepared for whatever — whether it be school board, commission or to run campaigns.”

And so an idea Giunchigliani had been mulling for a while was born less than two weeks after she lost her gubernatorial primary bid to fellow Commissioner Steve Sisolak in June. The longtime elected official started Be The Change PAC as a means to raise money for that purpose. Ultimately, Giunchigliani said she envisions forming a leadership institute that recruits and trains a diverse group of young men and women, including those from communities of color or who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

The money raised — which so far totals roughly $55,000 of her $150,000 goal — will go toward internship and scholarship opportunities as well as costs associated with the training, said Giunchigliani, who will not be drawing a salary from the PAC. She only intends to reimburse herself for out-of-pocket expenses.

The full plan for the leadership institute has’t been fleshed out yet, but Giunchigliani said she hopes to partner with Nevada nonprofits and not duplicate any programs that already exist. Still, she said her political travels across the state have revealed a need for more training among up-and-coming campaign workers and future elected officials on topics as diverse as public speaking and professional attire to policy steering and government operations.

“They don’t really get that much in high school anymore,” Giunchigliani said, referring to civics lessons. “Even electeds that run for office don’t know the difference between municipal, state and federal government sometimes.”

Giunchigliani’s next venture could be considered the perfect blend of her career arc. The former special-education teacher taught in the Clark County School District from 1979 until the summer of 2007. Her political career overlapped with her time in the classroom. Giunchigliani served in the Nevada Assembly from 1990 until 2006 — the year she was elected to represent District E on the Clark County Commission. Her third and final term on the Commission ends in early January.

If you had asked Giunchigliani her post-commission plans a year ago, her answer would have been far different. She aspired to be governor but, after running a grassroots-style campaign, she lost the Democratic primary to Sisolak, who had a fundraising edge, by an 11-point margin.

“It hurt,” Giunchigliani said. “Losing hurts, but I was very proud of my team and myself. What we did in eight months no one else could have done … I think if I had another couple of months, I would have won the primary and then I would have won the general.”

Giunchigliani never endorsed Sisolak in the general election and wouldn’t say how she voted for governor, except to confirm that Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt did not receive her vote. Sisolak won the general election and will become Nevada’s next governor.

Although never one to totally rule out future public office, Giunchigliani said she’s not interested in the vacant state Senate seats. The soon-to-be 64-year-old’s rationale fits squarely with the mission behind her new PAC.

“It’s time for us to support other people so they can grow into that position rather than us always recycling the same five people back and forth,” she said.