The State Employees’ Credit Union Foundation gave a $500,000 grant to Lead for North Carolina, a pilot program that aims to recruit, train and place promising young leaders in two-year paid fellowships in local governments.
The UNC School of Government, along with several partners, launched Lead for North Carolina with the goals of strengthening public institutions, supporting local communities and cultivating a new generation of public service leaders.
The program was developed in response to two main problems. First, many local governments are addressing increasingly complex issues with few resources, compounded by staffing difficulties from impending retirements and talent pools that are not representative of the community’s diversity.
Additionally, there is limited infrastructure in place for students to learn about the opportunities and career options local government presents.
“We thought that what we could do with Lead for North Carolina is meet the needs and interests of students who are graduating and want to continue working in public service and meet the need of local governments that need that professional capacity,” said Mike Smith, dean of the School of Government.
Lead for North Carolina will select a group of approximately 25 recent graduates, most of whom are native North Carolinians or who recently graduated from a UNC-system school, to begin training in July at the UNC School of Government led by professor Kara Millonzi.
The training will prepare fellows to work in one of four areas: emergency management, community health, citizen engagement or business process improvement.
As part of their training, they will also take a bus tour to counties across the state to be exposed to the challenges the communities face firsthand.
During training, they will be taught various professional skills and prepared to enter the culture of local government. Afterward, 20 will be named SECU Fellows and begin their paid fellowships in local government in August.
