“There are some examples of good news, such as Pittsburgh’s 29-year-old mayor, but that’s not the norm,” she says. “One study of local political parties indicated that the parties had no systems or plans for recruiting young people, so they had no means of developing their future leaders under the age of 30.”

One bright area for civic involvement, Flanagan explains, is service learning. All statistics for service learning are up because schools support it, and young people connect with it. But can old-line civic organizations take advantage of it?

“After completing service learning, the one thing that students always say is, ‘I learned there are a lot of people out there doing good work,’” she says. “Service learning can help them understand how things work, and if they connect to something they think is important, it’s easier to help them envision being leaders. I think we’re missing the boat in not connecting what kids are doing to how they can make a difference by serving on a board or commission.”

Marilyn Corbin, Penn State Cooperative Extension state program leader for children, youth, and families, points to a change in the nature of volunteerism at the local level in both rural and urban communities. “State and federal funding agencies are pushing decisions to the local level where possible,” she says. “This creates a need for community residents to assume leadership positions if they’re going to succeed in an increasingly competitive funding environment. Individuals and communities must develop the skills to work in collaborative groups, and that adds complexity. Some people aren’t natural leaders, but they can be taught.”

Daney Jackson, director of Penn State Cooperative Extension, points out that for nearly 100 years, governors, legislators, and cabinet members have relied on America’s cooperative extension system to cultivate rural leadership. Following in this tradition, more than 180 extension educators reached some 37,000 Pennsylvanians through a variety of leadership-development programs in the last two years. Jackson cites extension’s 4-H youth-development program as an example of a classic rural “pipeline” for nurturing in young people the needed confidence, oral reasoning, and public-speaking skills necessary to become effective members of local farm bureaus, conservation boards, and planning commissions.

“We have traditionally been a place where people can uncover and develop their leadership capabilities,” says Jackson. “My concern is that we may have lost some of the emphasis on developing community leaders who can become tomorrow’s school board members, county commissioners, and so forth. Our focus is to foster an environment in which leadership is valued and create opportunities for people to identify and grow their leadership skills.