Lead for North Carolina

The Lead for North Carolina Fellowship is a launching pad for a lifelong career of leadership and public service. We are looking for our nation’s most outstanding young people who aspire to positions of significant public responsibility in their communities, states, and country, and who are committed to leading with courage and integrity.

Why we exist

Here in North Carolina, 70% of local government leaders are eligible to retire. Nationally, our country has rarely been more divided than it is today. Over 75% of each party sees strong supporters from the opposite party as a “clear and present danger” to American democracy. Study after study shows increasingly stark disagreement on the economy, racial justice, immigration, climate, law enforcement, international affairs, and a long list of other issues. Meanwhile, our communities and the American people are hurting. Even before the pandemic, life expectancy had declined for three of the previous four years, and record numbers of Americans were dying of suicide and drug overdose. Communities and neighborhoods that were once thriving are shrinking and fighting for economic survival. Challenges of poverty, homelessness, and illiteracy continue as we confront the pandemic and increasing division.

At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform and renewal have often arisen from the local level and a new generation of leadership. As a nonpartisan organization at the UNC School of Government, Lead for North Carolina aims to be part of the solution by cultivating a leadership force of our nation’s most outstanding young leaders, each committed to serving and building bridges in communities across the state. We believe that there is common ground, mutual respect, and even friendship to be found through a shared commitment to place and to service.

Lead for North Carolina is a state affiliate of Lead For America. Lead For America believes that building stronger communities, and a stronger America, starts by serving and leading, where you live. As a nonpartisan, 501(c)3 nonprofit, Lead For America is building a leadership force of our nation’s most outstanding young leaders, who will make their communities stronger, change the narrative about what communities are worthy of investment, build friendships across lines of difference, and bring their experiences and relationships with one another to the highest levels of leadership in their communities and American life for decades to come. Lead for North Carolina is housed at the UNC School of Government, the nation's largest university-based local government training center.