What If Every Community Had Leaders Trained to Bridge Divides?
A Shared Vision for Rebuilding Civic Life
By Wendy Thomas, NCLC Project Partner, former Director of Leadership Tulsa
Across the United States, civic life is under strain. Rising isolation, polarization, and declining community engagement threaten our ability to work together and move communities forward. For example, in 2025, only 28% of Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in nine major U.S. institutions Gallup has tracked since 1979 (including Congress, courts, media, banks, big business, and organized religion). The pandemic exacerbated a decades-long trend where fewer Americans volunteer in their communities, join civic groups, or even engage with neighbors or community events.
A proven solution exists! Community Leadership Programs (CLPs) are a vast network of civic training organizations with decades-long experience bringing people together across lines of difference to learn about their communities and build their personal leadership skills — developing leaders who build trust, bridge divides, and strengthen civic life. This network can perpetually replenish a supply of inspired, informed, diverse leaders who represent and are invested in the communities where they live and work.
Over two decades leading Leadership Tulsa, one of the nation’s most successful Community Leadership Programs, I helped connect hundreds of participants to each other, to the community, and to their own skills and passions for change. Lifelong Tulsans often left saying they learned more about their city than they ever imagined. Newcomers told me the program was when Tulsa finally felt like home. I still remember an opening retreat where an artist and a banker stayed up late sharing their vastly different life experiences—connections they later said they never expected to make. I watched alumni go on to lead major institutions, nonprofits, and capital campaigns; run for public office; start neighborhood associations; and become effective volunteers, leaders, and advocates for their community.
The National Community Leadership Collaborative (NCLC) was created to ensure this work reaches its full potential. Our new strategic plan outlines a bold, coordinated national approach to elevate and expand the impact of Community Leadership Programs nationwide.
Our Mission
NCLC exists to elevate the national and local impact of Community Leadership Programs by using shared strategy, collaborative research, and joint ventures that strengthen civic leadership across the country. While CLPs are transforming communities every day, their impact has largely remained local. This moment calls for alignment, scale, and a shared national voice.
The Challenge AND the Opportunity
Civic culture in the U.S. is eroding, but the solution is already in our communities. Participation in CLPs must grow, and their impact must be more visible and better supported. NCLC’s strategy responds with urgency and optimism—bringing CLPs together to learn from one another, tell a collective story, and expand access to civic leadership development.
What Success Looks Like
Our work will result in stronger, more connected CLPs with the capacity to collaborate nationally; a growing network of trained facilitators and coaches; participants with measurable gains in civic leadership skills; and funders and alumni deeply invested in sustaining this work for future generations.
Four Strategic Priorities
Lead in Impact Measurement and Storytelling
NCLC will implement shared measurement tools, collect national outcomes data, and pair evidence with powerful storytelling. Through research partnerships, public awareness efforts, and tools for local CLPs, we will elevate the visibility and credibility of civic leadership nationwide.Scale Impact Through Proven Practices
We will serve as a national resource engine—co‑developing a Leading Across Differences curriculum, supporting communities of practice, launching Centers of Excellence, and connecting funders and civic initiatives to CLPs.Drive Innovation in Shared Solutions
NCLC will help CLPs work smarter together by exploring shared staffing models, technology solutions, and learning exchanges focused on today’s most pressing civic challenges.Establish Organizational Independence
To sustain this work, NCLC will move out of its informal “start-up” phase and begin formalizing governance, strategic funding partnerships, and a phased staffing plan to support our growth.
Moving Forward => Together
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”— Helen Keller
Rebuilding civic life requires collective action. NCLC’s strategic plan reflects our belief that leadership development is strongest when it is shared, connected, and supported at scale. If you have never participated in the Community Leadership Program, we invite you to visit our website National Community Leadership Collaborative to find a program near you. If you are already active in a CLP, and this collaborative work speaks to you, please reach out to team@nclcpartners.org so we can find ways to engage and collaborate together.