As a young professional living and working in Kansas, Joseph Shepard says he's seen first-hand the state's loss of young talent to other parts of the country.
But he's also seen first-hand the meaningful work that's within the grasp of young professionals if they know where to look.
"As someone who's a transplant to Kansas from California, often we hear about the brain drain, but we don't talk about the people who are coming and who are staying, and the beauty and the strengths about our state that attracts them to stay," said Shepard, 28, who is now director of a statewide nonprofit called Lead for Kansas.
Lead for Kansas is an affiliate of the national Lead for America, which started in 2018 with the goal of putting the nation's passionate, young talent in front of their communities' toughest challenges.
Its fellowship program places young people in the workplace at municipalities, colleges, nonprofits and other host sites for two-year fellowships. So far, Lead for America has placed 93 fellows in 81 communities.
The national organization, co-founded by an Overland Park native, relocated its headquarters last year from North Carolina to Dodge City, and launched a Kansas affiliate organization at the same time. Shepard was hired to lead it in April.
Shepard, who most recently was director of Multicultural Engagement and Campus Life at Newman University, has been an active community leader in Wichita since he was a student at Wichita State University. Although he was unsuccessful, he campaigned for two local public office seats — a spot on the Wichita school board in 2019 and for the vacant District 3 seat on the City Council earlier this year.
Having tried to tackle it himself, Shepard says there's no shortage of important work here for young people.
"What we have found is when young professionals are given that opportunity, they're more than likely to stay in their hometown and really invest in the city that they call home, and the state that they call home, and strengthen the local economy, because they realize they don't need to leave to make a difference," Shepard said.
Lead for Kansas's inaugural two-year fellowship program begins in August, starting with 11 fellows at 10 host sites across the state.
Dodge City, for example, will host an intern that will add critical capacity to the city's engineering department as it continues to improve its infrastructure to support new private and public development.
One of the fellowships in Wichita is a partnership with local nonprofit Empower Evergreen, working to close the digital divide with the city's Hispanic-owned businesses, children and families.
"From rural to urban, we have fellowship placements all across the state of Kansas," Shepard said. "We have found talented, young professionals who are able to come in and use their energy and expertise and innovation to work alongside these entities that have leaders who have the wisdom and the institutional knowledge. What we have found is when we pair those two together, it creates a recipe for success."
The fellows themselves are typically recent college graduates or young people already practicing leadership in their communities. The ideal fellow also has some kind of touch point with Kansas — as either natives who went away to college, or who are here attending school from out of state.
At the end of the two years, Shepard said historically the host sites have offered the fellows full-time jobs.
"We're meeting our need of talent retention, right? And that's our goal, so it's a victory for us," he said. "And on the flip side of that, that tells us that we're helping companies and organizations fill a gap."
