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The Maine Community Foundation is looking for a new generation of leaders: the boomer generation.

The community foundation, which is recruiting older adults for a leadership training initiative next year, is one of 10 around the country to receive funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies' Community Experience Partnership program, which supports programs aimed at increasing the civic engagement levels of baby boomers.

“We want 100 retirees in Maine who have decided to run for the school board, or who have been invited to serve on a planning board or a board of appeals, or who are running for one of the boards of selectmen in one of the rural communities, or who choose to run for the state legislature or to accept a position as a leader on a nonprofit board of directors,” said Meredith Jones, vice president of programming and grantmaking for the Maine Community Foundation (MCF).

Maine has a significant population in their 50s and beyond, many of whom have moved to the area from elsewhere to take advantage of its bucolic New England atmosphere.

"We need to seize this opportunity to begin shaping Maine for the long haul, and now is the time to do it,’” Jones said.

The new leadership program will serve the needs of those just moving into the state, who are relatively unfamiliar with the workings of local government, as well as the needs of Mainers spread out in more remote regions of the state. “How does the Maine economy work? How does the nonprofit sector work? How does government work locally? What are the intersections of all three?” Jones said.

Participants will be encouraged to develop innovative approaches to addressing regional issues, including tapping the energy, fresh perspectives and background of older adults themselves. Putting those approaches into practice may not be easy, however.

“A big obstacle is going to be that though we’ll have these 100 people that are ready to work, there may be communities that are a little less ready to have them," she said. "There is an undercurrent in some of these more rural communities about the people from here and the people from ‘away.’”