> I think the online side is good (and the free Essex Ham course is brilliant) but once you pass there's nothing pointing you a what to do next.
That's the problem I had in Canada. I passed my exam, showed up to a local club meeting, and was like "Now what?" "Whatever you want." "I don't know what I want." "Whatever you want!"
Myself and one other young member of the club tried suggesting some local events we could offer services to to provide members a public service opportunity, their answer was "We don't go to them. They come to us." (Spoiler Alert: They don't come to us.)
I've sinced moved somewhere that has a very active emergency communications group that's well tied in with the city's emergency response plans and the police and works proactively with the city to provide communication for many large public events. That very quickly evolved into getting much more into the hobby as there was suddenly a _purpose_ to what I was doing. Testing equipment, fixing and maintaining equipment, solving problems _with_ radio (we need to link point A to point B -- what do?!) practicing emergency communications, etc. And once you get in to the hobby, it's much easier to branch out into adjacent areas as opportunities come up.
I think a big part of getting more people actively involved could just be... providing things for them to do. Where I used to live the question "Why should I get an amateur radio license?" was hard to answer. It's an incredibly easy sell where I am now to get people interested and involved as part of an emergency preparedness and public service group. It's all the feel good of volunteer work with all the fun of playing with a bunch of electronics and technical stuff. There are a lot of people that appeals to.