Abstract.   Since the late 1990s the number of rural community development groups in Lithuania had grown exponentially. The paper presents results of one of the first representative surveys of rural NGOs (N=326) in Lithuania designed to evaluate their structure and resources. Unlike civic organizing during the perestroika period which was characterized by charismatic personalities and organizational innovations, the most recent surge in rural activism follows path-dependent trajectory. The movement is lead by representatives of former collective farm or kolkhoz intelligentsia (white-collar professionals who served kolkhoz social infrastructure during Soviet times) engaged in reconstituting volunteer groups based on a modified Soviet era institution of the rural "culture house" or Soviet civic center (SCC). Prevalence of the SCC based rural organizing model provided opportunities as well as structured and imposed limitations on post-socialist civic activism. Community development groups were relatively successful in types of activities in which SCC were effective as well (i.e., culture, leisure, sports), while capacities to deliver social services were marginal. Although the survey reported relatively high levels of community groups' engagement with local and county governments, their influence remained constrained by the paternalistic, client-patron type of power relationships prevalent in rural areas.