Despite difficult economic times, volunteering has increased dramatically in the past few years. A recent study found that the number of Americans volunteering in their communities increased by 1.6 million in 2009 – the largest increase in six years. Stephen Anfield's volunteering gig at AARP eventually led to a part-time job there. His experience at AARP helped him land full-time work promoting encore careers at Civic Ventures.

Yes, Americans are getting older. But that creates opportunities for baby boomers looking for an encore career. “As tens of millions of people live into their 80s and 90s, we’ll need millions of others in their 50s and 60s and 70s to help care for them – not just within families, but through second careers,” says Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures.

Brands are beginning to establish best practices communicating with their customers and prospects on Facebook and Twitter. But many companies large and small have yet to fully leverage the social network for professionals, LinkedIn. Civic Ventures, a non-profit think tank on boomers, work and social purpose, uses a LinkedIn group to showcase its organization. The tiny non-profit has managed to attract over 1,200 people to the group in a short period of time.

Every day, 8,000 Americans turn 60 and many can expect 100-year life spans. The length of retirement for centenarians could be more than 30 years. Not everyone finds the prospect of three decades of leisure time enviable, much less sensible. For Marc Freedman, author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife, it is also an egregious waste of the talent and experience accumulated by nearly 80 million boomers.

Millions of Americans are looking for work, and some 400,000 apply for unemployment benefits each week. Thousands more have exhausted all their jobless benefits. So when some companies posted open jobs, and stated the unemployed need not apply, a firestorm erupted. Now Congress is getting involved. Marci Alboher, vice president at Civic Ventures, weighs in on the issues.

We celebrate individuals from time to time for breaking new ground or delivering creative, efficient solutions to public problems. But rarely do we pay attention to where tomorrow's innovators will come from. At City Year and Civic Ventures, this "new pipeline" approach is built into the mission of our organizations. We share an expectation that we should be engaging people in solving, or building capacity to solve, their communities' problems.

With unemployment high and retirement savings low, hundreds of thousands of people over 50 are turning to college programs to boost their job skills. But given the rising costs of tuition, is it worth the money? Marci Alboher, VP at Civic Ventures, offers advice for this quickly growing demographic.