Nancy Sanford Hughes

---

Some have called The Purpose Prize the “genius award for retirees.” This year's winners exemplify the spirit of the $100,000 award – the country's only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life.

The 2011 winners are:

Jenny Bowen, 66, Half the Sky Foundation, Berkeley, Calif. – A screenwriter who adopted two daughters from China in her 50s and partnered with the Chinese government to transform the care of hundreds of thousands of orphans there. (Bowen is the first winner of The Purpose Prize for Intergenerational Innovation, sponsored by AARP.)

Randal Charlton, 71, TechTown, Detroit – A serial entrepreneur who has worked to revitalize Detroit’s economy by raising millions to help new businesses grow.

Nancy Sanford Hughes, 68, StoveTeam International, Eugene, Ore. – A homemaker fighting a top killer of children in developing Latin American countries with low-cost, safe, fuel-efficient cookstoves.

Wanjiru Kamau, 69, African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation, Washington, D.C. – A former college administrator working to ease the transitions of thousands of African immigrants and refugees in the D.C. area.

Edward Mazria, 70, Architecture 2030, Santa Fe, N.M. – An architect challenging the building sector – perhaps the largest contributor of greenhouse gases – to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

The winners – and this year’s 42 new Purpose Prize fellows – are using their experience and passion to make an extraordinary impact on some of society’s biggest problems.

“The story of The Purpose Prize is about upending conventional wisdom,” said Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, “beginning with the idea that an older nation means an inevitable period of declining innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. Prize winners and fellows refute that notion every day.”

Funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation, The Purpose Prize is a program of Civic Ventures’ Encore Careers campaign, which aims to engage millions of boomers in encore careers combining personal meaning, continued income and social impact in the second half of life.

For more:

• Read the news release here.
• Brief video profiles of the five 2011 winners are here.
• To nominate yourself or someone you know for the 2012 Purpose Prize, click here.