Purpose Prize Innovation Network

Join in the discussions with all Purpose Prize Winners and Fellows and other social innovators. This is a special group for use by social innovators, and Purpose Prize winners or fellows since 2006.

You can post questions or ideas for feedback from a dynamic set of winners and fellows who understand what it takes to be a social innovator working to make the world a better place.

Discussions

Log in to start a discussion

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg talks in this video about his delight at discovering the term "encore career" and mentions his own encore career in public service, where he says he is "doing the most important and intense work of my life."

Global Partnership for Afghanistan Helps Farmers Prosper

Purpose Prize Fellow Dana Freyer sends along the news that CNN World Report has picked up a film clip from NATO TV that shows how the Global Partnership for Afghanistan is helping Afghan farmers prosper and giving them a vested interest in a peaceful Afghanistan.

The three-minute segment features GPFA staff and farmers in Guldara district, north of Kabul, where GPFA began its work in 2004. Please share this link with your friends.

Hello I am happy to be here.

I am going for a bike ride but will explore later!
Carolyn

The Image of Older Americans and The Purpose Prize

Has the image of the role of older Americans evolved since The Purpose Prize was introduced in 2006? That's the question Civic Ventures is trying to answer with a research project that looks at how the mainstream media portray adults in the second half of life.

Bids for the project are due October 1. Click here for details.

Do you think the image of Americans in the media has changed in the past three years?

New Database Will Spread Information About Social Entrepreneurs

Peter Panepento of The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports:

What if there was an easy way for the public to get detailed information about the work of some of the world’s most successful social entrepreneurs?

Would it lead to better ideas that could someday solve some of the world’s most pressing problems?

The Skoll Foundation, PopTech, ideablob, and Civic Ventures are about to find out.

Washington, D.C., & Webcast: Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship

"How Technology Is Knocking Down Doors and Fueling Social Innovation." How are you using technology to expand opportunities for social change? When do you grab hold of your computer or your PDA to stay connected to others who are serving the greater good?


Podcasts Available from the Summit

Two of the most provocative sessions at the 2008 Encore Careers Summit, "Lessons for a New Social Movement" and "Journeying Through Multiple Careers," are now available podcasts as part of Stanford's series of Social Innovation Conversations

In "Lessons for a New Social Movement," four distinguished panelists discuss the origins of three great social movements in the United States: the women's movement, the civil rights movement and the environmental movement and explore the lessons for the encore careers movement as it seeks to harness the energy of people over age 50 to tackle urgent social challenges.

An idea won't work unless you do

Our company, MIA Consulting, was the first to bring services to individuals where they live, thus avoiding unnecessary institutionalization and cost. To achieve economies of scale, our service delivery model first catered to public housing residents, serving a large and permanent concentration of low-income seniors and disabled adults with common needs.

Finding one’s compass in trying economic times

Editor's note: Barbara Cervone, 2008 Purpose Prize winner, launched What Kids Can Do (WKCD) in 2001 to bring youth voices and action to the attention of the larger media, educators and communities.

To call the current economic times "trying" seems an understatement. For those of us leading small nonprofits aimed at helping, healing, restoring, and change, the times seem more like a perfect storm. The needs that inspired us to step up and out are more compelling than ever, while the funds that previously supported our work shrink like ice caps in Antarctica. Staying afloat competes with taking risks. The temptation to "go where the money is" (assuming there is money) can end up in "mission creep."

As someone who lived through what now seem like lesser storms in the 80's and 90's--as a school reformer and grant maker--I thought I knew the dilemmas that face change-driven nonprofits in tough times. But that was before I took the helm of my own nonprofit (who had heard of an "encore career"?) and the term "global economic meltdown" entered our vocabulary.

New 30-second Purpose Prize promotional video

We've created a short Web video spot to seek nominations for this year's Prize. There are only two weeks left before the March 5 deadline, so please spread the word by posting this widely on your Web sites, on blogs you like, and in email to friends.

here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3RVIDZk__s

here's the video:

Finding good English teachers/ A major challenge

ASSET India Foundation provides English language and computer instruction to children of sex workers and girls rescued from trafficking in major cities in India. We presently have seven centers and will be adding three more by the end of the year.

Obama Leading by Modeling and Showing Respect

On December 17 I posted a comment on a Salon article dealing with Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan as secretary of education. The announcement took place at a Chicago elementary school. Obama had a conversation with first to fourth graders.

Here's what I posted corrected for spelling, grammar and clarity.


RetirementRevised.com: Purpose Prize winner helps immigrants adjust

Fargo, N.D., is known for cold winters and a population descended from Scandinavian and German immigrants. The town is 94 percent white and it’s an aging community–one in five residents is over age 55. But Fargo–actually a part of the bigger Fargo-Moorhead metro area that straddles North Dakota and Minnesota–isn’t a stranger to diversity.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

Encore.org member David Leopard writes:

When are we going to start talking about doing something to ensure these programs continue to exist for our children and grandchildren. Congress refuses to discuss it but  we all know this is going to be a much bigger crisis than we have now unless we as a nation start addressing it.

grants/ web sites

I would like to know of some good inexpensive web sites i can start up in order to do a better job of communicating to the people of Texas regarding legislation I am interesting in getting passed.

 

Also, where can I get grant money to use for this purpose as well. I need to do some intra state travel in order to work with advocacy groups and legisative assitants to pursue this goal

GROWING POWER: Recognition of Older Innovators

Encore.org member David Cohen, a senior fellow at Experience Corps, contributed this comment:

Choosing Will Allen, the Milwaukee urban farmer, for a MacArthur genius award gave me great pleasure.

I was part of a team at the Advocacy Institute--with key colleagues Sharvell Becton, Laura Chambers, Keiko Koizumi and Kathleen Sheekey-- that worked on the Leadership for a Changing World Program (LCW) in partnership with the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wagner School of Public Service at New York University (NYU).

Our purpose was to award through varieties of recognition, including money, social change leadership that tackled intractable social problems systemically and systematically. Our focus was to find those leaders whose leadership made a difference in people's lives but who were largely unrecognized.


Social Enterprise Conference, Pepperdine U.

"Join the Revolution through Social Enterprise" is a one-day conference on social entrepreneurship sponsored by the Geoffrey H Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law at Pepperdine University.


PURPOSE PRIZE INNOVATION NETWORK: Milestones Project honored by NEA

Nearly 10 years ago, Richard and Michele Steckel decided they couldn't sit by and just watch as people all over the world experienced the mayhem of ethnic cleansing, race riots and hatred.

To bridge divides, they sought to chronicle in photographs the humanity shared by all people - a project that led to a traveling exhibit they named "The Milestones Project."

The Steckels, 2007 Purpose Prize fellows, have now been honored by the National Education Association with its "Author-Illustrator Human and Civil Rights Award."


ENCORE NATION: "All life is an experiment"

From Encore Nation member Bill Siemering... Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make , the better”  To me, that means we’re trying new things and learning all through our lives. How wonderful and exciting to live life like this, curious, not knowing how the experiment will work out.

When someone asked Thomas Edison about his years of failure before he was recognized as a distinguished inventor, he replied, “I never had any failures. I learned what didn’t work.”Of course we learn without experiments too. I feel I’m learning all the time, picking up bits of information in the market, having a conversation that twists my mind like a kaleidoscope, so I see new forms from an old image.

One of the joys of traveling to developing countries is to see the world freshly from another perspective.People with very limited material wealth are rich in generosity of spirit, dedication to excellence in their work and in building vibrant communities.

THE BIG QUESTIONS: A tribute to Sir John Templeton

The passing of Sir John Templeton provides an opportunity to reflect on "The Big Questions" that were the focus of his philanthropic work.

Templeton, one of the world's leading investors and philanthropists, died today in Nassau, Bahamas. He was 95. A native of Tennessee, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987 for the philanthropic work he pursued in his encore career.

In 2006, the John Templeton Foundation helped establish The Purpose Prize to recognize social innovators over 60 with awards of up to $100,000, and remains a major funder. (The Purpose Prize is a project of Civic Ventures, publisher of Encore.org.)


Syndicate content