If more people take on encore careers . . . the boomers who arrived on the scene by igniting a sexual revolution could leave by staging a give-back revolution. Boomers just may be remembered more for what they did in their 60s than for what they did in the Sixties.


--Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, July 20, 2008

This December, Civic Ventures will host a summit designed to spark a movement, one that has the potential to create a new way of working in the second half of life…and an enormous force for good in our communities.

At this first-ever Encore Careers Summit, people in their encore careers, including winners of the Purpose Prize for social entrepreneurs over 60, will join with representatives of government, business, nonprofit organizations, national service, and academia for two days of talk, learning, networking and planning. Together, this vanguard will launch what could be the most significant transformation of the workplace since the women's movement.

The leading edge of the boomer generation has already begun to cross over into their 60s. Over the next two decades, some 78 million boomers will reach the age at which their parents and grandparents moved to the sidelines. Yet in a time when life expectancy is increasing and midlife careers are growing shorter, millions will discover a new stage of life between the end of midlife work and before the onset of true old age. If their talent, experience and idealism can be put to work on the biggest challenges of our times, the aging of America can become a powerful social solution, not a crippling fiscal problem.

Civic Ventures’ research shows that not only is this possible, it has already begun. A new survey by Peter Hart Research Associates finds that more than 5 million people age 44-70 have begun encore careers – work that combines continued income with personal meaning and social impact. Of those not already in encore careers, half say they want to be.
The challenges we, as a society, face – in education, poverty, health, and the environment – all require a massive infusion of human capital, experience, and ingenuity. If we can replace the Golden Years vision of a leisure retirement with a new ideal of encore careers as an aspiration for the second half of life, we can produce breathtaking results.
With that goal in mind, the inaugural Encore Careers Summit is designed to:

• Demonstrate that encore careers are already a reality, a source of pride and deep satisfaction for individuals, and a source real talent for organizations dedicated to meeting big challenges.
• Forge a community, a sense of affiliation, connection and shared identity among individuals who are in their encore careers.
• Energize organizations about the potential of people who have finished their midlife careers and encourage them to find ways to capitalize on the talent, experience and idealism of people who seek encore careers.
• Plan an Encore Careers Campaign by developing practical initiatives to address pressing national and global priorities and an infrastructure for ongoing work.
• Spark the beginning of a movement by issuing a call for baby boomers to help meet the nation’s biggest challenges through encore careers, and by making a mirror call to society to meet people halfway with policies and programs that help to make encore careers possible on a large scale.

The Encore Careers Summit will be held December 6-7 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

For more information about the Encore Careers Summit or sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jim Emerman, Vice President, Civic Ventures at (415) 222-7487 or email jemerman@civicventures.org.