AARP Honors Trailblazers with “The Other Side of Excellence” Award (Video)

Older people as changemakers: there’s something sweet about that.

AARP Purpose Prizewhich honors people ages 50 and older who are using their experiences and skills to create a better world, was recently awarded to seven nonprofit founders and received a $50,000 prize in recognition and support of their work.

One of this year’s winners, Jennifer Jacobs, 53, a nuclear engineer and former nuclear operations officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, began her career 13 years ago when she read an article about foster care and the difficulties of finding a family for a child.

Her years of work focused on nuclear nonproliferation and intersected with the intelligence community, whose analysts often track and detect terrorist networks. As unlikely as it may sound, the experience allowed Jacobs to understand how technology like this could help foster care professionals find the families of these children.

It didn’t happen quickly, but in 2011 she became a co-founder Connect our childrenis a technology nonprofit based in Falls Church, Virginia, that helps social workers, lawyers and volunteers do just that and provide support to both children and their families. These tools are currently used by 2,000 foster care professionals in more than 40 states and Canada.

“The stories of reunion and reunion made possible by our tools give us a daily sense of deep purpose,” Jacobs told Yahoo Finance. “There is no greater reward.”

Practical solutions to social problems

When the Purpose Prize was launched in 2005, its unofficial slogan was “the flip side of a lifetime achievement award.” Instead, the idea was to invest in things that people over 50 would do.

“What sets many Purpose Prize winners apart is not only entrepreneurial intuition, but the ability to practically solve problems rather than being wild-eyed dreamers,” said Mark Friedman, co-CEO and founder of the social impact organization CoGenerate, the group that created Prize. “They represent a sense of the possibilities of this stage of life.”

The award, now sponsored by AARP, showcases how older trailblazers are making a positive impact by working in areas such as health care, voter education, foster care and expanding financial opportunities for those who have been incarcerated.

As Jacobs realized, transition often revolves around reallocating existing expertise and skills.

The same thing happened to Jim Ansara, another award winner. After Ansara retired and sold his company, Shawmut Design and Construction, to his employees, he began to think about what to do next. While he struggled to find the answer, a charitable donation to a global non-profit Healthcare Partners led to a trip to Haiti.

It was a revelation. The depth of poverty overwhelmed him. He quickly realized that he could use his professional experience for activities beyond charitable monetary donations.

Ansara, 66, started by volunteering to help build a small hospital in Haiti. But before this could begin, an earthquake occurred. He flew to Haiti from his home near Boston to see where he could help. He learned that the country’s main hospital, the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, was completely destroyed. Then, instead of building a tiny public institution, he led the construction of a 20,5000-square-foot, 300-bed national teaching hospital in the town of Mirebalais.

This is where the concept came to life. Build Health International (BHI), a non-profit organization he co-founded to build health care facilities in poor areas. In the ten years since then, the organization has designed, built and equipped more than 200 health facilities in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa.

It was a thorny path. “Even after completing a major project in Haiti, we tried and failed many times before we succeeded,” Ansara said. “Especially in those early days, I was so grateful to the mentors, colleagues and friends who believed in our vision.”

Retirees wanting a second act return to classrooms

A growing number of midlife and older transition programs are gaining momentum across the country. Driving the trend: Baby boomers are retiring and looking for a foothold.

The programs, typically based at large universities, typically enroll about two dozen students and include four months to one year of full-time and hybrid classes. Tuition fees range from $4,000 to over $70,000.

“The idea is to create a blueprint for what you’ve done and examine it, as well as your values ​​and strengths, to figure out what you want to do next,” Anne Button, founding director of the CU Denver Change Makers program. told me. “Most of our fellows have recently retired or are about to retire and are looking to make a social impact.”

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All-inclusive retreats combine wellness with what’s next

In November I will be co-facilitating a week-long workshop at the Rising Circle Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico called Crafting an Encore: Finding Purpose, Passion, and a Paycheck in the Next Chapter to help older adults rethink their careers in midlife and beyond.

We’ll dive into what we’ve spent our entire careers learning: how to discover (and rediscover) a sense of purpose, how to use our skills and life experiences to make a difference, how to easily change with the world around us. changes, how to work alongside young leaders and how to fund that longer life we ​​hope to enjoy.

My co-director is Marcy Alboer, Vice President of CoGenerate and author of The Encore Career Guide. The two of us aren’t necessarily trying to change the world, but we want to help other people change their world.

“Our mission is to show our colleagues what we can do when we draw on decades of life experience, years of experience and passion,” Albocher said.

Kerry Hannon is a senior columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including “Everything is under control at 50+: how to succeed in the new world of work” and “Never too old to get rich.” Follow her on X @kerryhannon.

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