Marc Freedman « Skoll Foundation

Civic Ventures

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Marc Freedman
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Education and Economic Opportunity
Award Year: 2010

(Click here to print)

DESCRIPTION:

Marc Freedman founded Civic Ventures—now called Encore.org—in 1998 to find caring, committed adults to help young people growing up in poverty — as mentors, teachers and youthworkers. His belief that the vast and growing older population could serve as a critical resource for children led him to spearhead the development of Experience Corps, now a highly successful tutoring and mentoring program helping 20,000 children in 20 cities. In the years since, Freedman founded The Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award for social innovators over age 60. His newest goal is to get millions of boomers to pour their life experience into “encore careers,” that combine personal meaning, continued income and social impact. This new and growing workforce for social change could solve some of society’s toughest problems — from education to the environment, health care to homelessness.

IMPACT AS OF JAN. 2013:

Their new book, “The Encore Career Handbook,” is a comprehensive, nuts-and-bolts guide to finding passion, purpose and a paycheck in the second half of life.
Civic Ventures developed Experience Corps, the largest national service program in America mobilizing individuals over age 55 for social change. It operates in 20 cities, serving 20,000 children in grades K thru 3. Independent evaluation shows Experience Corps has a powerful impact on children’s reading comprehension (equivalent to small class size), while improving the well-being of the Experience Corps members.
The Purpose Prize is transforming perceptions of the capacity of individuals over age 60 to solve the big problems facing the world. To date, the prize has attracted 4,000 nominations for 55 prizes.
CV’s Encore Fellowships initiative delivers new sources of talent to organizations solving critical social problems. These paid, time-limited Fellowships match skilled, experienced professionals at the end of their midlife careers with social-purpose organizations. While they are working, the Fellows earn a stipend, learn about social-purpose work, and develop a new network of contacts and resources for the future. Following the model of the highly successful 2009 pilot, Encore Fellowship opportunities are now in Arizona, California, New York, Oregon, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Washington, and Washington D.C. – all members of a collaborative network.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR WORK:

Tonight we honor nine individuals representing seven organizations doing work in environmental sustainability, economic opportunity, community development and conflict resolution .

They work throughout the world in the U.S. Africa, Indonesia, Latin America, Afghanistan, and beyond.

Jeff? Would you come join me?

First up will be Civic Ventures and Marc Freedman. More than 20 years ago Marc took note of three seemingly unrelated trends and connected the dots.

Baby boomers were getting older , he had a number of baby boomer friends who had spent their careers making money but were now interested in doing something more meaningful and existing systems were falling short of solving society' s problems.

His answer was Civic Ventures. A think and do tank leading the call to engage millions of older Americans in the work of rebuilding their communities.
Through The Experience Corp. one of Civic Ventures programs 2000 older Americans mentor 20,000 poor children in twenty two American cities.

Marc has pioneered the concept of encore careers a way for older adults to combine continued income, meaning and social impact.

And Civic Ventures purpose prize has bought national recognition and funding to 60 remarkable social entrepreneurs.

Some well into their sixties and seventies. Marc Freedman.

The writer William Gibson says the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed and when it comes to the launching longevity revolution. The doubling of life expectancy in the developed world over the last century.

The verdict for the future's already in.

We hear about the gray tsunami, the coming population bomb, that long gray wave of greedy geezers about to bankrupt posterity, but come to the score world formers have had the chance to do the three years been a very different picture, a possibility emerges.

People like Jimmy Carter, Barry Robinson the other elders, Al Gore, people who have taken this period of life which used to be the leftover years when people were discarded, sent to the sidelines, and created out of it a monument.

Leaving a legacy not just leaving one, and provided a sense of hope for so many others who are entering that juncture right now. They are not alone.

They are absolutely not alone.

50 percent of people over fifty in the United States say they want to follow that same path. They want to dedicate their lives to work in education, the environment, health, poverty.

Robert Chambers is one of them. He's one of the Purpose prize winners a few years ago.

He left his job as a used car salesman because he was appalled at how his dealership was taking advantage of the rural poor in in New Hampshire. When he was summoned to the white house last year to celebrate his work creating an organization providing fuel efficient new cars and low interest loans to the world poor.

He uttered these words, which I think any of the elders would have been proud of. He said "I was old enough to know injustice when I saw it. Then I was experienced enough to do something about it."

There are so many more who want to follow that same path and at civic ventures were trying to build a movement around those people, trying to help them go from aspirations to action.

Those who have a burning desire to go down that road and the Skoll award will help us enable tens of thousands to transition, 10,000 boomers a day and in the United States alone are turning 60.

If we can even capture a fraction of that energy, it would be a windfall of talent for the things that matter most. And it wouldn't just be talent and a windfall over the short term.

Half the children born in the developed world this year, will see their hundredth birthday. That's a potential source of renewal, at individual and social level that could last for generations to come.

And, then, just in closing I'd like to invoke the words of John Gardner to refute all of the Jeremiahs. John Gardner's mentored so many who are in this room including Sally, Jeff, he was our founding board member at Civic Ventures.

Fifty years ago he said America today faces breath taking opportunities disguised as unsolvable problems, and I can think of no better benediction for the work that we're going to try to do through the Skoll Award, and really for the work of social entrepreneurs everywhere. Thank you.

Marc Freedman