Reaching out to Boomers!
by Nancy Fernandez Mills
As the National Center for Outreach meets in Boston this week, the team behind Boomers! Redefining Life After 50 is making outreach plans of our own! We want to welcome you to Boston! We hope to extend the reach of our new 13-part series into your local communities. We intend to work with each public television station to reach Baby Boomers who want to live with passion and purpose in their 50's and beyond.
Boomers are going through many transitions...kids are moving out, parents are getting older and perhaps more frail, relationships are changing, homes are too big or need renovating, retirement is looming and bodies need attention. Boomers are also seeking meaningful experiences and connections. We want to work with you to help them make those connections, on the web and in person!
Beginning in January, 2006, our television series will explore the lifestyle of the nation's "leading edge" Baby Boomers. The series will create opportunities for community partnerships, informal educational opportunities and collaborative activities. We are reaching out to national membership organizations who might help us bring Boomers together, to connect them with experts and resources that will help them make career transitions, care for aging parents, save for retirement, build a new business, volunteer for good, travel with a purpose and stay healthy.
Boomer Media Properties, producer of the Boomers! series, is based in Newton, just outside of Boston. We're happy to have you visiting our beautiful city. We hope you have a successful conference! And we hope that you'll stay tuned to our website and our blog and watch for our new show - coming in early 2006 to a public television station that you know and love!
As the National Center for Outreach meets in Boston this week, the team behind Boomers! Redefining Life After 50 is making outreach plans of our own! We want to welcome you to Boston! We hope to extend the reach of our new 13-part series into your local communities. We intend to work with each public television station to reach Baby Boomers who want to live with passion and purpose in their 50's and beyond.
Boomers are going through many transitions...kids are moving out, parents are getting older and perhaps more frail, relationships are changing, homes are too big or need renovating, retirement is looming and bodies need attention. Boomers are also seeking meaningful experiences and connections. We want to work with you to help them make those connections, on the web and in person!
Beginning in January, 2006, our television series will explore the lifestyle of the nation's "leading edge" Baby Boomers. The series will create opportunities for community partnerships, informal educational opportunities and collaborative activities. We are reaching out to national membership organizations who might help us bring Boomers together, to connect them with experts and resources that will help them make career transitions, care for aging parents, save for retirement, build a new business, volunteer for good, travel with a purpose and stay healthy.
Boomer Media Properties, producer of the Boomers! series, is based in Newton, just outside of Boston. We're happy to have you visiting our beautiful city. We hope you have a successful conference! And we hope that you'll stay tuned to our website and our blog and watch for our new show - coming in early 2006 to a public television station that you know and love!
posted at 5:15 PM
1 Comments:
Subject: Boomers Will Work Longer, But Doing What?
Hello,
Did you read The Wall Street Journal article today, “Public-Service Jobs Attract Soon-to-Be Retirees”?
Briefly, the article (also pasted below) is about the groundbreaking new MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures New Face of Work Survey that shows that most baby boomers want jobs now and in retirement that give them a “sense of purpose,” that improve life in their communities, and that help those in need.
It is the first survey to ask those in their 50s (baby boomers) and 60s (pre-boomers) what type of work they aspire to, what they want to accomplish through this work, and why they want to do it. Previous surveys have shown that baby boomers plan to work, whether full or part time.
In conjunction with the survey release, MetLife and Civic Ventures also are releasing today The Boomer’s Guide to Good Work, a free online pamphlet designed to help baby boomers find public service jobs – whether full or part time – in the second half of life.
If you appreciate this information, I hope you’ll consider posting something about the survey and/or guide on [BLOG].
You can access the The Boomer’s Guide to Good Work at: http://www.civicventures.org/422.html and the The MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures New Face of Work Survey at: http://www.civicventures.org/13.html.
The Boomers’ Guide to Good Work includes:
Dozens of web sites, books, and organizations that offer information about the nonprofit sector, including job descriptions, salaries, and job listings.
Advice on how to package experience as an asset and confront potential age discrimination.
A look at job openings and retraining options in the fields of education, health care, and nonprofit work.
Useful web sites for those thinking of working in education or health care.
Examples of how some employers are making adjustments to prevent an experience drain and encourage older adults to enter the field.
• Real-life examples of personal transitions to second careers. For example, Jo Manhart left a successful career working for a trade association to start an employment agency in her hometown of Columbia, Missouri, to help older workers find jobs.
While experts warn us of growing labor shortages in important fields such as education, health care, and services for the poor and elderly, many baby boomers say they want to take on jobs in these fields in their next career. It could be a match that makes everyone happy!
The guide was written by Ellen Freudenheim, author of Looking Forward: An Optimist’s Guide to Retirement (Stewart, Tabori and Chang 2004), a bestselling retirement lifestyle book recommended in The Wall Street Journal.
Please let me know if you will help us share these valuable resources with your readers by linking to the guide and survey report from your blog. I’m also happy to provide you with a short blurb to post if that makes it easier.
If you have any questions about any of the above, please contact me at 202-478-6135.
Thanks for consideration.
Best,
Steve Bosk
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Civic Ventures (www.civicventures.org) is a think tank and incubator, generating ideas and inventing programs to help society achieve the greatest return on experience.
MetLife Foundation (www.metlife.org) was established in 1976 by MetLife to carry on its longstanding tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. In the area of aging, the Foundation funds programs that promote healthy aging and address issues of caregiving, intergenerational activities, mental fitness and volunteerism.
The Wall Street Journal
June 16, 2005
PERSONAL JOURNAL
Public-Service Jobs Attract Soon-to-Be Retirees
By KELLY GREENE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 16, 2005; Page D2
Baby boomers nearing traditional retirement age want to give back in later life -- but some of them would like to get paid while they do it.
Rather than volunteering during their retirement years, 58% of adults in their 50s are interested in taking jobs now, or working in retirement, to help improve the quality of life in their communities, according to a study being released today by Civic Ventures, a San Francisco nonprofit whose goal is to provide more opportunities for seniors. The work was funded by MetLife Inc.'s MetLife Foundation.
And 21% of the 50-to-59-year-olds surveyed said they are very interested in careers in one of several altruistic areas: education, health care, helping those in need, working with youth, civic activism, arts and culture, or the environment.
"That's the most encouraging finding of this research -- what they want to do is what we need people to do, where we're desperate to find human beings with a lot of talent," said Marc Freedman, Civic Ventures' president and founder.
Recruiters in the education field, for example, are predicting 150,000 to 250,000 openings for teachers in the next 10 years, according to Recruiting New Teachers Inc., a Belmont, Mass., nonprofit. As of last year, an estimated 110,000 nursing jobs at hospitals were vacant, according to the American Hospital Association, despite a recent uptick in hiring.
The fact that people in their 50s are interested in making such a shift "means you can have a whole other body of work that might be really new and different," Mr. Freedman said.
The study is titled "New Face of Work Survey." Princeton Survey Research Associates International interviewed 1,000 people in the 50-to-70 age group by phone from March 7 through April 11. The overall findings have a three-percentage-point margin of error. (Two-thirds of those surveyed in their 50s, and 27% of those aged 60 to 70, were still working.)
For example, Joyce Roche, 58, ditched a high-powered career as a beauty-industry marketer five years ago to become chief executive of Girls Inc. in New York, formerly known as Girls Clubs of America. She sought out nonprofit work after doing pro bono consulting for a few local groups.
"It struck me that the skill I had honed for 25 years in the corporate world seemed to have such a significant impact on these nonprofits," she said.
Now, she feels liberated by not having to make decisions to "make the numbers for the quarter," she said. "At Girls Inc., I make decisions for one reason -- what do I think is best for the organization? That's such a relief and gift, because it's never compromised."
She found her job with the help of a recruiter. In the survey, though, nearly half of the respondents (48%) anticipated that it would be tough to snag a service-oriented position. And 60% (58% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats) strongly supported the idea of giving a tax credit for older people actually working in schools or social services.
"Unless we meet them halfway, we're going to lose one of the best opportunities in the whole demographic shift," Mr. Freedman said. "We need to do as good a job marketing a new career in public service as we are doing marketing a new career in retail. We have a lot to learn from places like Wal-Mart and Home Depot who have reached out and created a sense of excitement about this stage of work."
Write to Kelly Greene at kelly.greene@wsj.com3
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://www.careerjournal.com
(2) http://www.careerjournal.com
(3) mailto:kelly.greene@wsj.com
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