You’ve come a long way, baby! We’re living longer than ever – average life expectancy for women is now over 80 years, 81.3 to be exact. With ten thousand people turning 65 every day in this country, ‘seniors’ (those aged 55 or older) are approaching 30% (28.5) of the U.S. population.
This means that there are lots of us who have a tremendous talent to offer the world as we retire with lots of time left to offer it.
A new wave of initiatives have cropped up to address this skill-rich, growing demographic with potentially meaningful opportunities. The basic tenet is to match an individual with an organization that can put their skills to use, generally on a less-than-full-time basis to allow other time for typical retirement activities such as travel and time with grandkids.
These types of programs are a great way to bring meaning and purpose to fully or semi-retired individuals who many times need to fill the time and void left when they stop working.
There are many people in this situation who want a second act at the intersection of passion, purpose and perhaps a paycheck, even if not at the same level of pay as pre-retirement.
“It’s basically an internship for grown-ups”, says Marc Freedman, founder of encore.org which offers ‘fellowships’ for baby boomers to support nonprofit organizations.
These offerings of time and talent can take a couple forms:
The work can also be paid or unpaid:
Some programs are cropping up to engage this demographic in meaningful work.
As one example, sisters Tina Pennington and Mandy Williams teach financial management to high school students and prison inmates. Or another example, Ashok Desai, previously with Cisco and Sun Microsystems, who now works with the economically-disadvantages and seniors.
This video shares a good example of Surinder Tuli’s support of the Mesa, Arizona United Way.
What a great way to use your post-retirement time and talent to make a meaningful contribution to your community!
For more ideas and help in planning your transition, take a look at our Second Acts program. It offers you a safe place to reinvent yourself, to collaborate, provide support to change and update skill sets, and the opportunity to be inspired by other powerful women