“What if we looked at our aging population not as a problem, but as an army of experienced problem solvers available to solve social issues?”
— Marci Alboher
I host a weekly radio show on SiriusXM 111, Business Radio Powered by Wharton, called Work and Life. We publish edited versions of my conversations as free podcasts. I invite you to listen to the episode (embedded below) that is my conversation with Marci Alboher, Vice President at Encore.org, a nonprofit making it easier for millions of older people to pursue second acts in their career. Marci is the author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Lifeand also One Person/Multiple Careers: The Original Guide to the Slash “/” Career. She’s a former blogger and columnist for The New York Times and serves on the board of Girls Write Now, the advisory council of Echoing Green’s Work on Purpose, and the advisory board of The OpEd Project.
In this episode, we talk about the many ways Encore is enabling older people to have a large impact on their communities by applying their wisdom gained from years of professional experience. One such way, called Generation to Generation, has the ambitious goal of mobilizing a million adults over 50. Marci also explains how another program, the Encore Fellowship, helps experienced professionals transition to mission-driven work in the nonprofit sector. We talk about what holds older people back professionally and the steps they can take to overcome these inhibitors to change.
Bonus feature: Here’s a transcript of an earlier conversation with Marci, one of the very first radio shows on Wharton and SiriusXM’s Work and Life.