Putting Older Americans to Work for Good Causes: Award Winners

Two sets of awards have been announced to honor organizations that put older Americans into volunteer

and paid jobs at nonprofit and government organizations.

RespectAbility, in Washington, a program of the National Council on Aging, awarded two-year, $40,000 grants to 12 organizations that will develop demonstration projects to attract adults age 55 and older to fill leadership roles at nonprofit groups.

Money was provided by the Atlantic Philanthropies.

The winners of the new “Models of Significant Service” grants are:

Action for Boston Community Development. The antipoverty group will work on a project to recruit volunteers for professional and managerial positions.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Serving King, Pierce, & Jefferson Counties, Seattle. The group will recruit leaders to strengthen a satellite program in Jefferson County.

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The university will create a project to recruit groups of volunteer “nonprofit-advancement officers.”

Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership of Marin, San Rafael, Calif. Leadership teams at the center will provide free consulting services to help nonprofit groups improve their operations.

Community Service Society, New York. The social-welfare agency will expand its Retired and Senior Volunteer Program — the federal volunteer program for older adults — to include training on ways to develop volunteer leadership assignments.

Executive Service Corps of Chicago. The consulting group will develop a program to provide interim executive-director services for organizations that need temporary leadership.

Horizon Health, Pierz, Minn. The housing and health-care organization will tap older volunteers to help improve its fund-raising, volunteer-management, and project-development activities.

Jewish Federation of St. Louis. The group will develop a strategic plan for its Naturally Occurring Retirement Community project, which provides services to a neighborhood with a high percentage of people ages 65 and older.

Madison Senior Center Foundation, Wis. The foundation will tap teams of volunteers to help the Madison Senior Center with public relations, marketing, program development, and expansion.

Mather LifeWays and Council for Jewish Elderly, Chicago. The two groups will work jointly to help local organizations create leadership roles for older volunteers.

Southern Maine Agency on Aging, Scarborough. The organization will develop a project within its Retired and Senior Volunteer Program to use professional-level volunteers to help nonprofit groups improve their operations.

Research Foundation, State University of New York at Albany. The foundation will create an eight-member Vision Council to guide “reinventing retirement” projects to engage older adults.

More information about RespectAbility is available at the council’s Web site.

The nonprofit organization Civic Ventures, in San Francisco, and the MetLife Foundation, in New York, created the BreakThrough Awards as part of a broader effort to promote projects to tap the experience and skills of older people. The winners of the first round of prizes are:

Allied Coordinated Transportation Services, a project of the Lawrence County Community Action Partnership, New Castle, Pa. The group uses drivers age 50 and older to transport older adults, disabled people, and children whose mothers are in welfare-to-work programs.

Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages Regional Hospital, Fla. The center created a program to recruit and retain older workers.

Mature Worker Connection, a program of the Pima Council on Aging, Tucson. The group offers free job-placement services for people ages 50 and older.

Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency of the Bluegrass, Lexington, Ky. The organization hires older people to serve as paid ombudsmen to advocate for nursing-home residents and help them with tasks and errands.

Older Workers Leading Success, a program of Cleveland Metroparks, the government agency that operates city parks and recreational facilities. With money from the Cleveland Foundation, the agency creates programs to hire older workers for part-time and seasonal positions.

Rainbow Intergenerational Child Care, a program of the Little Havana Activities and Nutrition Centers of Dade County, Miami. All 30 employees of this program are state-certified child-care workers who are at least 50 years old.

ReServe, New York. The group places skilled older workers, who receive a stipend, in part-time jobs with nonprofit groups and city agencies.

Retiree Work Opportunities Program, University of California at Berkeley. The university created a Web site to connect retired staff members to short-term or part-time campus jobs.

Troops to Teachers, Washington. This federal program places retired military personnel in jobs as public-school teachers.

The YMCA of Greater Rochester, N.Y. The organization created a program to recruit employees ages 55 and older, offering flexible working conditions such as job sharing and part-time positions.

Details about the awards are available on the Civic Ventures Web site.