Retirement? Not for these Purposeful, Prize-winning Entrepreneurs
In 1996, a news report about children languishing in Chinese orphanages moved Jenny Bowen and her husband to adopt one of those orphans. Though she was at the age when most people are thinking about retirement, seeing how hands-on love helped their adopted child to thrive inspired Bowen to start a philanthropic program to help the hundreds of thousands of neglected children—almost all of them girls—living in Chinese orphanages. Today, Bowen's Berkeley, California-based Half the Sky Foundation partners with the Chinese government to teach orphanages better ways of treating children in their care.
"Jenny is a hero in China," said Wang Zhenyao, a former top Chinese official in charge of welfare. "We didn't know how to care for orphaned children, but Jenny knew. She changed me, and she changed the culture."
Jenny Bowen is one of five 2011 winners of the Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award given to social entrepreneurs in their "encore careers"—that is, people over 60 who are using what could be their retirement years to solve critical problems through innovation. Now in its sixth year, the Purpose Prize celebrates the idea that older Americans can be a dynamic resource for social capital and renewal. The program is funded in part by over $8 million in grants from the John Templeton Foundation.
"Jenny Bowen zeroed in on a problem and mobilized resources and networks to rewrite the story for thousands of vulnerable children in China," said Alexandra Cespedes Kent, who directs the Purpose Prize program for the San Francisco-based Civic Ventures, a non-profit organization focusing on Boomers and work. "Her ability to convince the government, incrementally at first, to nurture orphaned children was doubtless the culmination of a lifetime of experience as a parent, producer, screenwriter, and doer. Jenny won the Purpose Prize for seizing the opportunity to make extraordinary contributions in her encore career."
The other 2011 Purpose Prize winners are:
- Randal Charlton, 71, a serial entrepreneur who has worked to revitalize Detroit's economy by leading a business incubator to help new businesses grow.
- Nancy Sanford Hughes, 68, an Oregon woman who fights a top killer of children in developing nations by facilitating the production and distribution of low-cost, safe, fuel-efficient cookstoves in Latin America.
- Wanjiru Kamau, 69, a woman in Washington, D.C., who is working to ease the transitions of thousands of African immigrants and refugees.
- Edward Mazria, 70, a Santa Fe, N.M., architect challenging the building sector—perhaps the largest contributor of greenhouse gases—to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.
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| Randal Charlton |
Nancy Sanford Hughes |
Wanjiru Kamau |
Edward Mazria |
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"Like millions of other Americans reaching their 50s and 60s, Purpose Prize winners are making big decisions about how to find meaning and earn a living in their encore years," Cespedes Kent tells the Templeton Report. "They are forging a new path built upon their accumulated experience, creativity and willingness to take calculated risks to solve big social problems."
Bowen, who is now 66, says she never thought of her age in relation to her work until she won the Purpose Prize. "When I started this, I had no idea of what I was getting into," she says. "I saw such a simple solution to a horrible problem. I really thought nothing about any of the barriers, including the fact that I'd never been to China, except once, to adopt. I didn't speak Chinese at the time. I knew nobody in China. I was not in early childhood development—I was a screenwriter. My age was the last thing on my mind."
Adds Bowen: "It just pays to have a purpose and keep your eyes on that alone. Throw off all the obstacles; none of them can stand in your way unless you let them."
That same determination drove 2011 Purpose Prize winner Nancy Sanford Hughes on her mission of mercy. On trips abroad with her late husband, Sanford Hughes saw how the health of so many impoverished Third World women and children suffered from having to use primitive fires for cooking. In 2004, by then a widow in her sixties, Sanford Hughes felt compelled to help, and founded Stove Team International, which helps local entrepreneurs manufacture and distribute cost-effective stoves. Today, she urges other older Americans to follow the voice of conscience.
"Just go for it," she tells TR. "Don't think about your age, don't think about your skills. I had no skills in stove building. Just do what you think you need to do and never give in."
That's exactly the spirit the Purpose Prize honors and encourages. It's a spirit some see as especially relevant to the present moment, with so many older American workers idling amid the economic downturn. "We hope that older workers who are unemployed or under-employed see signs of hope in our Purpose Prize winners," says Cespedes Kent. "Creating a new future is a huge challenge, to be sure, but many of the winners started from only an idea. When they began to trust their instincts, passion, intelligence and creativity, they found the support they needed."
Kimon Sargeant, who directs the Templeton Foundation's program in Human Sciences, agrees.
"Sir John Templeton worked well into his nineties, and strongly believed that older people were an underappreciated social and economic resource," says Sargeant. "Every year, the Purpose Prize winners show how right he was. We can't afford to ignore the experience, wisdom, and creativity of older Americans, who can help us address the severe challenges facing society—especially in this time of prolonged economic distress."
Civic Ventures is already accepting nominations for the 2012 Purpose Prize, which can be made until March 22, 2012. Looking forward to next year's competition, Cespedes Kent says the organization is particularly interested in applications from eligible candidates working on solutions to joblessness and poverty.
"Never before has society needed experience, passion, and new ideas as we do now," she says. "Today our nation's well of unmet social needs is deeper than ever. Encore talent must be part of the answer."
The five 2011 winners and 42 new Purpose Prize Fellows plan to gather December 1, in Sausalito, California, for an awards ceremony. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose encore career includes founding a website to teach kids about civics through online gaming, will address the gathering.
An Attitude of Gratitude
In a widely read New York Times column on Thanksgiving week, John Tierney explored what science teaches us about the benefits of gratitude. It turns out that being thankful is not just a good social practice, but scientifically advisable. Among science's lessons:
- Count your blessings. People who merely take the time daily to write down the good things in their lives end up happier and more optimistic over time.
- Gratitude is different from obligation. Doing good out of a sense of moral indebtedness does not have the same psychological benefits as doing good out of sheer thankfulness.
- Gratitude makes you more resilient. People who have cultivated an attitude of gratitude are less likely to be bothered by insults.
- Godliness inspires gratitude. Having a positive attitude of blessedness has been generally correlated with religious belief.
- Pass it on. Sharing one's gratitude with others builds a positive psychological state within individuals, and increases social capital.
The science of gratitude has been a major funding area for the John Templeton Foundation. JTF has given grant support to many of the leading scientists whose research informed Tierney's column, including Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, and Jo-Ann Tsang of Baylor University.
On CNN's Belief Blog, Ansley Roan reports on signs that gratitude is making a comeback. One reason? An "explosion" in academic research showing the beneficial effects of gratitude. Another? Economic hard times, which, Roan writes, "appear to have provoked a greater appreciation for the basic things in life, like family and food. And some say the trend speaks to something deeper, reflecting a crisis of purpose in modern life."
Giacomo Bono, a California State University, Dominguez Hills, research psychologist who studies gratitude and children, tells CNN: "Gratitude has an internal psychological benefit, but also a social one. The more we have strong relationships, the better our quality of life. Gratitude and purpose are intimately linked because of that."
