Civic Ventures (CivicVentures.org), a think tank and program incubator helping society achieve the greatest return on experience, has announced the 10 community colleges that will lead a major national effort to help prepare baby boomers for careers in education, health care, and social services. With support from MetLife Foundation, Civic Ventures will give $25,000 grants to each of the 10 community colleges from around the country (see list below). These colleges will develop a wide range of innovative initiatives designed to match boomers’ experience, skills, and interests to “encore careers” in critical service fields.

Civic Ventures also published a white paper, “Encore Colleges,” about the historic opportunity community colleges face in helping boomers transition to encore careers that address workforce needs in their communities (www.civicventures.org/communitycolleges/Encore_Colleges.pdf). Studies show that the public interest sector—the fastest growing sector of our labor market—will face the greatest talent shortages as boomers continue to retire. At the same time, half of Americans in their 50s and 60s reported in a 2005 survey by MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures that they were interested in jobs that improve their communities, but they did not believe that finding such employment would be easy.

Grant-winning projects will provide support and training for those over 50 who want to transition to teaching jobs, work in gerontology, become nursing instructors, or work in nonprofits after a career in the for-profit sector. After a year of implementing their initiatives, the colleges will collaborate with Civic Ventures to report publicly on how to prepare boomers for encore careers that benefit society. The winners of the $25,000 Community College Encore Career Grants include:

• Baltimore City Community College (Baltimore, Maryland) will use an executive outplacement model to help African-American women over age 50 develop individual plans to transition into encore careers.
• Broward Community College (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) will do extensive marketing—including free seminars and career counseling—to inform boomers about local encore career and service opportunities.
• Central Piedmont Community College (Charlotte, North Carolina) will design and deliver a leadership training program to support boomers interested in transitioning from careers in the for-profit to the non-profit sector.
• Coastline Community College (Fountain Valley, California) will develop and offer online and classroom courses for those over 50 preparing for careers in gerontology and elder-care.
• Collin County Community College (Allen, Texas) will train boomers who have been laid off from engineering and technology careers—and other boomers interested in teaching—to become certified high school math teachers in one year.
• GateWay Community College (Phoenix, Arizona) will join forces with local employers to help boomers transition to careers as caregivers. Employers will provide instructors, tuition support, and flexible jobs.
• Owensboro Community and Technical College (Owensboro, Kentucky) will train retiring nurses to become adjunct nursing faculty at the community college level. (The national nursing shortage can be traced, in part, to a shortage of nursing faculty.)
• Portland Community College (Portland, Oregon) will establish a peer mentoring program for students over 50 enrolled in the college’s gerontology certificate or degree program to improve support for older students and to boost retention.
• Virginia Community College System (Richmond, Virginia) will launch a statewide recruitment effort to attract more boomers with college degrees to their existing statewide, fast-track teacher licensure programs. Partners include the state’s 23 community colleges, the Virginia Dept. of Education and K-12 schools.
• Washtenaw Community College (Ann Arbor, Michigan) will develop outreach and support programs for mid-career professionals who want to use their training and business experience to help solve societal problems.

For more information contact Emily Dulcan at Fenton Communications, (415) 901-0111 or edulcan@fenton.com.