Today, thousands of people in the second half of life have opened up a next chapter of innovation, productivity, and creativity, and, in the process, have transformed our communities and our country.

More than just a set of hands, today's older adults represent an extraordinary pool of social and human capital. Already millions of boomers are in encore careers – paid work with social purpose. It's their opportunity to earn, learn, connect and contribute.

We wish to honor them. More than that, we want to invest in their potential to do their next great thing. The Purpose Prize^® provides five $100,000 and five $50,000 awards to social innovators over 60. Over the past three years, Civic Ventures has awarded The Purpose Prize^® to highlight and invest in dozens of social innovators over 60 – people like:

• Sharon Rohrbach, founder of the Nurses for Newborns Foundation, who won $100,000 for establishing a network of nurses to conduct thousands of home-visits to uninsured mothers and their vulnerable babies free of charge.
• Gary Maxworthy, a former food distributor who developed a new process for bringing over 38 million pounds of fresh produce to California's food banks in his encore career.
• Sally Bingham, a homemaker-turned-Episcopal priest, who organized a national religious response to global warming.

Purpose Prize winners are real-world examples of people proving that innovation and creativity have no age limit. They provide a roadmap for the millions of baby boomers who'd like to start their own encore careers. They are leaders in a larger movement to make the best use of experience to solve serious social problems.

Each year, Civic Ventures provides an opportunity for this network of innovators to gather face-to-face. A national Innovation Summit brings together the winners and the larger group of Purpose Prize Fellows along with thought-leaders, scholars, activists, and funders. Conversations with national leaders, panel discussions with the Prize winners, and in-depth workshops on social entrepreneurship are interspersed with networking opportunities and cultural events.