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Civic Ventures, a well-known and influential
national non-profit, is about to launch an ambitious and complex campaign to
transform the aging of the population into a source of social renewal. Through
this campaign we intend to define a new stage of life and work that makes it
possible for individuals, organizations, communities and country to reap the
benefits of an Experience Dividend. In concert with the launch of this
campaign, Civic Ventures seeks an individual with exceptional abilities to play
a critical leadership role as the organization’s first Chief Operating Officer.
This is an extraordinary opportunity to work on cutting edge issues with
outstanding colleagues in an extremely successful organization.
 Background
America is on the cusp of a demographic
revolution. Over the next three decades, the number of individuals 60 and older
will double, at which point this group will constitute nearly a quarter of the
population. Furthermore, with improvements in health care, Americans entering
the post-midlife period can now count on decades of continued well-being at a
juncture when earlier generations faced significant disability and prepared to
disengage from mainstream society.
With the first of the Baby Boom generation
turning 60 this year, public attention has been fixed on the potential costs and
challenges of an aging population. However, the assumption that older people
are frail, dependent, and in need of services fails to capture the circumstances
of the vast majority of people moving into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. These
women and men are in a position to make enormous contributions to the larger
community, and to enrich their own lives in the process.
Mobilizing this cohort Americans and
creating a compelling spectrum of ways to put their talents to productive use
for society constitutes one of the most significant opportunities for social
change in the 21st Century. That is the mission of Civic Ventures.
Since its creation in 1997, Civic Ventures has been at the leading edge
of efforts to re-envision the years after midlife career as a time of continued
growth and to promote a new movement built around meaningful social contribution
by people who have completed their midlife careers.
To this end, Civic Ventures has
played a leading role in making the case to transform the aging of America into
a source of individual and social renewal. Through books, extensive articles,
research, speeches, and media coverage, Civic Ventures, and its founder Marc
Freedman, has become known as the leading voice for productive capacity of
people who have finished their midlife careers.
In addition to this thought leadership role,
Civic Ventures operates several programs to demonstrate and tap the
potential of older Americans including:
- Experience Corps,
which engages 2,000 older adults as tutors and mentors in 19 cities across
the country;
- The Purpose Prize,
which recognizes, invests in and brings attention to social innovators who
are over 60;
- Next Chapter,
which provides directions and connections for people who want to make a
difference in the second half of life; and
- The Breakthrough Awards,
which recognizes organizations that are leading examples of engaging people
in social purpose work in the second half of life.
Civic Ventures has just completed a major
planning process, which gave shape to the next phase of the organization’s work
– a multi-year campaign to establish social purpose encore careers as a new
aspiration and social norm, and to catalyze a vibrant marketplace for encore
careers. Based on the programs already in place and Civic Ventures’ historic
strengths and past successes, the plan calls for a focus in three areas:
- Thought Leadership,
by developing and advancing a new and compelling story about the importance
of social contribution in the second half of life;
- Innovative Opportunities,
by incubating new ways for people to translate the desire for significant
engagement into action; and
- Network Development,
by establishing and supporting a network of individuals and
organizations that make significant engagement in the second half of life a
personal and organizational priority.
Through the combination of these strategies,
Civic Ventures will work to help individuals and society capitalize on an
opportunity of staggering proportions – to realize the potential experience
dividend present in the new demographic realities.
Chief Operating Officer – Roles and
Responsibilities
Civic Ventures has an exceptional team of
experienced professionals working in offices in San Francisco, Washington, DC
and Boston. While Civic Ventures has been very successful to date, the adoption
of the new strategic plan has added both complexity and urgency to the operation
of organization. This complexity and urgency create the need for a new senior
manager who will lead and co-ordinate all of the organization’s activities.
Working in conjunction with senior
management staff, the COO will play a vital role in the future of the
organization by advancing the organization’s existing work and leading the
execution of the new strategic plan. Civic Ventures is rich with big thinkers
and big ideas – the COO will be responsible for helping to turn those ideas into
reality. That’s why the COO position offers an extraordinary chance to combine
passion with pragmatism, intellectual curiosity with outstanding management
skills, and the challenge of helping to establish a completely new way of
thinking about what constitutes success in the second half of life.
The crucial role of the new COO is to manage
the day-to-day operations of the organization and the implementation of the
strategic plan. Key responsibilities include:
- Provide assistance and support to
senior managers.
- Make sure that the work on individual
projects is linked to and advances the overall organizational strategy.
- Co-ordinate the work across projects,
making sure that cross-project communications are robust and that the
organization recognizes and capitalizes on synergies.
- Oversee the consideration and
implementation of new initiatives that reflect and advance the strategies
identified in the overall plan.
- Lead development of annual operating
plans and budgets to implement the strategic plan and effectively deploy
organizational assets.
- Create and implement tracking and
measurement systems to assure execution of the annual operating plan, and
appropriate adjustments as necessary to respond to experience and
opportunity.
- Work with the Vice-President for
Finance and Administration to create and manage budgets for individual
projects, the campaign and for the whole organization.
The person hired as COO will
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