Biography
Betsy Werley is Encore.org’s Director of Network Expansion, connecting organizations around the world with Encore.org and each other to build the encore movement. The Network provides a learning community, resources, visibility and connections to a growing number of leaders who view older adults as a underused resource for our communities.
Betsy spent the first 26 years of her career as a corporate lawyer and then a business executive at JPMorgan Chase. Her work included new products, global transactions and automation efforts.
Her encore career began in 2005. She became the first Executive Director of The Transition Network, an organization for women 50 and forward exploring “what’s next” in our professional and personal lives. Betsy led that organization through a growth phase from one chapter to 12, and helped to found two other encore programs.
She speaks frequently about the encore lifestage and transitioning to the nonprofit sector, building on personal experience and professional expertise.
Betsy is based in New York City. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and Duke University.
Werley, B.
Symposium
Capturing the Longevity Dividend in an Aging World: Perspectives from Four Countriess
Carrie Deacon is Head of Social Action Innovation at Nesta. Carrie leads Nesta’s work on social action and people-powered public services – that is the need to move from a paternalistic model of public services where services are ‘done to’ people, to a more collaborative approach where people are involved in the design and delivery of our public services.
Carrie’s current portfolio of work supports a range of people-powered innovation projects including funds that are testing new models of intensive volunteering, models harnessing the time and talents of people aged 50+ in new ways, and innovations exploring the role of citizens in emergency response.
Before joining Nesta, Carrie worked for a many years supporting charities and social enterprises around the country to develop their organisation to achieve greater impact, including working with a number of funders on innovation and organisational development programmes. Prior to this she worked on developing and delivering public service reforms at a number of central government departments including the Department for Education and Ministry of Justice.
Carrie is particularly interested in people helping people within communities and volunteers at a range of community projects.
Deacon, C.
Karin Haist is director of the Civil Society department at the Hamburg-based Körber Foundation. She is an expert in the potential of old age and working lifetimes, civil society and civic engagement, diversity and integration. The department focuses on demographic change; projects include the Körber Demography Symposium for local politics and administration and the program “Engagierte Stadt“ (Committed City), which promotes civic engagement in 50 German cities. The Foundation organizes public events and publishes books on aging societies, new working lifetimes, the super-diverse city and civic engagement.
Karin is an active member of committees outside the Foundation. She chairs the Association of German Foundations’ working group promoting civic involvement. She is a board member of the Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation, dealing with issues of political exile, and on the Advisory Board of research organization “ZiviZ” – civil society in numbers.
Karin joined the Foundation in 1991, leading the Federal President’s history contest, which calls young people to research local/everyday history. From 1999 to 2006, Karin was Project Leader of the Transatlantic Ideas Contest USable, supporting German distribution of good ideas from American civil society. From 1989 to 1991 she completed a Hamburg Museum of Labour traineeship.
Karin holds a Master degree in Empirical Cultural Sciences (European Ethnology) and German Philology from Freiburg and Tübingen universities. She is married with two children.
Haist, K.
Seounju Koh is Executive Director of Seoul 50 Plus Central Campus. Prior to 50+Campus, she was Director of Seoul Foundation of Women and Family and CEO of Korean Institute for Healthy Family. Her experiences range from academia, non-profit organizations affiliated to national governments and the local authorities. Currently, she enjoys building up the second 50+campus as an interactive platform for better and happier life of Seoul’s 50+generation. She holds PhD in Family Studies.
Koh, S.
Eunjeong Lee is Project Manager of Policy Development Division at the Seoul 50 Plus Foundation. She joined the foundation from its establishment and has been focusing on policy research and development. In 2017, she has conducted researches on comprehensive counselling system for 50+generation; contents development for 50+counselling; and led participatory research by engaging 50+generation. She holds PhD in Pedagogy focusing on lifelong education and adult learning. She is interested in providing lifelong and lifewide supports to people’s life through learning and education.
Lee, E.
Longer lives offer many benefits for our communities and individuals. We have the opportunity to unleash experience and energy through proven programs that help older adults identify goals, find opportunities and connect with learning, work and social impact opportunities.
Around the world, a growing number of programs recognize the value of engaging older adults in their communities, and the healthy aging benefits for those engaged individuals. That engagement is an antidote to ageism, as older adults gain intellectual stimulation, social connections and confirmation of our value, and younger people have role models demonstrating that later life is a time of new success and opportunity.
New insights and growing experience are defining a new post-midlife period of health, activity and often a desire to leave a legacy. Given the large numbers of people in this age group, we have short-term opportunities to benefit from engaging them; with today’s children living even longer, the programs we launch today will pay long-term dividends for future generations.
Our symposium will share insights and program details from three organizations investing to realize the longevity dividend:
-Encore.org, a US-based organization building a movement to tap the skills and energy of people 50+ for social impact through cultural, social and movement innovation, in connection with a growing network of organizations around the world.
-Nesta, a global UK-based innovation foundation, are currently supporting new ways for people to age well as part of a people-helping-people movement, through projects that actively engage people 50+ to give their time and talents and build stronger local networks, neighborhoods and better outcomes for citizens.
-Seoul 50Plus Foundation, a non-profit affiliated to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, supports the 50 to 64 age group in designing the next 40 years in the 100-year life by shifting perceptions and ways of life, creating work-life balance, new networks and experiences through education/learning, culture/community, work/participation.
-Moderator Karin Haist leads the Hamburg-based Koerber Foundation’s civil society department, building on her expertise in opportunities of longer lives and promotion of citizen engagement.
Learn what’s behind their successes, the challenges of launching and expanding their programs and how you can adapt their approaches to your work.
These organizations are supporting healthy aging, combating ageism and capitalizing on older adults’ experience as an asset. By embracing this opportunity we can create a double win — for individuals and for our communities.
Presenter 1:
Since its 1998 founding, Encore.org has viewed older adults as an underused resource for social impact. While many see aging societies as a problem, Encore sees a longevity dividend. This opportunity will expand as today’s young people live longer lives. The vast population moving into midlife offers an extraordinary resource, many determined to apply their experience to make a difference for others. They are looking for a new model combining work, service, and social impact – an “encore.”
Encore is leading a movement to define this new stage, create pathways and transform institutions to help millions make the transition to “what’s next?”
Director of Network Expansion Betsy Werley will outline its pioneering development of language, programs and tools including narrative change, prize programs, pathways to social impact work and a growing network of US and global leaders.
Learn about Encore.org’s work and the variety of programs engaging older adults in social impact work in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Presenter 2:
Established in 2016, Seoul 50 Plus Foundation supports the city’s 50+generation (the 50- 64 age group) to prepare successfully for their new lifestage. As part of South Korea’s policy measures addressing its aging population, the foundation’s establishment supports the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s broader policy plan, the “Comprehensive Plan for the 50+Assistance.”
As a think-tank, the foundation conducts research on 50+policies and projects; operates two 50+Campuses – a platform for counselling, education program, jobs, and communities – and supports 50+centers across Seoul. The foundation plans to open four more 50+campuses by 2019 and provide a city-wide one-stop service for Seoul citizens in planning their post-retirement life.
Eunjeong Lee, Policy Development Division Project Manager, will outline active and positive roles of the 50+generation as a driver to the Seoul’s 50+policy. She will share research results and the foundation’s pathways to support later life planning through counselling services, training and education programs, 50+community support programs and encore career services, which leads to social engagements of the 50+generation by capitalizing their experiences and skills. Seunju Koh, Executive Director of the Central Campus, will share insights about programs and how participants’ lives have been affected by the Foundation’s work.
Presenter 3:
Social change needs dialogue and understanding. The Körber Foundation’s operational projects address current challenges in the areas of demographic change, innovation and international understanding.
For many years the Foundation has run a community center in Hamburg, offering education and preventive health care for older adults as well as enabling social commitment. In nationwide projects, events and publications the foundation promotes the potential of old age and the opportunities to reshape biographies in an age of longevity. In 2018, the foundation plans to start a new project: “Zugabe” (Encore) to inspire people in midlife and beyond to use their experiences, talents and skills in a second “career” or activity to improve society.
Karin Haist, Director of the foundation‘s civil society department, will ask three organizations about lessons learned, accomplishments and their “don’ts”. Guiding the discussion she will also incorporate the German perspective. Convinced that the social commitment of older adults should not be seen as compulsory, Karin will ask how people in midlife and beyond can be encouraged best to mobilize their talent for the social good. The role of the institutions – private, state and public – that bring forward the movements of new aging will also be addressed.
Presenter 4:
Nesta is a global innovation foundation that back new ideas to tackle the big challenges of our time. We seek out, spark and shape powerful ideas, joining with others to take on the big challenges of our time and shift how the world works. At Nesta we are experts in methods for innovation, applying these methods in priority fields with big challenges where our capacities are suited to the needed action: health; education; government innovation; the creative economy, arts and culture; and innovation policy.
In partnership with the Office for Civil Society, part of a UK Government department, Nesta have backed projects that tap the time and talents of people 50+ through social action alongside public services in new ways. From experimenting with high-commitment volunteering models, to scaling and developing the evidence base around high-impact social action models, Nesta have supported organisations seeking to benefit from this growing resource.
Carrie Deacon, Nesta’s Head of Social Action and Innovation, will outline the opportunity from a UK perspective, and case studies, learning and insights from backing a range of ideas. She will also outline new opportunities for innovation to support even more people aged 50+ to share their time and talents.