“What’s your encore?”

I hope this conversation will soon be occurring around every water cooler and dinner table in America! Millions are already in the midst of inventing a new stage of life and work the encore years between the end of midlife and anything resembling old-fashioned retirement. We’re envisioning this chapter as a time when we make some of our most important contributions, for ourselves, for our world, for the well-being of future generations. Inventing a new stage of life is an ambitious undertaking, one of the great social innovation projects of the 21st century. Yet this aspiration will be as much about small changes as big ones.

To help craft the emerging stage, we’re taking an important step for our organization, retiring our old name (Civic Ventures) and renaming ourselves Encore.org. It’s one step in our dream of helping to build a movement aimed at making it easier for millions to pursue second acts for the greater good. As we make this change, we’d love to enlist your help in elevating the encore ideal as a new norm in American life.

Here are some ways you can join in.

• If you aren’t already, start using the word “encore” in your everyday conversations. Call yourself an encore student, employer or entrepreneur “I’m an encore (fill in the blank)” and add that label to your email signature.
• Ask your neighbors or your colleagues or your parents about their encores.
• Encourage people to learn more about encores and the encore stage of life by visiting Encore.org.

An encore echo chamber is a tactic, of course. Our real dream is to produce, together, a windfall of talent to help solve society’s greatest challenges, from education to the environment, health care to homelessness. Thanks to the experience dividend now being realized around the world, we have the time and energy to live a legacy, instead of just leaving one. So what are you going to do for your encore?

Let me know at [email protected], and together, let’s spread the word.