Marc Freedman

President, CEO and Founder, Encore.org

The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife (2011)

Marc Freedman — hailed by the New York Times as “the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life” — issues an impassioned call to accept the decades opening up between midlife and anything approximating old age for what they really are: a new stage of life, an encore phase. The Big Shift provides not only direction but a vision of what it would take to help millions find their footing in this new map of life.

Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life (2007)

Baby boomers are inventing a new phase of work. It’s one of the most significant trends of the new century and the biggest change in the American work force since the women’s movement. As their numbers swell, Freedman writes in Encore, these individuals hold the potential to transform work in America – and create a society that works better for everyone.

Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America (2002)

Prime Time — which The New York Times called an “inspiring, informative, mind-opening book” — focuses not on the costs of an aging society but on the opportunities presented by one. Freedman argues that the aging phenomenon, the massive transformation that many portray as our downfall, may in fact be our best hope for renewal as a nation.

The Kindness of Strangers (1999)

The Kindness of Strangers tells the story of a group of concerned adults who mentor inner-city youth. The book, first published in 1993 and reprinted in 1999, describes what volunteers can do to improve the conditions of young people living in poverty and chronicles the rise of the mentoring movement, examining its wider implications for education and social policy .