I’ve heard the question so many times from people interested in cogenerational programming: “Are young people really going to show up to connect with older people?” We know, from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022, that...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
Want to Recruit Younger People? Look Within
For the past five years, I’ve been working as an advocate for the causes I believe in and for more intergenerational collaboration. Young people like me want more opportunities to work across generations for change, but we also want to be treated as equals. To...
What Young Leaders Want — And Don’t Want — From Older Allies
We know from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022 that 76% of Gen Z and 70% of Millennial respondents wish they had more opportunities to work across generations for change. In a new report, What Young Leaders Want — And...
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Sue Crolick
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006
Pairing creative mentors from advertising and design with inner-city children
Hitting 50 was a turning point for Sue Crolick. A successful advertising art director in Minneapolis and principal of her own firm, she was hungry for a new challenge. In the early 90’s Crolick watched as schools slashed art budgets, affecting all kids, but particularly inner-city children with fewer resources. She began to imagine helping those children by tapping the enormous talent of creative people in her field. In 1994, Crolick founded Creatives for Causes and started a program called Art Buddies, which pairs creative mentors from advertising and design, one-on-one, with inner-city children. For the first time, creative professionals in the local advertising and design fields — including art directors, copywriters, TV producers, photographers, illustrators, graphic designers and architects — were tapped to work one-on-one with local kids. Today, each Art Buddies program pairs 50 creative mentors with 50 kids to meet once-a-week for six-week workshops. Mentors help each child create a fanciful and ambitious project – everything from a model of a dream city to a costume of his/her future self. To date, more than 1,000 mentors have nurtured the creative spirits of over 1,000 kids, helping them to believe in themselves and to expand their vision of who they can become. Crolick envisions bringing the Art Buddies model to cities across the country.