By Steven Maser
Many Portland-area residents are foregoing "traditional" retirement for something different. They're enjoying some leisure time, and also using the decades of skills and knowledge acquired in the business sector to help address some of our most pressing issues, from homelessness to early childhood education.
Portland-area workers are rolling up their sleeves to spend a year helping the community. A retiree from Hewlett-Packard helped a local non-profit start a T-shirt screen-printing business to train and employ at-risk and homeless youth. Another tech industry retiree helped a local health center serving people with cultural and language barriers expand to serve more patients. Local organizations sponsor these fellows for one year's work at a non-profit post-retirement.
They're Encore Fellows, a program run by Social Venture Partners, an organization of nearly 200 engaged venture philanthropists who invest their money, experience and influence alongside nonprofit leaders to solve community problems together. The SVP Encore Fellows Program offers professionals on the verge of leaving long-time careers a "gap year" of sorts to help build the capacity of local non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations estimate that each fellow provides $100,000 in value. Intel has led the way, offering the fellowship as part of its retirement package, sponsoring about 250 fellows to date.
These fellows aren't alone. They're part of a growing national trend of Americans retiring our old idea of retirement. According to a 2017 Merrill Lynch study on retirement, nearly three-quarters of American workers over age 50 say they plan to work after "retiring" from their primary careers, and almost 80 percent of those individuals say it's not because they need the money. For the fellows and a growing number of retirees around the country, retirement is about maintaining a sense of purpose.
As Baby Boomers age, we're on the verge of a massive workforce shift: The Pew Research Center says roughly 10,000 Americans celebrate their 65th birthday every day, and 10,000 more will continue each day until 2030.
Portland is in the perfect position to be a leader when it comes to the aging workforce challenge. Portland was the first city in the U.S. to be recognized under a U.N. program as an Age-Friendly City. In all counties in the Portland metro area, nearly a quarter of the workforce is over the age of 55.
While many cities see the aging workforce as a challenge, programs like Encore Fellows show that Portland sees it as an opportunity: We're tackling our region's most difficult problems with our most experienced workforce and building capacity in our non-profits. Employees are embracing the idea of retiring retirement--and Portland businesses are leading the way.
Steven Maser, PhD, manages the Encore Fellows program for Social Venture Partners Portland. Prior to that, he was a professor of public management and public policy at Willamette University's Atkinson Graduate School of Management.