Harvard Program Helps Retirees Start New Social Ventures

A Harvard University program seeks to help baby boomers with decades of professional or executive experience create new, socially conscious businesses and institutions, The Boston Globe writes.

Fellows in the school’s three-year-old Advanced Leadership Initiative pay about $50,000 to attend weekly seminars with law, education, government, and business professors, audit Harvard classes, and enlist students to help them develop projects.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard business professor who leads the effort, characterizes it as a new stage of higher education designed to create a corps of older people with the means and leadership skills to tackle social problems rather than just retire. “Undoubtedly we have a lot of brain power wasted,” she said.

From The Chronicle: Our latest issue features an interview with Marc Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures, who has written a new book about boomers moving into jobs that serve society.