Innovation Fellow

Marc Freedman Portrait

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DANIEL PRYFOGLE

Co-founder and CEO, Sympara
Bringing young and old leaders together to repurpose religious space for the common good
“When a congregation and its neighbors discern a desire to create an intergenerational village with affordable housing, child care and good jobs, transformation is underway.”

Daniel Pryfogle is co-founder and CEO of Sympara, a multifaith community with a public mission to repurpose religious assets for the common good. The organization helps congregations and their neighbors leverage underutilized space and excess land to create more just, equitable and sustainable communities. Daniel leads Sympara’s initiative Aging for the Common Good to leverage the experience of older adults for a sustainable future.

Sympara’s clients are exploring the creation of mixed-use developments on religious property that provide housing, supportive services and economic opportunities for all ages. The activation of religious space by people of different faith traditions and no religious affiliation is an intergenerational endeavor.

For Daniel, this means calling older adults to creative leadership for sacred/civic placemaking, for their struggles are the religious institution’s struggles: living with loss, finding purpose amid shifting identity, letting go to claim a new way.

Daniel is an advisor and faculty member for the Lilly Endowment-funded Changemaker Church Movement. He is the founder of the leadership and brand consultancy Signal Hill, which pioneered the use of narrative marketing in senior living, and founder of Senior Correspondent, the nation’s first media venture driven by the reporting of veteran journalists and the stories of older adults.

Trained as a journalist, Daniel is also an ordained Baptist minister.