Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
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Heidi Hartmann
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006
Informing the policy debates on the impact of Social Security reforms on women
When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed into the Gulf Coast region last year, Dr. Heidi Hartmann, 61, who has long championed research and education as a means to achieve social change, fought back with her tool of choice, an accurate, timely and readable Briefing Paper on the impact of the hurricanes on women in the Gulf Coast. The only report that addressed women’s unique circumstances, it recognized that women – more likely than men to be poor, elderly, or raising children on their own – should have their specific needs addressed in the redevelopment process. Hartmann uses research to inform policy debates, working with Congress and legislatures across the country to support public policies that benefit women, particularly low-income and minority women, helping them achieve dignity and economic independence. Since founding the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in 1987, Hartmann has devoted considerable attention to older women, who live longer than men but earn less. In 2005, Dr. Hartmann launched the Institute’s Women and Social Security Project to focus on reforms that will reduce older women’s poverty and modernize the system to reflect the working – and caregiving – lives of women in the 21st century. Through email and a dedicated website, the project reaches thousands of journalists, policy makers, researchers, advocates, and voters.