Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

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5 Ways to Make Your Collaboration with Teens a Success

5 Ways to Make Your Collaboration with Teens a Success

Our task, as we understood it, was to get teen leaders involved in Citizen University’s Youth Collaboratory excited about working alongside adults to create change — what we call cogeneration. As it turns out, teens in the program were already excited about...

Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?

Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?

When CoGenerate and Citizen University launched a project to deepen cogenerational ties, our goal was to get teens excited about working alongside older adults to create change.  What we discovered surprised us. Teens didn’t need convincing to work across generations....

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Jerry Conover

Hope for Generations
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006

Redirecting the resources of the oldest generation to help the youngest

To Jerry Conover, a retired trial lawyer and mediator, the Social Security checks he began receiving in his sixties were nice but not necessary. Financially secure, he, like many of his friends, had no real need for the government entitlement. The challenges facing America’s poorest children – particularly in health care and education – pushed Conover to act. In 2002, at age 68, Conover started Hope for Generations to provide adults who could afford it with a way to redirect a portion of their unneeded Social Security payments to an investment in the poor and marginalized, particularly children. Today those who choose to donate to Hope for Generations give all or part of their Social Security benefits, redirect pension payments, or simply donate from their bank accounts. Hope for Generations works with the Denver Foundation, which provides fund management and helps to select the groups that receive the donations. In three years, Hope for Generations has invested $250,000 in a total of 11 organizations serving the needs of the very young in the Denver and across the state of Colorado.