ASRL’s Valerie Sobel Honored as 2009 Purpose Prize Fellow

Valerie Sobel has been named a 2009 Purpose Prize fellow, an honor for social entrepreneurs over 60 who are using their experience and passion to take on society’s biggest challenges. Now in its fourth year, the six-year, $17 million program is the nation’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life.

Valerie Sobel, the Founder and President of ASRL, was named a Fellow for her work to provide urgent financial assistance to single parent families of children with catastrophic and terminal illness. Ms. Sobel will join 46 other Purpose Prize Fellows at a Summit on Innovation on Oct. 31 – Nov. 1 at Stanford  University’s  Graduate School of Business’ Center on Social Innovation, one of the world’s leading academic centers focused on social entrepreneurship.

The  fellows  underscore  a trend in entrepreneurialism later in life. According to studies by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the 55-64 age group is the most active in creating new ventures. Counter to stereotype,
people ages 20-34, the study found, are the least entrepreneurial.

“More than ever, the problems facing our communities, country and world call out for creative solutions,” said Marc Freedman, co-founder of The Purpose Prize and author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of
Life. “Fortunately, we don’t run out of ideas as we age.

“Like so many others in this new stage of life between the end of midlife careers and the beginning of true old age, The Purpose Prize fellows combine creativity, experience and passion with a desire to do something bigger than themselves,” Freeman continued.

Says Ms. Sobel, “By its very nature an encore career is a more passionate and committed one than our earlier requisite endeavors.  It is a calling in which we invest all that we have learned over a lifetime. In my case my new vocation  found me, and it became my emotional survival.  Now, to help thousands of single parents of terminally ill children is the focus of my life, and I bring my own personal experience to bear its full force unto this compassionate mission.”

The  Purpose Prize supports Fellows by helping develop their capacity, linking them with funders and venture philanthropists and connecting them to other social innovators over 60. It is part of the Encore Careers campaign
run by Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.  Funding  for  The  Purpose  Prize  comes  from  The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation.

Sherry Lansing, CEO of the Sherry Lansing Foundation and former chair of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, chairs the jury that selected this year’s winners. The 24 judges are leaders in business, politics, journalism
and  the  nonprofit  sector  -  including actor Sidney Poitier, social entrepreneur Thomas Tierney, former Senator Harris Wofford and journalist Cokie Roberts.

The  Purpose  Prize  is  a  program  of  the  Encore  Careers campaign (www.encore.org), which aims to engage millions of boomers in encore careers combining social impact, personal meaning and continued income in the second half  of  life.  The goal: produce a windfall of human talent to solve society’s greatest problems, from education to the environment, health care to homelessness.