Encore Careers: Second Acts for the Greater Good

Community Partner Spotlight: Encore.org

Encore.org is building a movement to make it easier for millions of people to pursue “encore careers” that combine personal meaning, continued income and social impact in the second half of life. “This country’s 78 million boomers make up the largest, healthiest, best-educated population of Americans,” said Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Encore.org. “They represent a tremendous opportunity for society.” Research from Encore.org and MetLife Foundation shows that 9 million people ages 44 to 70 are in encore careers, work that is both personally meaningful and serves the greater good. Thirty-one million more are interested in encores.

By elevating, enabling and expanding encore careers as the new social norm in American culture, Encore.org ‘s goal is to help experienced workers use their passion and know-how to address society’s toughest challenges. While Encore.org is not a job placement service, it provides free, comprehensive information that helps people transition to jobs in the nonprofit world and the public sector.

Photos Courtesy of Encore.org

Many who seek encore careers need help making the transition to

Ernesto Dal Bó is Our New Faculty Research Director

Faculty Spotlight:  Ernesto Dal Bó, New Faculty Research Director, Haas Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership

Harold and Alice Furst Associate Professor of Management Philosophy and Values, Haas School of Business
Director, Berkeley Center for Political Economy (BCEP)
Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

“Thinking carefully about institutions and organizations in the realm of economics and politics is something that I am deeply passionate about. But teaching at Haas also means one has to put that thinking to the test of student challenge, in a way that improves our thinking, and pushes us to make it relevant for a world that needs changing.”

Ernesto Dal Bó teaches the core Ethics course in the full time and evening MBA programs at Haas, and doctoral courses on political institutions and governance. His research is in the intersection of economics and politics. He has done work on corruption, political influence, armed conflict, the self-perpetuation of political elites, as well as

S3 Team Working with The Hispanic Foundation for Silicon Valley

Melissa Rawlins, Armando Munoz, Vibhu Singh, Estefania Hernandez, and Alma Rico are part of a Social Sector Solutions (S3) team for the Spring 2013 semester. The team, led by Alma, is working with the Hispanic Foundation for Silicon Valley to support the organization in developing their new three year strategic plan. Coming in to the class, the team members hoped to evolve their management consulting skill set for a social issue that was important to them. Many of the skills these students learned in the MBA curriculum were transferable to the nonprofit scenario while others had to be slightly adapted.

“A number of skills we learned [as MBAs], related to organizational structure, operational effectiveness, and fundraising were directly applicable. Some other skills such as performance appraisal, negotiations and impact assessment had to be applied in a slightly different way to fit the non-profit environment.” – Vibhu Singh (MBA 2014)

Alma shares with us her experience as a team lead – “While challenging, this experience has allowed me to build my leadership style and refine my project management skills as I’ve learned from my team, as well as our professors and McKinsey coach.”

S3 Team – Estefania, Alma, and Melissa

S3 Team leading a discussion with Hispanic Foundation’s staff and board

DMEC Students Make a Trek to Wikimedia Foundation

Berkeley Haas’ Digital Media and Entertainment Club had the opportunity to make a trek down to the Wikimedia Foundation’s headquarters in San Francisco on Friday, March 8th to tour the headquarters and meet with several members of their management team. The Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to promote the development and distribution of free educational content around the world through their various wiki-based projects.

The DMEC group was hosted by Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia’s Director of Community Advocacy, who elaborated on Wikimedia’s

DMEC students at Wikimedia’s HQ

extensive communities – nearly 800! The student group met with Brandon Harris, the senior designer and Steven Wallin, an associate product manager for Editor Engagement Experiments. Brandon spoke to the group about the future of Wikimedia and new initiatives like Wikidata while Steven highlighted efforts made by Wikimedia to create a more “sticky”  editor experience to retain and quickly acclimate new editors.

If you are passionate about digital media and entertainment and want to get involved, then keep a watch out for other such events hosted by DMEC.

Berkeley Board Fellows Working with Oakland’s Destiny Arts Center

Berkeley Board Fellows MBA students Bri Treece and Stephanie Curran are currently on the board of directors for Destiny Arts Center based in Oakland. They are  working on taking the organization’s professional development program to market. The two spent an afternoon collecting customer insights after having  individually conducted interviews with several Bay Area organizations who have had success implementing professional development programs.

“I love working with Destiny Arts—they have such a powerful mission, and you can feel the passion and energy around that mission when you walk in the door. They have an exciting year ahead with the purchase of a new building and their 25^th anniversary celebration. They’ve welcomed Stephanie and me into the celebration with open arms; it really feels like we’re part of the Destiny family!”

– Bri Treece

Here are a couple of snapshots of the two working with the Destiny board.

Stephanie collecting customer insights for Destiny Arts Center.

Stephanie working with the Destiny board.