02/21/2018

Aging World: Adapting to a Key Demographic Shift

As the world gets older, associations will have to take steps to respond

The world is getting grayer: The number of Americans 65 and older is expected to double by 2050. And for the next few years, baby boomers plan to stick around in their jobs, either because they want to or because economic necessity forces them to. Which is to say that aging isn’t just about age: It encompasses work, health, economics, and government, too.

Ellie Hollander, president and CEO of Meals on Wheels America, experiences that complex intersection of changes on a daily basis. It runs on a mix of private and public funding to address a senior hunger gap that threatens to keep widening. “We’re serving 2.4 million people, but we know that there are nearly 10 million seniors who are struggling with hunger,” she says. The organization is further challenged by uncertain federal funding and intense competition for philanthropic dollars.

Hollander’s proposed solution is to make the business case for companies to partner with the association. Last September, for instance, it announced a pilot program in collaboration with health insurance giant Aetna where volunteers delivering meals will help facilitate healthcare access for the seniors they serve. Meals on Wheels America benefits by becoming a more essential part of the healthcare infrastructure; Aetna gets a volunteer army that’s checking in on seniors before their health issues become serious—and expensive—saving the insurer on medication and hospital costs.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.