A few years ago we won a $100,000 technology grant from Intel Corporation, so we know for a fact that it is not an urban myth to receive grant money for your business.
The Purpose Prize®, now in its eighth year, is the nation’s only large-scale investment in people over 60 who are combining their passion and experience for social good. The Prize awards $100,000 to at least one individual in his or her encore career creating new ways to solve tough social problems.
The Prize was created in 2005 by Encore.org (formerly Civic Ventures), with funding from the John Templeton Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies to showcase the value of experience and disprove notions that innovation is the sole province of the young. It’s for those with the passion to make change and the experience to know how to do it.
The requirements are the senior being nominated had to be over the age of 60 when they STARTED their business. And the business has to be involved with solving a significant social problem.
Encore.org has featured Mannequin Madness in several articles on their blog. Although we were ineligible to apply for the Purpose Prize, they gave us an honorable mention for social impact our mannequin recycling business is having on the environment. And I was 45 when I started the business. So while I wasn’t a senior when I started the business, I wasn’t a spring chicken either.
