Empowering the Ages Inc

Empowering the Ages (ETA) is a transformative and engaging non-profit organization with a vision for the future of Montgomery County, Maryland. ETA enhances the connection of all its citizens and improves the community by forging bonds between the generations. Utilizing the strengths and assets of all ages solves community challenges in a thoughtful and sustainable manner.

Empowering the Ages strengthens social-emotional well-being, provides life skills, and creates connections across generations to provide older and younger people with a sense of belonging and purpose. We work in the Greater Washington DC area in the critical spaces of school readiness, civic engagement, and workforce development through developing mutually beneficial connections between children, youth, families, and older adults.

GOAL 1. Children/youth and their families will have new opportunities to engage with volunteers aged 50 and older through school engagement, civic engagement, and workforce development programming.
GOAL 2. Individuals aged 50 and older will have new volunteer opportunities to use their knowledge and skills to support children/youth and their families in the community.
GOAL 3. Educate individuals, organizations, and government on the critical importance of utilizing an intergenerational strategy to solve community challenges.
GOAL 4. ETA will be well-funded and function organizationally with the highest standards of skill, transparency, and accountability.

Develop and implement intergenerational programming and/or facilitate cross-generational communication (including virtual) in collaboration with individuals, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, school systems and senior living communities.

Build trust and effective communication strategies with partners.

Provide fee-for-service resources and program development for ongoing intergenerational initiatives, as requested.

Collect annual participation data to assess program value and impact.

Create a system to recruit, on-board, train and nurture volunteers. Facilitate programs to engage the volunteers in their community.

Expand the diversity of our volunteers through their racial, cultural and lingual backgrounds and experiences.

Utilize effective communication and retention strategies with volunteers throughout their engagement with ETA

Measure volunteer satisfaction annually.

Become known in the Greater Washington community through on-going relationship building and participation on multiple community committees related to older and/or younger individuals.

Partner with multiple organizations that are addressing the needs of older and/or younger individuals through developing opportunities for sustained, on-going programming between the generations.

Share ETA’s annual organizational summary with local and national stakeholders.

Expand and diversify revenue streams to ensure ETA’s sustainability through developing an annual and a 3-year fundraising plan.

Match identified strengths (based on SWOT analysis) and programs to current community needs on an on-going basis.

Develop consistent data collection strategies to identify and track progress across all areas.

Recruit, hire and retain, best-qualified staff to implement financial and programmatic goals.

Continue focus on recruiting Board of Director members with skills and diversity to support ETA at each stage of growth.

ETA is uniquely qualified to have a positive impact on these underserved communities because of our emphasis on dedicated, individualized, and unconditional support for all program participants, resulting in programs that dramatically boost self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Additionally, as ETA is a virtual organization (using Non-Profit Village for a mailing address), programs take place in locations that are convenient for the constituents. ETA offers events at school playgrounds and local libraries to elementary school participants, holds workforce development workshops at Recreation centers or high schools; plays concerts at an Assisted Living Facility; holds on-going conversation programs at schools and older adult living communities; and provides volunteer trainings over Zoom.


And, maybe most importantly, ETA’s goal is to address current challenges in the community and develop effective intergenerational strategies. This means that the ETA staff and Board believe in change, and as programs will evolve as community needs evolve.

ETA focuses on meeting challenges facing the Montgomery County area with creative, strategic, and efficient cross-generational and collaborative solutions. Since ETA’s inception in 2019, the initiatives have included e-pal programs, online concerts, interactive mapping of community benches, weekly motivational quotes, civic engagement projects, cross-age conversation programs, school readiness programs, and workforce development workshops. ETA staff and volunteers are poised and ready to develop and implement programming that will provide meaningful interactions and reciprocal benefits for all of the participants, while positively impacting Montgomery County. This will be accomplished through current program expansion and new programming.