NextFifty Initiative: Senior Planet Colorado

The challenge

NextFifty Initiative is a private foundation in Colorado that was recently formed to encourage and support innovation in the aging space. OATS recognized an opportunity to design and launch a truly integrated and statewide Senior Planet program across Colorado’s varied regions.

The strategy

Take advantage of the full range of OATS capacity, learning, network and content, and leverage and extend these resources to serve thousands of new members in a new geography, while refining, expanding, and adapting core concepts to fit various Colorado environments.

The solution

In May 2018, OATS began to build a statewide program that included programs in urban, suburban, rural, and frontier communities, promoting foundational courses in areas that had been without resources and impact-level courses to drive innovation and opportunity for seniors in the state. The program is anchored by a Senior Planet Center in Denver, which represents the best of OATS conceptual design since the first Senior Planet Center opened in Manhattan in 2013. For example, the center in Denver includes a coffee bar and comfortable layout for gatherings, an incubator space to support senior entrepreneurs and activists, and updated teleconferencing abilities to connect with other Senior Planet hubs around the country and host a new range of online learning and gathering opportunities for members across the state and across the country.