Leveraging Knowledge and Achieving Sustainability Through Aging Mastery

The Patterson Foundation (TPF) and National Council on Aging (NCOA) are “AMPing up” NCOA’s Aging Mastery Program® (AMP) by connecting the dots from what's working in communities across the country to building in sustainable strategies.  

AMP is a 10-week, self-paced program enabling participants to create personal pathways for aging well and for cultivating health and longevity. NCOA’s goal is to improve the lives of 10 million older adults by 2020. They are developing a network of Aging Mastery Programs® across the nation to help people achieve measurable improvements in their health and financial well-being, and help reduce overall health care costs.

The Patterson Foundation is supporting NCOA’s AMP goals by connecting people, organizations and communities and sharing local knowledge with the national initiative so the national program is strengthened by new and successful approaches that can be shared across the nation.

A local experiment regarding sustainability

The Patterson Foundation engaged organizations in Sarasota and Manatee counties who now offer AMP and conducted a sustainability experiment. Together with Enrichment Center at Renaissance on 9^th in Bradenton, The Friendship Centers in Sarasota and Venice, and Aging in Paradise Resource Center on Longboat Key, sustainability models were developed and tested.

Our local experiment netted very good results. Our local agencies proved that engaging local businesses as speakers along with a combination of fees, sponsorships, and some supportive grants provides strong support for AMP’s sustainability. A key finding was that charging about $100 for AMP works in this market.

Sharing knowledge locally and nationally

The three agencies, NCOA, and The Patterson Foundation worked closely, and a Knowledge Sharing Session was conducted at the completion of the experiment. Each agency shared comprehensive information about what they discovered. Agencies learned from each other; NCOA gained detailed reports along with pages and pages of notes to weave useful findings into the expansion of AMP as NCOA continues to roll the program out across the nation.

NCOA has shared this information widely and now other agencies across the nation are charging from $30 to well above $100 for the AMP classes.

The Pima Council on Aging in Tucson, Arizona, is a national catalyst, successfully offering AMP, limiting $99 classes to 40 participants.

To find classes across the nation, visit NCOA’s map of partners and programs.

TPF believes in strengthening people, organizations, and communities by connecting, learning, and sharing together. TPF takes best practices, shares contributions from its local work and communicates successful practices to amplify the impact we can all make. Working together, sharing knowledge locally and nationally can powerfully contribute to new paradigm and better results.

Exploring and adopting new models of sustainability and leveraging knowledge are winning strategies.

To contact Deborah: dgauvreau@thepattersonfoundation.org

Join Deborah on Twitter: @DeborahGauvreau