CoGenerate

Simple question: Do you miss human connection when you use self-checkout at the grocery store? Complex question: How is cogeneration threatened by AI, profit-driven “efficiencies,” and automation — and what can we do about it? Join CoGenerate on June 3 at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET for a conversation with Allison Pugh, author of The Last Human Job, and Maya Joshi, founder of Lifting Hearts with the Arts. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e2NwV6q4

By the time Marc Freedman finished his sophmore year of college, he had already racked up nine incomplete courses. But he had one enormous asset on my side: a 70-something mentor named Gil Stott. Forty-six years later, as commencement speaker at Drew University, Marc made the case that his intergenerational connection was a blueprint for how to live in the era of 100-year lives. Read Marc's full address. https://lnkd.in/eQKfFt-c

Grateful and excited to be part of the CoGen Voices Fellowship cohort! It’s been an incredible experience so far connecting with such thoughtful and inspiring peers through the program. Looking forward to learning from their perspectives and growing alongside this community! Thank you to Marci Alboher, Nandita Raghuram, Duncan Magidson, Kate Barranco and the CoGenerate team for creating such a meaningful and age-diverse space for learning and collaboration! Read more about the other fellows and the incredible work they’re doing: https://lnkd.in/e5HsajTb

Last Thursday I got to facilitate a mutual aid session with the CoGenerate community of practice, a group of people working across generations to figure out what it actually looks like to build co-generational culture, not just talk about it. I modeled it by asking for help with something real: I have a first meeting coming up between Youth Collaboratory students and National Civic Collaboratory members, and I was sitting with the question of how you structure a first encounter between younger and older people so nobody walks in already knowing what role they're supposed to play. The room showed up. Someone shared a cascading skillshare model where everyone teaches what they just learned. Someone else pitched a slip-of-paper activity that scrambles the roles from the jump. Real ideas, generously offered. Then we sent everyone into breakout rooms to do it themselves. Two minutes each, one real ask, whatever the group had to give. What came back: resources, connections, the phrase "pleasantly persistent," and a lot of proof that this actually works. Co-generational culture isn't proximity. It's the willingness to say "here's where I'm stuck" and trust that the room will show up. Today it did.

Excited to finally share this news! I am a CoGen Voices Fellow! Four years ago, I started volunteering at the senior center my grandmother attended. At the time, I didn’t know there was a term for what I was experiencing through conversations, shared activities, and friendships with older adults. I just knew those connections mattered to me. A year ago, I started Golden Connections because I wanted other teens to experience that too. I saw how much could happen when different generations were brought into the same space, not just as volunteers and recipients, but as people mutually learning from each other. As one of the youngest members of this cohort, I’m really grateful to CoGenerate for creating a movement and having the vision to bring younger and older people together to build real change. And forever thankful to my first teachers, my two grandmothers, who taught me what intergenerational connection looked like, long before I knew there was a word for it. Meet the fellows: https://lnkd.in/gySaHea7

Congratulations to CoGenerate board members Arielle Galinsky and Alex Edgar, both named 2026 Young Futures Awardees by Young Futures Org and Hopelab! Arielle is scaling intergenerational connection through storytelling, helping young people and older adults build meaningful relationships that combat loneliness and create a stronger sense of purpose on both sides. Alex is reimagining civic participation by creating paid advisory roles for young adults and proving that institutions are stronger when Gen Z is trusted with real influence, not symbolic seats at the table. So grateful to have both of these incredible innovators helping lead CoGenerate.

We are proud to announce that our co-founders Meg LaPorte and Jordan Evans are part of the CoGenerate Voices Fellowship.

I've been named a CoGenerate Voices Fellow! With 21 fellows from ages 15-81, this inaugural cohort is filled with leaders I am honored to learn from. Already, their feedback and support has helped me hone my story. Put simply - participating in age diverse spaces makes me (and all of us) better. A better leader, a better communicator, a better team member, a better voice of change for the world we want to live in. Please take a moment to check out my fellow fellows - their passion and approach to living in, working in, cultivating and celebrating intergenerational communities is inspiring! https://lnkd.in/g9u6g9_w

We're thrilled to introduce the 21 participants of the CoGen Voices Fellowship, a multigenerational cohort of civic leaders, aged 15 to 81, committed to spreading a much-needed vision of intergenerational collaboration — both what it looks like and what it can achieve. This spring and summer, they'll work together to hone their public voices and tell stories that make the case for cogeneration in op-eds, social media, podcasts, and more. https://lnkd.in/evtS6NtA