Revolutionize Your Retirement Radio

Renewment®: A Retirement Model for Career Women with Dorian Mintzer and Helen Dennis

• Dorian Mintzer

Share episode

This is a story about Renewment®, a word Helen Dennis and her co-founder, Bernice Bratter, made up.  The word is a combination of retirement and renewal.  So, what is it?  It is a small movement, process, and forum that inspires and supports career women from work to retirement…and beyond.  Over the past 25 years, 35 to 40 small in-person renewment forums spread virally across the country, concentrating in Southern California, where Bernice and Helen live.  Groups have lasted anywhere from 2 to 25 years, most often meeting in someone’s home. 

Since the pandemic, they formed virtual renewment roundtables talking about topics and issues related to transition and change, and relevant to our life stages, with roughly 100 women across the country participating.  Again, this has been viral growth. 

Renewment groups have addressed topics such as “Who am I without my business card?”  and “What does productivity mean at this life stage?” A common characteristic of all renewment women is that they are not satisfied with the status quo for themselves or their communities.   

In this program, you'll discover: 

  • The most important issues facing later-life career women 
  • The impact of renewment, and some intended and unintended consequences. 

Note: Much of the content is also relevant to men. Yet, since the work trajectories for the boomer and silent generations are somewhat different for men and women, we have focused on women. 

About Helen Dennis: 

Helen Dennis is a nationally recognized leader in aging and new retirement. She has received numerous awards for her university teaching at the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology and for her contributions to the field of aging, the community, and literary arts. As one of the nation's leading experts on preparing for the non-economic aspects of retirement, she has worked with over 25,000 employees at corporations and universities to do just that. Some of her other work engagements have focused on employment opportunities for older adults, expert witness work on large class action age discrimination cases, and more. 

Additionally, Helen is a syndicated columnist on Successful Aging for the Southern California News Group and has published over 1,000 columns reaching 1.2 million readers weekly. She is co-founder of Renewment® and co-author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, Project Renewment®: The First Retirement Model for Career Women, and has been recognized by PBS Next Avenue as one of the 50 Influencers in Aging. 

Get in touch with Helen Dennis: 

Buy Helen’s book:  https://revolutionizeretirement.com/renewment  

Visit Helen’s websites:  https://www.renewment.org/ and https://www.helenmdennis.com/  

Download’s Helen’s Handout: https://revolutionizeretirement.com/dennis2024  

 

What to do next: