#2
Raise expectations

Organizations can help boomers realize their ambitions to make profound and lasting change by aiming high themselves. Boomers who think they can have a big or moderate impact on their community are nearly 50% more likely to want service opportunities than those who feel their impact will be small, the "New Face of Work" found.

Habitat for Humanity, for example, aims "to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world" - and has attracted thousands of volunteers to help build more than 200,000 homes since 1976. The arrival of trained, talented volunteers and workers makes feasible similar large-scale efforts in education, health care and other areas.

Jack McConnell, a retired doctor in Hilton Head Island, S.C., recruited 55 retired doctors and opened a clinic on the island for people who couldn't afford medical care. But McConnell's ambitions are bigger. He told The Wall Street Journal recently that perhaps two-thirds of the country's 160,000 retired doctors would be willing to come out of retirement to work free of charge. "The retirees could provide much, if not most, of the care for the uninsured in America if they were properly organized," McConnell said.