From Mentorship to Mutuality: The New Intergenerational Compact

Individual and Community Thriving are Mutually Reinforcing 

Janet Oh,  Senior Director of Innovation and Programs at CoGenerate

When Civic Ventures (which became Encore and then CoGenerate) launched Experience Corps, recruiting retirees to mentor and tutor students in public schools, the premise was straightforward: older generations serving younger ones, bringing time, talent, and experience to classrooms that needed both. It was generosity in action, but one-directional.

Over time, something shifted. As the organization evolved and broadened its focus on reimagining later life and encore careers, a nagging question emerged: Why does intergenerational work flow one way? "Rather than one generation serving the other, whether it's younger to older or vice versa, it’s evolved into ‘how do we really share power?’" says Oh. 

That question—deceptively simple, profoundly difficult in practice—launched CoGenerate into uncharted territory. Their recent report, What Young Leaders Want and Don't Want from Older Allies, documented what happens when you actually ask young people what they need. A companion volume flips the lens: What Older Leaders Want and Don't Want from Younger Allies. The parallel structure reveals the shift from service to genuine reciprocity, from wisdom-passing to mutual learning.

When CoGenerate brought together young consultants from the Youth250 Bureau with adults ranging from 30 to 70-plus, many young people said it was the first time adults outside their families had told them: We admire your passion. We admire your urgency. One young participant, the youngest at their workplace, had endured constant comments about their age. "Wouldn't it be weird," they asked, "if I always talked about how old everyone else is?" Positive intergenerational connection had become so rare it felt transformative.

Arizona State University's Next Generation Service Corps crystallized the challenge. When older residents from the campus retirement center joined college students' service projects, the students struggled. They didn't know how to work with older people, how to utilize their lifetime of experience, only how to work for them or receive help from them. The teams had to pause their projects and return to basics: relationship-building, dialogue, genuine curiosity about what it feels like to be your age in the world today.

The challenge revealed that individual and collective thriving are inseparable but require intentional design. Oh discovered that successful intergenerational collaboration requires toggling between two modes: building authentic human connection and tackling shared problems together. Relationships without purpose can become feel-good conversations; purpose without relationships can default back to hierarchy. The magic happens in the weaving between them—creating space for young people to feel seen, heard and valued for their life experience while older people feel valued for what Oh calls their "coherence," the alignment between values and life lived.

CoGenerate has learned that many organizations value intergenerational work but practice something closer to youth leadership with adult support. True power-sharing remains elusive, not because organizations lack commitment but because we've spent generations building systems where age determines who leads and who follows. This means we need more than good intentions. It requires mutual mentoring, making sure there’s a 50-50 split of numbers in the room, prompts that center shared humanity over expertise, and working on problems neither generation can solve alone. 

When those elements align, thriving stops being something individuals achieve separately and becomes something generations create together.