Elders for Good Governance

Elders for Good Governance (or EGG, more fondly) will be a membership-based nonprofit, supplemented by grants, that amplifies the voices of Elders who see themselves as broadly defined environmental, social, and financial fiduciaries for their children's children.

EGG is based on the idea that with might comes great responsibility. The difficult circumstances that Elders face, such as living with illness on a fixed income, are in fact opportunities to make courageous moral choices that preserve human dignity. This responsibility is mutual. It places both generations into equal partnership. In this paradigm, older generations have the power to leave their children a world that is ecologically unsound, while younger generations have the power to deprive their Elders of their very dignity.

EGG will provide accessible services (on a sliding scale) normally reserved for small family foundations, such as reflective family discernment retreats and leadership development for the third generation. These "soft" services will be combined with hard and fast technical, legal, and financial advice and other forms of concrete support, such as an online clearinghouse.

EGG will encourage families to reflectively define their assets in the form of social, environmental, moral, cultural and economic or financial capital. For example, the human dignity of an Elder who chooses independent living outside a nursing home is a form of moral family capital, while the loss of culture in successive generations of an immigrant family could be described as a loss of cultural family capital.