- By adopting CAFE best practices and committing to training managers, pioneering employers across sectors are raising awareness of age-friendly solutions, improving their talent attraction and retention.
- Age-Friendly Institute has expanded its presence in U.S, Europe, and South America, welcoming initial partners into its new “Age-Friendly Champions” Collaborative.
- California was recently announced as the third state to become a CAFE employer, as the Program prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary in April 2026.
WALTHAM, MA, USA — June 3, 2025 — The Age-Friendly-Institute today announced that its community of collaborators has expanded to include a broader group of Age-Friendly Champions. This new consortium includes leaders in government, finance, business, healthcare, academia and others who are committed to raising awareness of age-friendly solutions. They are employers and organizations seeking to lead by example and join the vanguard of those combating ageism. As part of the Champions Initiative, AFI will convene leaders of organizations from aging services sectors to encourage information sharing, promote the establishment of strategic partnerships and alliances, and share lessons learned.
CAFE Origins
Since 2006, the Certified Age-Friendly Employer (CAFE) Program has helped people who choose to work later in life save time by first applying to jobs with employers more likely to hire and retain them. 11,000+ Americans turn 65 each day. That figure jumps seven-fold when including people in all developing countries. Many of these older adults wish to supplement their retirement income for day-to-day needs or discretionary budget items such as travel. CAFE began in the United States. In 2017, its team began adapting standards for employers worldwide. There are now employer participants on five continents and in 20 countries, including 32 states in the U.S. The program and network was developed and remains operated by a team of analysts and professionals with specializations in compensation, mathematics, benefits, and HR.
Age-Friendly Frameworks
Employers first used the term age-friendly via the Certified Age-Friendly Employer® Program in 2006 when they sought to expand the age-radius of applicant searches in America’s workplaces. They know older adults are among the remedies to labor shortages and employee churn. The World Health Organization further popularized the term when using it to promote social inclusion of older adults in cities. Since then, several other organizations have developed and led their own efforts to promote age-friendliness in communities, health systems, public health systems, and universities. There are now hundreds of employers that have earned the CAFE designation. Among them, they employ more than one million older employees [View International Journal of Geriatrics and Gerontology Article: “Developing a Shared Language to Describe the Age-Friendly Ecosystem: Technical Meeting Report]. The CAFE seal has been viewed worldwide more than 130 million times.
Tom Grape, CEO and founder of Benchmark Senior Living, New England’s largest senior living company, said, “We were delighted to be the first organization in the senior living industry to be a Certified Age-Friendly Employer. Now, we are pleased to join with fellow employers and the Age-Friendly Institute to further support the program’s expansion. We believe in the Institute’s mission to be a leading voice for older adults in the workforce. This helps organizations like Benchmark enhance their culture, services, and ultimately business results. CAFE aligns with our organization’s values. It gives us a leg up in attracting and retaining quality associates, and delivering great outcomes for the residents and families we serve.”
Bob Kramer, a respected analyst in the aging services industry, added, “Imagine a major consumer brand that builds its reputation by thinking differently about aging. From the people they hire, to the products they deliver, to the way they market them, this company is truly an age-friendly company. It employs older adults at a rate comparable to or even above the national average. It has strong Net Promoter Scores among older consumers. It runs award-winning ads that are seen as being in the vanguard of combating the one still socially acceptable “ism”- ageism. As its reputation grows, this company’s stock, its job applicants, its sales and its awards multiply. Competing companies scramble to follow suit, wondering how they missed this opportunity. And they’re now on the wrong side of consumer and employee attitudes. This is the future.”
Age-Friendly Institute CEO Tim Driver said, “Making it easier for people to work longer has a big economic upside that’s hard for policymakers to ignore. I believe that’s why we’re seeing such a spike in interest from local governments. They recognize CAFE’s value as an economic stimulus. When more older adults are working, they’re spending, they’re more engaged, healthier, and their employers are more productive. Working longer doesn’t solve everything for policymakers, but it does address an array of needs.”
The Age-Friendly Institute has added more regional affiliate partner organizations, the sixth and seventh respectively, in Colombia and Italy. “When we help older people continue to live, work, and volunteer in our communities, we all benefit from their energy, experience, and contributions,” said ex-McKinsey Senior Associate and Learning Edge CEO Odile Robotti, who leads CAFE’s new Affiliate Partner organization in Milano. “At the societal level, this is a win-win.” A recent report from McKinsey & Co. shows that encouraging older adults back into the workforce could add between 2 and 15 percent to annual GDP.
There has been a spate of new CAFE designees worldwide, including among local governments at the city, county and state level. They include Los Angeles County [release], Boulder, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Maine and Massachusetts [release]. Mayors, governors, and leaders of these organizations seek to lead by example, encouraging employers in their jurisdictions to hire older adults. A third U.S. state will publicly announce its designation in the coming weeks, accompanied by a substantial outreach campaign to reach job seeker residents.
Older adults prefer employers designated as age-friendly. In a survey via AgeFriendly.com, which reaches a large panel of older adults across the U.S., more than 500 older adult respondents shared their opinion about such employers. 87% said they were ‘highly likely’ or ‘very likely’ to stay at an employer with the designation. 89% said they were ‘highly likely’ or ‘very likely’ to choose or recommend such an employer. The survey was conducted in 2021 and included a nationally representative sample of age 50+ adults in the U.S.
About The Age-Friendly Institute
The Age-Friendly Institute (institute.agefriendly.com) celebrates and elevates all things age-friendly. It is a division of Age Friendly Ventures, a public benefit corporation. Its consumer website AgeFriendly.com was created to simplify the confusing landscape for older adults and families as they navigate aging and to give voice to their experiences. AgeFriendly.com brings together expert-developed systems for establishing what is age-friendly with reviews, ratings and insights from older adults and family caregivers. Through its worldwide research and events, the Institute encourages cross-sector collaboration among aging services organizations in pursuit of a comprehensive Age-Friendly Ecosystem. The Age-Friendly Institute is the home of the Certified Age-Friendly Employer® (CAFE) program, which began as part of RetirementJobs.com in 2006, and the international Revolutionize Conference focusing on innovations in aging.
Media Contact for The Age-Friendly Institute:
Emily Johnson Beach
ebeach@agefriendly.com