In a recent, reasonably intelligent Adweek article reviewing giving by millennials, Dennis McCarthy at Blackbaud commented: “My 23-year-old son wouldn’t know what to do with an envelope.”

I’d say the same about my 22-year-old daughter. Among other handicaps, she doesn’t have a checkbook. But she does have a bank account and manages to shop online, although more as a last resort when she can’t find the precise item/brand she wants in a shop in downtown Auckland.

The Adweek article contrasted the fact that the American Red Cross ran an operating deficit in fiscal 2015 after having “its worst fundraising year in over a decade” with the success of Charity:Water, whose donations have increased every year since its founding in 2006.

I’m not actually sure what that comparison proved, since there was no data (or even claim) that it’s armies of millennials who sustain Charity:Water while ignoring the Red Cross. A spokesman for Charity:Water commented: “We give millennials a low barrier to getting involved, and we make things as easy as possible with features like our online fundraising platform … We want to keep people passionate and engaged and really show them the impact they can have with a birthday or a bike ride.”

The Agitator has applauded Charity:Water’s fundraising prowess numerous times in the past (just search ‘Charity:Water’ on our website). Their online fundraising strategy and execution is superlative and their offer (“none of your gift goes to overhead” is remarkable and enticing … and probably the single most important driver of their fundraising success). But I’ve never seen data on the demographic mix of their donors (would love to). I suspect it does skew younger than most mainline charities like the Red Cross, but with hefty amounts still raised from digitally literate older donors.

After all, Adweek cites Blackbaud data indicating that boomers still account for 43% of all charitable giving (with average annual contributions of $1,212), while millennials account for 11% (with average annual contributions of $481).

Citing Blackbaud’s McCarthy again, Adweek says: “Millennials, as a group, see giving in much broader terms than their predecessors. They like to volunteer, enlist others to join them and use social media for crowdfunding. They want to be more involved than their more passive boomer counterparts.”

I’ll concede that younger folks are heavier users of social media and approaches like crowdfunding, but that behavior doesn’t translate into more dollars raised. And I heartily disagree that millennials volunteer more or have more time to be actively involved in charities than boomers, who are at a life stage when discretionary time and a sense of public service are conjoined and peaking. Show me the evidence that I’m wrong.

So, how ‘different’ is millennial giving after all? It might be more to ’causes’ than ‘institutions’. It certainly is far more likely to occur digitally. It might be more susceptible to peer influence, since social media makes the giving process more public and visibly communal (dare I say, herd-like?). It might be more driven by the news flow and events, given that millennials are ‘tuned in’ to the world 24/7 via their mobile devices, which increasingly also simplify immediate giving.

But are millennials more demanding of results than older donors? Do they demand more transparency? I doubt it … the ‘demand curve’ for performance and transparency is rising across the entire donor population.

And at the end of the day, are their motives for giving any different?

Absolutely not. At bottom the emotions, needs and impulses are the same — a donor is a donor is a donor.

Tom