Who’s A Young Donor?
Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now just wrote a post, Don’t get too excited by survey on Millennial giving.
He’s warning against hyperventilating over a recent report, Millenial Impact Report, based on the survey research that Jeff loves to hate (as opposed to hard data), that enthuses over giving by the age 20-35 set. He estimates that for most nonprofits, less than 5% of donors are under age 35.
He kind of sniffs at the 93% of Millenials who claim they gave in 2010, noting they include, together with real (i.e., committed, ongoing) donors, those who:
- Dropped money in the church collection plate at least once.
- Sponsored a pal in a walk or run.
- Gave $5 or $10 via their phone, mostly likely to Haiti quake relief, since the year in question is 2010.
- Gave money to panhandlers.
- Believe giving is good, but didn’t quite get around to it.
I don’t disagree with Jeff’s main point, as you’ll see in a moment. But I do tend to see all giving, however incidental, as both beneficial to the cause and as training for a lifetime of giving. Even the claim that they gave, even if overstated, has value … it reflects cultural sensitivity to a positive social norm about giving.
Jeff then makes this marvelous observation, which I simply cannot improve upon:
“Every fundraiser should be deeply concerned about finding more young donors. But young donors are better defined as people between 50 and 65. Those are the folks who are about to transform, Get them now, and you have an amazing asset for decades to come.”
Spot on, Jeff.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with reading the report … especially if you are yourself a fundraiser under the age of 35. You’re in a good position — better than Jeff or me — to judge whether the survey findings pass the basic common sense sniff test. In only 15-20 years, if you stick with the profession, this is the group you’ll be raising money from … your cohort.
Tom
One response to “Who’s A Young Donor?”
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Tom,
After reading your post Who’s A Younger Donor and reviewing Jeff Brooks’ comments on his blog, we have some concerns about the report’s interpretation.
Jeff reports a statistic from our research in 2011. This year’s report found that 75% of the 6,500 surveyed gave to nonprofit organizations. Regardless of the method, they are donors and supporters of nonprofit work.
2/3 of the report focuses on how Millennials connect and involve with nonprofit organizations. From communication, marketing, mobile, and social media – Millennials are taking different approaches to learn about causes and get involved. That is a primary message from the report. One of Jeff’s readers posted this on his blog:
“What the report presents well is the habits of these young potential donors: their smartphone use, social media engagement, etc.
The stats and info around these habits are incredibly useful to nonprofits because it stresses the importance of updating your approach to fit well with new technology. Many nonprofits are stuck with text-heavy websites, outdated Facebook pages and inactive Twitter accounts (which in most cases is due to lack of time and resources). They shouldn’t only be updating their approach because of the “stats” of how many Millennials donated in previous years, but instead because it the general trend with the Internet. The world is moving towards a certain visual-heavy storytelling medium and it’s critical that nonprofits try their best to stay with this trend.”
We couldn’t have said it any better.
Telling organizations to focus on those in their fifties and sixties, which Jeff defines as “younger” donors, is very concerning. That would mean we do not send any appeals or try to engage anyone till they have capacity to give when they are much older. Trying to develop relationships with individuals for the first time after they have had more than 30 years experience giving and volunteering to other organizations is very challenging.
Millennial engagement is not a strategy based on capacity of financial gifts. In each study and focus group that we have performed over the last three years, we continue to hear from Millennials that fundraisers need to move beyond just financial as a means for involvement. This is why fundraisers are in a tizzy as Jeff puts it; because they lack the ability or skill to engage Millennials beyond just asking for money.
As a follow-up, I would like to invite Jeff to an online discussion with the research team to discuss how organizations should apply the findings. We would also like to invite you to moderate the session.
I am hopeful we can have this discussion to help your readers understand how to use the report and take initial steps to engage the generation.
Best,
Derrick Feldmann
CEO/Achieve
themillennialimpact.com