Young Adults Party for Charitable Causes

Young people in their 20s and 30s are planning their own charity fund-raising events to socialize, network, and indulge guilt-free, reports The Washington Post.

The Society of Mature Adults Seeking to Help, Entertain and Donate—or “Smashed”—charges around $10 to attend booze-soaked events like its Sweet ‘Stache ManPageant, where men compete for the title of “best mustache,” or the D.C. Idiotarod, where grocery carts substitute for dog sleds and the streets of Washington for Alaskan trails. Proceeds from the events go to help kids with cancer or other local causes. The group’s motto: “Remind me tomorrow that I helped someone today.”

Other groups are using the Internet to make it easier to ask for donations, through online social networks and Web pages. “It’s nice to be able to hide behind the veil of an e-mail or a Web page that you forward to someone,” said Bill Strathmann, chief executive of Network for Good. “You don’t have to go through that socially awkward moment” of an in-person solicitation.

Read how charities are using the Internet to connect to young people in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, as well as a profile of a young New York fund raiser’s efforts to make donating hip.

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