To Lure Baby-Boomer Donors, Charities Must Prove Their Results

When Henry Klein donated $200,000 to New Jersey’s Englewood Hospital and Medical Center this fall, he knew exactly where he wanted his gift to go. “My wife was helped tremendously by the cancer support group she attended,” says Mr. Klein, whose wife, Phyllis, died of breast cancer in 2002. “My goal was to help other people get the kind of support that she had.”

But writing a check was only the beginning of Mr. Klein’s charitable involvement in what is now known as the Phyl’s Fund Breast Cancer Support Program. He speaks regularly with hospital leaders about the project and has encouraged the creation of new support groups for caregivers and non-English speakers. He is even hoping to meet some of the individuals who are attending the groups.

“It’s about being present and having input,” says Mr. Klein. “My commitment isn’t just financial, it’s personal, too.”

While Mr. Klein’s commitment to honoring his wife’s legacy is noteworthy by any standard—the 62-year-old lawyer also started a foundation in her memory—his desire to be deeply involved in the charity he supports is typical of many donors who are baby boomers.

“They’re really looking for ownership,” says Debra Albanese, vice president for development for the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Foundation. “When they make a gift, they want to be involved in every aspect of the program they’re supporting.”

Seeking Impact

More than 76 million Americans are baby boomers. And even after the recession, the generation born from 1946 to 1964 remains the richest in history. But as many charities are discovering, tapping into even a small part of that wealth can be a challenge.

That’s because baby boomers view giving differently than did previous generations, says Susan Colpitts, a co-founder of Signature, a wealth-management firm.

“The days of automatically writing a check and walking away are over,” says Ms. Colpitts, who advises her baby-boomer clients on philanthropy. “Baby boomers have been trained to look for more accountability and to seek out more impact in their gifts. They feel perfectly comfortable saying, ‘OK, food bank: Prove to me that you’re changing lives.’”

To attract baby-boomer donors—and keep them—takes work and an understanding of why they give. Following are some tips from charity experts about the best way to solicit this essential generation of donors:

Take a hybrid approach to crafting appeals. June Bradham, 65, has some advice for charities seeking her support: “Don’t make me feel like an old person.”

Ms. Bradham, president of Corporate Developmint, in Charleston, S.C, which does fundraising and strategic planning for nonprofits, particularly dislikes direct mail that’s heavy on pictures of silver-haired charity supporters. Instead, she seeks detailed information to help her determine whether to give—as well as the option to donate online.

“I’m part of a crossover generation,” says Ms. Bradham. “I still like something I can hold in my hand, but I’ll make the actual gift online.”

The Institute for Shipboard Education, a charity that operates the Semester at Sea program, took just such a hybrid approach in a recent campaign to raise money for its scholarship fund. The appeal to 60,000 program alumni, one-quarter of whom are baby boomers, used a direct-mail solicitation, then gave donors the option of giving via mail, online, or by calling a toll-free phone number.

Providing multiple giving options paid off, says Brett Jones, vice president for fundraising at DMW Direct, a firm that coordinated the Semester at Sea fund drive. Not only did the campaign raise close to 20 percent more revenue than in the previous year—much of that from new donors—but it shed new light on the giving habits of baby boomers.

“We discovered that when baby boomers went online, they tended to give more generous gifts,” says Ms. Jones.

Show donors the savings. When Mindy Cohen helped organize a benefit last year for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, she made sure that the charity’s many baby-boomer donors understood where their money wasn’t going. “We let them know everything we’d done to reduce the cost of the event itself,” says Ms. Cohen, a cofounder of Evergreen Partners, a firm that does public relations and event planning for charities.

Among the cost-cutting measures: Virtual programs, with sponsor ads that are displayed on screens at the center, have replaced printed programs, while the souvenir goodies that used to grace every place setting are now gone. Instead, Ms. Cohen tried to make visible just where donors’ money goes, highlighting programs, individual performers, even pairs of tap shoes for young dancers in New Jersey’s public schools.

“Baby boomers want to feel the money they worked hard for is going to a real program,” says Ms. Cohen. “They want to have a thorough understanding of where the money ends up and a sense that it isn’t being wasted.”

Think intergenerational. Phyllis Freedman, a fundraising consultant in Washington who writes the Planned Giving Blogger, argues that the key to attracting the support of baby boomers may well lie in their children and grandchildren. “Baby boomers have kids and grandkids who they love,” says Ms. Freedman. “They’re looking for activities that they can all do together.”

Easter Seals of Greater Houston has thousands of baby boomers on its list of potential donors. But getting them to donate to the charity, which provides services to children with disabilities and their families, isn’t always easy. So when Easter Seals planned a major fundraising event last summer, organizers chose to feature an object with which every baby boomer is familiar: the hula hoop. The charity invited participants to help break the world record for simultaneous hula hooping in one location.

While the event fell short of shattering the record, the charity’s baby-boomer supporters turned out in droves and brought their children and grandchildren, says Kelly Klein, director of development for Easter Seals of Greater Houston. “We appealed to that sense of nostalgia that so many baby boomers feel, but the event itself was really intergenerational,” she says. “It was also a good way to remind our supporters that so many of our clients are children.”

Put skills to work. When Marc Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank in San Francisco that seeks to get older people involved in charity work, approaches baby boomers about making donations to his organization, he isn’t surprised when they turn him down. “A lot of people want to get more directly involved before they give money or even join the board,” says Mr. Freedman. “They want to use their skills to help the organization.”

The payoff for charities can be huge, says Mr. Freedman. “Baby boomers have skills that are worth an enormous amount of money. Their accumulated experience can actually be more valuable than any financial contribution they can offer.”

Mr. Freedman says that charities should think of such noncash gifts as falling somewhere between a traditional donation and volunteerism. And if the baby boomers who are willing to give their knowledge and experience feel engaged and appreciated, he notes, more good is likely to follow. “If it goes well,” he says, “it can lead to a financial donation down the road.”

Plan for the future. Charities have long sought to encourage their donors to make bequests through their wills, but planned giving can actually begin much earlier. That’s the idea behind United Way Life, a program begun in 2009 that allows an individual to purchase a life-insurance policy, the proceeds of which benefit the charity when the person dies. The policy holder pays the annual premium—and receives a significant tax deduction—while the charity will ultimately receive the full value of the policy.

“We wanted to make planned giving something that people could do while they’re still in their income-earning years,” says D.J. Hampton, director of planned financial giving at United Way Worldwide. So far, 41 people have purchased life-insurance policies that will ultimately provide more than $11-million to local United Ways the donors chose to support.

Mr. Hampton says that the program particularly appeals to baby-boomer donors who are thinking about their philanthropic legacies but don’t necessarily want to alter the terms of their wills.

“This is a way to leave a substantial gift but without taking anything away from loved ones,” he says.

One other advantage, he says: Life insurance is far more pleasant to discuss with potential donors than wills. “These are easy conversations to have.”