May 2, 2010 | Read Time: 7 minutes
A few years ago, Mary Galeti attended a meeting with a fund raiser at a large museum her family had supported in the past with big gifts. The museum had begun a capital campaign and Ms. Galeti, then 24 and vice chair of her family’s foundation, was considering renewing that support.
The museum’s fund raiser seemed surprised by her age, and the conversation got off to an uncomfortable start. It didn’t improve much even when Ms. Galeti had the opportunity to talk about her grandparents’ passion for the museum; the fund raiser didn’t seem to realize they were the same people whose names were on a plaque outside her door.
“Then I left and never heard from them again, which kind of blew my mind,” she says.
While that may be an unusually inept move for a charity, many young people say that nonprofit groups too often don’t take them seriously or give them the kind of information that makes them want to donate.
Members of Generation Y—people who are roughly age 18 to 29—say they want substantive updates on a charity’s work, opportunities to help out and engage with people served by the charity, and the chance to be part of committees and groups that don’t feel ancillary.
But it can be tough for nonprofit organizations to figure out how much effort to put into 20-something donors because they represent only a small pool of potential revenue, even in good times. And the economic downturn has diminished their ability to find work and pay off record-high levels of student debt.
A recent study by Convio, Edge Research, and Sea Change Strategies found that members of Generation Y give an average of $341 to an average of 3.6 groups, compared with $796 and 4.2 groups from people ages 30 to 45.
An Eye Toward the Future
Even charities that have focused on young donors still win a relatively small share of their total budget from this group: the U.S. Fund for Unicef’s 30-person steering committee of donors younger than 40 gave or raised $410,000 last year, while United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey raised $850,000 from donors under 45, and American Jewish World Service won $195,000 from those under 40 with whom it has built relationships.
But many charity officials and donors emphasize the importance of building relationships now with young people who will one day have more money to give away. They also stress the other contributions young people can make—as advocates, volunteers, fund raisers, and marketers.
“As the leader of an organization, it’s imperative for me to have access to this group to know how we’re doing and to keep the organization doing well,” says Caryl Stern, president of the U.S. Fund for Unicef.
How They Are Different
Fund raisers and young people alike say donors in their 20s and early 30s tend to share some characteristics: They are tech-savvy and have “grown up” online, but they want face-to-face communication, too. They are comfortable raising money from friends on- and offline. Many of them are globally minded and interested in helping nonprofit groups become more entrepreneurial.
Among the suggestions young philanthropists and fund raisers offer for connecting with Generation Y:
Committees made up of young donors shouldn’t feel like a seat at the kids’ table. Many charities have created groups that give young people a chance to interact with one another and get more involved in the leadership of the organization. Ms. Galeti and other young donors say those work best when they are integrated into the rest of the charity and offer substance, not glitz.
The U.S. Fund for Unicef’s steering committee of young donors picks specific causes to raise money for—its first was a micronutrient substitute for food programs in Guatemala—and recently organized a trip to the country. American Jewish World Service’s committee plans to organize a dozen events per year; its April event discussed how the news media have covered the Haiti earthquake. Both charities’ efforts are led by fund raisers in their 20s.
Be inclusive. Some fund raisers caution against setting giving levels too high for such committees and events. Rebecca Hoffmann, a 28-year-old fund raiser at United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey, says it’s harder to attract young people to events that require a gift—which her charity generally sets at a minimum of $180—because they don’t appreciate feeling locked in.
Some youthful donors say they like the approach taken by Fierce, a New York charity that works with young members of ethnic and racial minority groups who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. It takes just $250 to become a major donor to Fierce. The charity enlists someone served by its programs to visit or call every major donor.
Strike the right tone in print and online communications. Jason Franklin, 30, remembers the time that he got a pair of letters from a Portland environmental group thanking him for two gifts. The “adult mailing,” as he refers to it, talked about the charity’s advocacy on regulation of factory farming and other issues. The “kids’ mailing,” full of graphics, talked about all the fun social activities in the works, like a forthcoming event with a celebrity speaker.
Mr. Franklin, a doctoral student at New York University who is studying philanthropy and policy change, says he found the dumbed-down mailing underwhelming. He advises charities to ask young people on their staffs to read mailings before they are sent out and to use language that is not stilted but not fluffy, either.
In their e-mail appeals, charities say they have had the most luck when they give people information about an urgent problem and provide a concrete way to help. An e-mail solicitation that Amnesty International sent last year asking readers to press for a new hearing for a death-row inmate resulted in three times as many donations as usual. Roughly 18 percent of the charity’s online donors are under 35.
Get technology right. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 83 percent of people in Generation Y had slept with cell phones by their beds, and 56 percent had used e-mail in the past 24 hours. So it’s no surprise that many charities see technology as the primary way to reach members of Generation Y.
But people in their 20s say they want interactions with charities that go far beyond joining a Facebook page and that the news media have overblown their preoccupation with social media.
Mr. Franklin says some charities have become sloppy in the race to have a presence on as many new technologies as possible. “If something isn’t well done, I notice,” he says. “But I don’t notice if the group doesn’t also have a Vimeo site or if it isn’t also doing 18 different Twitter streams.”
Engage young people as fund raisers. As at many other universities, the California Institute of Technology pushed to raise money for Haitian earthquake victims at the behest of a student.
That’s happening online, too. Thirty-six percent of people under 30 in the recent poll by Convio, Edge Research, and Sea Change Strategies said they had forwarded a message about a charity to a friend in the past month.
Charities can take advantage of that interest by making it easier for people to raise money from their friends online. Mr. Franklin, who gives away 15 percent of his income each year and also gives money through a family foundation, used to donate just to groups for which he volunteers or is otherwise actively engaged and to additional charities working on environmental issues and other causes he values.
But after two years of giving that way, he added a third category—flexible money he could use when friends asked—because he was tired of hesitating when he got requests to support an AIDS walk or other such events.
Ask young donors what they want. The Salvation Army Golden State Division enlisted students in a marketing course at the University of San Francisco to go out into the city’s streets and survey other young people about their opinions of the charity. The class also held a competition to see which student could create the best advertising campaign for the nonprofit group; the winning ad will be broadcast on a youth-oriented radio station this fall.
Several groups exist to help young people with money direct their giving, including Resource Generation and the Council on Foundations Next Generation Task Force.
However, even the best efforts by fund raisers to reach out to young people aren’t likely to lead to an immediate windfall. But young donors say that’s not the point.
“If you think about the long-term potential,” says Ms. Galeti, “it’s actually greater as their capacity grows, as they add more people to their networks, and as they advance in their careers.”
