Reaching The Under 40 Donor
This week I went to Vermont to speak at the AFP Northern New England Chapter conference. The conference was great. It was held at the very scenic Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, Vt, there were a lot of really nice people, and the sessions I attended were excellent. Robin Turnau, VP of Development at Vermont Public Radio, invited me to speak. Thanks again Robin!
My presentation addressed taking an integrated approach to online fundraising and marketing and using e-mail and the web to share your organization’s story. The overall theme of the conference was “The Stories We Tell: Mission-Focused Fundraising.” The web is a great place to tell your story. You can have testimonials from donors and videos, photos and stories about the good work that your organization does. Using e-mail you can easily segment and target messages to various groups and encourage them to visit your website to learn more and then to make a donation (either online or offline whichever is more comfortable for them.)
What I wanted to talk about today though is a presentation I saw at the conference about reaching donors under 40. It was really one of the best presentations I’ve ever seen. Small world that it is, I actually met one of the presenters, Andrew Allen of Vermont Design Works, at the Washington Dulles airport while waiting for my flight to Burlington. He was on his way home from volunteering to help get out the vote in Ohio.
Here are some of the key points I took away from the presentation and wanted to share with you. 18-40 year olds make up 32% of the US population. A majority of young adults — 58% of those ages 18-34 saw volunteering as more important than donating money according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Often people will be active volunteers when they are young, but then get busy with careers and family and nonprofits are losing their interest. So – according to Andrew and Dean, here is how you get them interested again.
Focus on WIFM (What’s in it for me?) Will they be able to make valuable career networking connections by helping your organization? Will they have fun? Will they get the chance to really see how their time and money is helping? A 31 year-old woman in the audience spoke up that she was asked to join a board. She was excited about that because she was new to the area and thought she would make some good connections. However, the other board members (all much older) didn’t treat her like a peer, the board meetings were boring, and she didn’t really get to see what difference she was making, so she is leaving the board.
Focus on using technology. Andrew said that people under 40 don’t even open snail mail. He personally likes to be able to use his Google Tool Bar to pre-fill an online donation form and complete his donation in 9 seconds or less. He said he doesn’t even have a check book. (Make sure your online form works with the Google tool bar to pre-fill the form — that’s something I hadn’t really thought about before – maybe it is because I’m 41)
Educate the under 40 donor about what your organization does. Tell your story. Show them first hand what your work does. Actively engage them. 76% of under 40 donors surveyed said they gave because of a belief in the organization’s mission. Work peer pressure and the promise of tax deductions doesn’t really do it for this group.
If you are seeking volunteers from this age group, market the fact that they can make valuable career connections. A survey in the Chronicle of Philanthropy said that 57% of Americans who volunteer believe that volunteering has helped their careers. Again – WIFM.
Take a targeted approach. This is easy with technology. You can have a mini online silent auction and e-mail those people who have said that they are interested in skiing to tell them about the ski package you have on your online auction.
Give young volunteers a specific task. They don’t want to sit around in endless board meetings discussing procedures. (Ok who does?)
Throw out the old ways of doing things that aren’t working so well anymore.
Most important — Make it FUN!!! The presenters of this session have created a website called Funraising101.com (note there is no “d” ) and they have developed an event that sounds like a blast to me called “Santa Night.” Men and women dress up in Santa and elf costumes to raise money. I’m thinking of organizing a Santa Night in Chicago.
If you allocate some resources and develop a strategy now to enage young people, it will pay off big down the road.
I hope you’ll visit the Funraising101.com site and that you’ll post a comment here on this blog or e-mail me about what your organization is doing to reach under 40 donors. It is really important that we all do a better job in this area.
