By Melissa Schorr
TIME TO GET out your checkbook. Wait — what’s a checkbook again?
That thousand-dollar-a-plate charity gala may seem hopelessly out of touch, not to mention financially out of reach, to your average debt-ridden, tech-savvy millennial. But that doesn’t mean that Boston-area nonprofits aren’t devising new ways to win this generation’s philanthropic hearts. This cohort — the 75 million or so Americans born between the early 1980s and late 1990s — already gives in a far different way: Witness the rise of #GivingTuesday, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Livestrong crowd-sourced funding campaigns. Young donors want to be inspired, and they want to be actively involved, whether that means pedaling for a purpose or swinging a hammer.
“Millennials like to think of themselves as not just donors, but investors,” says Meg Fowler Tripp, director of editorial strategy at Boston branding firm Sametz Blackstone Associates, who advises area nonprofits from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to Project Bread. “They don’t give out of obligation. They give out of a sense of mission.”
“You want them to feel engaged,” says Mike Grace, the Museum of Science’s director of development. “Millennials like that feeling of giving back beyond that check.”
They may only make up a small chunk of donors — one study on generational giving by nonprofit advising firm Blackbaud found that 18- to 32-year-olds contribute only about 11 percent of total charitable giving, compared with 43 percent from baby boomers. But charities and nonprofits hope that grooming a relationship now will pay off down the line when this cohort reaches peak earnings potential.
“Nonprofits know the young adult you strike up a relationship with today can become a longtime supporter down the road,” says Jim Klocke, chief executive officer at the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network. Klocke doesn’t believe traditional fund-raising galas will die off; they’ll “evolve.”
