3 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Aging Gen X and Millennial Donors
People in their early- to mid-forties may begin to have difficulty seeing clearly at close distances, according to the American Optometric Association. This decline affects their ability to read your nonprofit’s appeal and fill out your donation form on your organization’s website.
In 2025, baby boomers are seniors in their 60s and 70s. Meanwhile, Generation X donors are in their late-40s and 50s and older millennials are in their early 40s. So if you haven’t already optimized your website for aging vision, now is the time.
While boomers may have a higher digital literacy than many assume, future generations are going to have more digital knowhow and expectations even as they grow older, Cliff Persaud, director of creative services at Kanopi Studios, said in his presentation, “Creating Inclusive Digital Experiences for Seniors,” at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference last week.
“What this means is, if you're a nonprofit, you have a small window of opportunity to create experiences that empower these particular audiences and not frustrate them, because when donors feel empowered, they're more likely to take action.”
Gen Xers and millennials should be a large part of your organization’s pipeline, but if your website and online giving experience fails to meet expectations, that could be a missed opportunity for your organization’s fundraising efforts. After all, these aging generations have different expectations than their predecessors. Gen Xers and millennials have a higher level of digital competence, utilize a variety of online platforms, and donate online more than baby boomers.
“They are not willing to accept bad experiences,” Persaud said. “They will abandon forms, they will abandon journeys, and they don’t tolerate poor mobile experiences. So if you're still designing for that donor journey that is really focused on the boomer generation or previous [generations], I think you're already a little bit behind as well.”
Here are three of Persaud’s tips to optimize your nonprofit website for aging Gen X or millennial donors.
1. Content Optimization
First, to optimize your content, it’s important to tell an authentic story, Pursaud said. Both Gen Xers and millennials value emotional storytelling with testimonials, community impact and user-generated content. Then provide clarity with a simple design.
“And one of the things that's really important to mention here is when you optimize for that senior experience, you're not just optimizing for that experience,” he said. “You're optimizing pretty much for all visitors as well, but you're ensuring that accessibility meets the needs of the folks that need it the most.”
2. User Experience Optimization
Aside from mobile optimization, which is vital for Gen X and millennials, nonprofits must catch these donors' attention. Consider shortening their journey by allowing them to give in just a few steps and providing valuable tools, like a page with frequently asked questions, Persaud said. Storytelling is another attention-grabbing option. However, statistics will not do the trick.
“What I would challenge you to do is, when you're managing that complexity, think about how you can take the statistics and talk about impact instead of numbers. And that's why we find landing pages to also be a successful engagement metric, because you can pair that statistical information with targeted content that actually resonates with users in an emotional way, rather than just throwing them stats, like ‘We raised this amount of dollars over X amount of time.’”
3. Visual Optimization
Visual optimization helps aging eyes as well as those viewing your website on a phone or tablet. Persaud recommended at least a 16-point font with high contrast.
However some colors and color combinations are not ideal for those with declining vision, he said. Most of all, blue is difficult to discern with degrading vision. Certain color combinations, such as blue with yellow and red with green, can be hard to see as well.
“So I'm willing to bet that a lot of nonprofits will use blue and red for their donate [calls to action],” Persaud said. “And that's something you really need to take a look at because that's going to be challenging for those folks to distinguish important interface elements. We like to steer our clients away from those color combinations because it does appear faded or washed out as your vision gets older.”
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines can provide more suggestions to ensure your nonprofit’s website is accessible.
“It’s not just about accessibility and compliance,” Persaud said. “Really, when you create accessible experiences for seniors. It’s about respect, clarity and ease of use — all of which helps build trust in that audience and also helps increase your donor retention.”
