Getting the Younger Donor to Say Yes

By Joe Boland

Traditionally, the highest-value donors in terms of dollars lie within the 65-and-older range. But, with more ways than ever to reach prospects, fundraisers increasingly are looking to engage a younger crowd. In a presentation titled "Yeah, Yup, Right On — Getting the Younger Donor to Say 'Yes' to Your Nonprofit" at the 47th Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference on Fundraising going on in Baltimore right now discussed ways to do just that.

The session featured Blake Groves, online engagement evangelist at Convio; Joe Bartlett, assistant director of marketing at PETA; and Lindsey Twombly, online fundraising and advocacy manager at Human Rights Campaign.

The first step, Groves said, is to define what a younger donor is for your organization. That doesn't necessarily mean teens or young adults, though it could. For some organizations, a younger donor "could be 70 years old," while for others, such as PETA, it could mean children as young as 13. Again, it all depends on your organization, mission and donor demographics.

"The first step," Groves said, "is understanding who you want to reach."

Why bother with a younger crowd?
Considering the fact that older donors tend to donate larger amounts, an immediate question is what's the point of communicating with younger prospects and/or donors anyway?

For one thing, Groves said, baby boomers and Gen Xers make up a larger portion of the population than do folks 65 and older. That means that even though combined boomers and Gen X give less in terms of average gift, they give more actual dollars because there are more of them giving. In fact, they comprise the largest segment of donors out there. Ignoring them leaves valuable dollars on the table.

Secondly, as all three presenters pointed out, the younger you can engage donors, the longer you can cultivate them and the earlier your organization is top of mind. That helps breed loyalty and, eventually, dollars. Still, Groves and Bartlett agreed that the goal for engaging younger donors isn't necessarily to raise dollars right away, especially from teens and young adults. A better, more easily attained goal, they explained, is building relationships that can be fostered over time, resulting in loyal donors who provide a steady stream of funds over the course of their giving lifetime.

Two approaches
The Human Rights Campaign makes a conscious effort to push out one integrated brand message across all its mediums, communicating with its younger audience through the mediums it frequents — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. PETA takes a slightly different approach, repurposing its content to fit the specific audiences it engages. For example, PETA launched peta2, aimed exclusively at the 13- to 21-year-old crowd, which sends out very different messages than its PETA Prime network, which targets more of the baby boomer generation.

So while on peta2 there is content such as the "cut class, not frogs" campaign, PETA Prime focuses more on financial issues and encourages boomers to lobby Congress for the cause. But it's not as if PETA radically strays from its core missions — far from it. It’s more about targeting each audience in the most appropriate way for it to take action.

"On the surface these two endeavors look different," Bartlett said, "but the strategy is the same."

And that strategy revolves around studying your different demographic segments and engaging with them accordingly.

It's a multichannel world
All the panelists agreed that it's vital to take a multichannel approach. Twombly laid out a three-phase approach as to how fundraisers can communicate through all the channels afforded to them:

Integration. Twombly said it's important to keep a consistent brand message across all channels so donors and prospects don't get confused about your mission. That means using the same tone, design and overriding message in your direct-mail campaign as your e-mail and online communications.
Expansion. Expand your outreach by launching a mobile action network, blog, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to supplement the more traditional channels. Donors and prospects, especially younger ones, frequent these mediums. They’re there, having conversations and looking for organizations to throw their support behind. Be there to join those conversations to have even greater reach than simply your mailing and e-mail lists.
Sharing. Give your donors ways to share your information and stories. People trust and rely more and more on peer-to-peer communications. Add share links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and any other online channel your donors and prospects inhabit. That way they can pass along the experiences and stories they've had with your brand and open up your organization to people who might never have never thought to look for you before.

Groves added that it's important to make your board aware that while some of these channels might not look like they're helping your bottom line, research shows that the more channels in which a donor engages with an organization, the more he or she gives. All channels must be used in unison to get the most out of your donors, young or old.

What it all boils down to is understanding who you are trying to engage and what it is they want from you. For peta2, that includes a variety of things:

Using celebrities, free prizes (such as stickers) and street team points (take so many actions, earn points, redeem them for a T-shirt)
Focusing on peer-to-peer communications
Fostering the community through blogs, user-generated content, social media
Featuring engaging, targeted content such as games, a PETA ad generator (where a peta2 member can place his or her likeness to a PETA ad), dynamic microsites, etc.

The best way to know what's right for your younger audience, whatever age range that may be, is to listen to it. Find out where those people are, what they are saying, what they want … then give it to them. And don't think about younger donors strictly in terms of dollars and cents. As Bartlett pointed out, "In regards to young donors, it's not about what you can squeeze out of them today, but about beginning and cultivating a lifetime of giving."

After all, the longer donors are with you, the more likely they are to keep giving.