Shake Off the Blues and Bring on the Boomers

What's going on? The economy's been in the pits, of course. But it goes well beyond that. The generation of older, check-in-the-envelope donors — yes, mail donors from the Great Generation (born up to 1945) — is quite literally dying out. And its younger brethren, the baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964), have different needs and interests, and are rapidly changing their patterns of media consumption. Sadly, very few nonprofits are meeting their needs, as evidenced by the plummeting levels of new-donor acquisition.