The New Face of Donors

BABY BOOMERS

Middle-aged baby boomers have very different psychographics than the older, civic-minded audiences that nonprofits have historically depended on. Our society's adult idealists (born between 1946 and 1964) have been hard for the world to swallow. Boomers were told they could do anything. For them, life is a voyage of self-discovery. They display a bent toward inner absorption, perfectionism and individual self-esteem. Taught from birth that they were special, boomers believe in changing the world, not changing to fit it. In midlife, they will see virtue in austerity and a well-ordered inner life. Also, they will demand a new assertion of community values over individual wants.