Yada, Yada, Yada

After such an aggressive effort, in which we pulled in every donor we could find, we lowered the donor base’s average age by only five or six years.

There are exceptions to any rule. Not all donor bases have such high average ages. AIDS organizations usually have a younger donor base. Women’s rights groups often have younger donors. Organizations that have major, short-term successes on the Internet — such as those that raked in a lot of money after Hurricane Katrina — also might demonstrate at least brief downward trends in their donor bases’ average ages.