← The Fundraising Masterminds Podcast
The Fundraising Masterminds Podcast
117. Swipe Culture: Everything You Need to Know About Gen Z Fundraising
00:42:50
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the number one podcast for nonprofit leaders getting your nonprofit fully funded. This is the Fundraising Masterminds podcast. The baby boomers were like, willing to go to the factory for 25 years and just work. Yes. You know, and save. And kind of had more of a long term view of life. These guys are like, wow, I have to work hard. Where's the easy button? They're like, how do I order, like, more wealth on Amazon?
- [00:26]
B
My gut tells me this Generation Z is going to impact our culture a lot more than we ever perspective.
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A
Well, welcome back to another episode here at the Fundraising Masterminds Podcast. My name is Jason Ginsinski and with me, my co host, Jim Dempsey.
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B
Hi, Jason.
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A
Well, Jim, it's the beginning of March and we're going to be covering this important topic on Gen Z Swipe culture. Everything you need to know about Gen Z fundraising.
- [00:52]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. Gen Z is right now the largest population, largest percentage in the population, actually. Baby boomers. Now, because of deaths, Baby boomers is now in number four. They're actually lower than Gen Z and Millennials and Gen X. So. Yeah.
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A
Wow.
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B
So we are dying off. I am part of the baby boom generation. We are dying off faster and the younger generations are. Are multiplying. Yeah.
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A
Well, this is going to be an interesting podcast, especially if you're kind of interested in fundraising and how the different generations kind of relate to each other. We actually did an episode a little while ago called how to Fundraise from Baby Boomers to Gen Z and it was a good episode where we did kind of an overview of all the different generations and how they kind of view fundraising. So if you're interested in this topic, you might be interested in going back and watching that one as well. But this particular episode we're going to just drill into Gen Z because it is one of the largest generations and it's also one of the first generation that has really not known any life outside of like iPhones, ipods, Internet. You know, certainly the other generations, you know, were born during the transition.
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B
Right.
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A
But like, this is the generation that doesn't know anything different.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, so it's kind of weird, kind of strange. It's also the generation that's, you know, aware of AI, the like, using AI in like schools.
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B
Right.
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A
They just have a digital awareness. So much more than any other generation.
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B
Yeah, well, this is also, this is also a generation was greatly impacted by Covid as well and the isolation. You know, certainly all generations were impacted by Covid, but this is the one that was greatly impacted there. You know, some didn't have high school graduation. Certainly some didn't have college graduation. Some were locked in at very important times in their life.
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A
Well, some fun facts about Generation Z. So Generation Z, as we said before, is the largest generation alive. Their values and behaviors and expectations are radically different however than baby boomers or millennials or Xers. Yep, we'll talk about that a little bit later. So in this episode we're going to be addressing like who is Generation Z? How does Generation Z think? How does Generation Z give and how can you reach Generation Z? So that's why we called this episode everything you need to know about Generation Z fundraising. But they are the swipe cult of America right now.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, just a couple things on Gen Z, you know who is Gen Z? For sure. Our producer pulled together some fun facts for us on some of these things. Gen Z was born between 1997 and 2009. They are the first truly digital native generation. That means that you know, they were born, grew up with everything in from the technology standpoint and that this is, you know, this is how they live their lives. They grew up on smartphones, social media, streaming. They are constantly bombarded with notifications and media. This is how they live their lives. Gen Z has a very short attention span, Rabbit. And they have a short attention span. Jason, was you, you and I were talking about some fun stories before we got into here.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah, there's, there's a couple people that I know were. My boys and I are on the worship team at church and so we, there's a few gen zers, you know, in that area and we've got to know a couple of them and they, it's interesting because it's like they, they really, really, really long for a deep human connection and interaction. Like they'll sit with you for hours and hours and hours if you align with what they're interested in.
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B
Right.
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A
If they're not interested, they're like completely ignore you and just like on their phone all the time swiping and just kind of, you know. But then at the same time if, if you do make a connection and you are getting their interest or you're having like that deeper discussion. It's like they're so distractible at the same time because they're constantly getting bombarded with notifications and, and things. And so their, their attention span is very weak.
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B
Right.
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A
You know, and they can't seem to focus in, you know, their, their focus will be short lived and so it's like it's kind of this interesting. Like they seem to really want to go deep, but then their definition of deep is like, you know, half an inch. Yeah, that's right. Like the baby boomers and the people who grew up without all those distractions, their definition of deep is, you know, a lot deeper.
- [05:54]
B
Right, absolutely.
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A
So it's just, it's an interesting. It's like they want the deepness without the work.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know.
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B
Yep. Absolutely. Well, the, the, the short attention span leads to constantly swiping through as Jason just ment Instagram, TikTok. They won't sit through content they don't care about which kind of you led to their little bit. And they swipe past anything that doesn't interest them. And this is so important if we are creating social media presentations, our marketing, our branding, even our videos. You know, I used to, I used to promote 14 and 15 minute videos when I cut my teeth in development decades ago, 40 years ago, that 14 or 15 minute video went to 10, then went to 8, then went to 3. And I actually never thought we would, I'd be advocating for less than three. But if we're going to reach Generation Z, I mean three may, may seem like an eternity to a Gen Z person.
- [06:58]
A
It's interesting because like you'll. Generation Z is the kind of people that like, they have a hard time watching a movie that they're kind of like they'll be in the movie theater like scrolling tick tock while they're watching the movie because it's like the movie gets boring to them after. So they just, they lose interest or
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B
they, they just need constant stimulus.
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A
Right.
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B
That one element is not enough to be going on at the same time. So now they grew up in, in, in broken families having to it. It's been said that they're coping and hoping and so they are, they distrust institutions and genuine people. So genuine.
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A
They're really big into influencers.
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B
Absolutely. And that's why, yeah, content creators, you know, they'll latch on to a, you know, Kardashian and, and you know, follow forever or even a Mr. Beast. And that's why Mr. Beast done so well.
- [08:00]
A
Yep. Yeah. And they're, they're much more likely to get their news from like Joe Rogan or you know, like some kind of podcaster because they just, they like the, the personalities of the individual. That's right. They like to be able to latch onto that. They don't trust institutions like the news institutions or other educational. So they're, they're less likely to go to college or, or trust in like the traditional college education. Because it's like again, that represents the, the human institution which in their minds, you know, everything. They're also really big into conspiracies. You know, like they're the ones that are most likely to say, you know, 911 was a hoax or the, the moon landing was fake. And they just, they just believe that the government is kind of out to get them.
- [08:46]
B
Well, that comes from that distrust, right? That idea of distrust. Yeah.
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A
And so they just, they tend to latch on to personalities more. They tend to latch on to people.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so that's important to know as you're trying to reach them that, you know, if you're a big institution like Crew, for example, you might have a hard time reaching, you know, Gen Z in the traditional sense that you used to. You might have to shift your strategy.
- [09:12]
B
Well, as an example, we, we have paid for advertising for quite some time with Sadie Robertson as an example, is a young content creator. She is very popular with the younger generation and we advertise quite extensively on her podcast. As an example. Now I remember when I was, you know, when I grew up as a baby boomer, being a business executive, a business tycoon, was what my generation aspired to be. Nowadays, Generation Z is aspires to be entrepreneurs. They want to be content creators. They want to be those individuals who don't have traditional jobs. They want to start things. They see, even in Hollywood, they'll see an actor making XYZ millions for a movie. When on the other hand, One post by Mr. Beast Will, will bring in, you know, yeah. $25 million from one post that someone has. I, I read just yesterday that M. Beast as an example, who for some of you don't know, Mr. Beast is probably the, the most prolific podcaster right now. Most successful. Last year he made $468 million. Yeah, that's a, that's a podcaster gang. It's just unbelievable. A content creator. That's amazing.
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A
I wouldn't say his show is a podcast anymore. It's more of a game show.
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B
Yeah, he's, he's a content creator, right. He's not a Joe Rogan type. That's. That's for sure. Yeah. The influencers like, as an example, there's a big difference between the CEO of Walmart and Mr. Beast. For sure. Jason, tell us how Gen Z thinks about giving.
- [10:59]
A
Well, Gen Z is a lot more relational and experiential. Right. So they want to, they want to. They want to see how their money is being used. They're more likely to, you know, get on a plane and go check out the Ministry. They would want to come to crew headquarters and see if it's real. You know, they would love to have that, you know, tour, that Jesus film tour that you guys give, you know, because helps them to experience, you know, things. And if they're really starting to get involved, they might be the ones that, you know, go on a mission trip, get involved with their hands, you know.
- [11:33]
B
Well, Jason, to give you an example, I mean, what we do to engage Gen Z, we partner with an organization called Filters of Hope. So it's, it's an organization that has created water filters that all you need to do, I mean, instead of building a well, you can provide them with water filters that can be used 20, 30 times. And it can, you know, provide fresh drinking water for very remote areas. So we'll take them to countries like Cuba or Africa for short, short term projects, even 3, 5, 7, 10 days or even a whole summer. But it's experiencing baby boomers and millennials and even Xers. You know, they, they saw Ministry in action, but Gen Z wants to experience it. They don't want to just see it happen.
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A
Right.
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B
They want to be part of making it happen.
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A
Now another interesting thing about Gen Z is they're also the generation that grew up on TikTok and Instagram and they probably hate Facebook, you know, but they're, they're in that social media, Grandma.
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B
Jason.
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A
Right, but, but I, what's interesting is they've seen a lot of the world through social media. So they kind of have this kind of luxurious view. Like they've seen a lot of viewed.
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B
It's, it's very rose colored glasses because they're only seeing these perfect meals and perfect locations.
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A
So I think a lot of them want, there's kind of a, there's kind of a divide in the sense that there's a lot that are very poor, but they all want to be rich. Right. And I'm not speaking for everybody.
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B
Yeah, not generally, broad, general, you know,
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A
it's, it's like they're, they're the ones that are like, I want to be like this millionaire that has a private plane, you know, or I want to be like this person who owns, you know, my own jet, you know, and they, they just have, they've seen a lot of things because of social media where they've, they just aspire to be millionaires and billionaires a lot more. A lot of them have gotten into crypto early on. And a lot of them have become millionaires because of crypto. They've invested early and they were part of a boom. And then, you know, so they, some of them have money and they're just, they don't know how to spend that money. Right. So they're buying Lambos and they're buying stuff and they're just kind of enjoying luxury early, but then finding out that that doesn't really satisfy, you know, so as a result, there are some, you know, generation zers who have a lot of money and, and they actually want to help, you know, make the world a better place. They're actually very generous. Like Mr. Beast, for example, he gives away a ton of money. You know, his show is kind of silly in the sense, but then he's also just very generous, you know, with giving away a lot.
- [14:28]
B
But that also appeals to his audience as well, too. I, you know, I'm sure by nature he's generous, but it also, that's part of his popularity because people are like, wow, money, just like me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit, Jason. How does that, you know, get into things like micro donations and crowdfunding and those kinds of things?
- [14:50]
A
Well, this, in terms of fundraising this generation is they want to be able to give. They, they seem to have a generous heart, but of course, they're also just struggling to make ends meet. You know, they're, they're the ones who are, they know what's possible. They know that it's, that's, that's why you said they're, they're like. What was the word that you said? They're, they're coping and hoping. Yes.
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B
Right.
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A
Like, they're, they're coping with the reality of, wow, inflation sucks. You know, I, I can barely make ends meet. You know, I, I want to, but I want to be like my parents. You know, I want to. I know that I, if I work hard enough, I might be able to
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B
get there, but they want that instantly, Jason. That's part of the problem. They, they never saw what their parents had to work through to get there. So it makes it tough. I mean, if you think about it,
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A
the, I think that's where that entrepreneurial spirit, because they're like, where's the easy button? I just want like the, the baby boomers were like, willing to go to the factory for 25 years and just work.
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B
Yes.
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A
You know, and save and kind of had more of a long term view of life. These guys are like, yeah, I, I, wow, I have to work hard. Where's the Easy button. They're like, I want to order that on. How do I order, like, more wealth on Amazon?
- [16:02]
B
Right. Exactly. Well, if you think about it, the oldest is 28 years old. So they are just so many of them just starting out in their career, they don't have a lot of money. So they favor things like micro donations and crowdfunding because it allows them to accomplish something big, knowing that they only have a small amount to really give. Peer to peer pooling together.
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A
Right. Peer to peer fundraising, crowdfunding, that kind of stuff is really, really popular because it's like taking social media and like, combining it with fundraising.
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B
Right.
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A
So pooling together resources to accomplish something big. That generation loves that kind of thing.
- [16:41]
B
Absolutely. Well, you talked about crypto investing. Tell us a little bit about crypto giving.
- [16:47]
A
Well, in terms of crypto giving, you know, there are a lot of younger people who just, you know, bought Bitcoin or Ethereum or other, you know, crypto assets young. You know, it's like maybe their dad was into it and they, you know, they maybe threw a thousand dollars into something at a young age and then it exploded. So they have, they have these assets, you know, they're, they're more interested in that kind of thing, that kind of technology.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And a lot of them have been getting into, you know, day trading and investing and all that kind of stuff early.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But it is still focused on that, like, get rich quick, you know, kind of like, where's the easy button? So a lot of them are, have lost a lot too. You know, they've, they've taken big risks. So they're, they're kind of willing to take risks and try, but it's all for that sake of like, get rich quick and get, get, get the easy button in life.
- [17:36]
B
But bottom on how that relates to us, I think it's really important that we give that generation. If we want to engage them, we're going to have to give them the opportunity to give via crypto. Crew started accepting crypto donations about five years ago, and it's really helped us. I mean, we've really seen that particular way of giving go up significantly. And I have to say to our audience, boy, break through that barrier that you may have mentally and look for this way of giving, except cryptocurrency. If you don't, you're going to be left behind. So it's going to be so important.
- [18:18]
A
Well, especially, you know, I think what Donald Trump is doing, you know, with crypto, he's trying to make the United States the Cryptocurrency capital of the world. So I mean, I don't think cryptocurrency is going away. I think it's going to be around for a long time. So I think, think whether you agree with it or not, it's, it's kind of irrelevant. You know, you, you kind of want to be able to accept donations of
- [18:42]
B
what people have, you know, it's a tsunami. Don't think you're gonna stand there with a, with a surfboard and stop it. You know, you gotta ride.
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A
Similar to stock in the sense of, you know, if I have, you know, Apple stock and I want to donate that, I can avoid capital gains tax. It's the same with crypto. If you own Ethereum or, or Soul or any other crypto asset, if you can donate that directly to the nonprofit and avoid a capital gains, it's the same, it's the same idea and it's very similar process. You know, you need to get a brokerage account or an account in your organization's name to be able to receive that. And the laws in being able to receive a donation in stock are very similar to being able to receive a crypto donation. So if you're used to stock donations, just think of crypto as a stock, you know, and you're, it's just a different, slightly different company that processes that. But yeah, I definitely recommend.
- [19:37]
B
I was there in the early days, Jason, when credit card giving was introduced and there were a lot of colleagues out there, people that I work with, that just said, credit cards are Satan. They're not going to work. It's going to be a short term deal. People are going to try it for a little while and then give up on it. Now it's greatly superseded actual cash check giving. So I feel like, you know, these
- [20:05]
A
forms, which is crazy because when you think of cryptocurrency, like when you think of like what, what's made credit cards so attractive is just that instant ability to just say pay, you know, and it's just there's, you don't have. It's like a digital cash in a sense, but when you think about it, it's like, well, most of them charge $0.30 a transaction and you know, 2 to 3% in processing fees. So you're, you're just losing 3% of that transaction right away versus a lot of cryptocurrency. And this is why the younger generation is into that. It doesn't cost nearly. It costs like pennies to make a transaction. And there's no middleman you know, there's no third party company, you know, taking money and, and that's all getting funneled into some weird backdoor government thing. You know, it's like, like it's just a neutral. It's, it's almost like what, what the Internet did for mail is kind of like what cryptocurrency is doing with processing. So there's, I think there's going to be a big boom in interest. It might even replace credit cards at some point. I don't know.
- [21:06]
B
Well, I, you know, I, I do have to give this, that generation, this Generation Z a lot of credit for being very creative. You know, our, I think baby boomers kind of accepted things like, okay, there's 3% on credit cards. I'm just gonna live with it. This gener creative, they're looking for ways around.
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A
Well and they're also using, they're also using AI to solve a lot of problems.
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B
Yes.
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A
Like my generation, you know, just as an example, when I was creating my last company, Ministry Sync or which is now called Fund Easy, a lot of the coding for that software was done by hand.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Which creates a lot of problems, you know, a lot of bugs, a lot of issues. It's hard to keep track of things when you do things from that perspective. So there's just a lot of things that we had to work around nowadays with AI. Like AI is putting the coding industry.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, to bed.
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B
Yeah.
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A
It can write code because code is a language and so a lot of gen zers are using. They don't really know how to code, but they can, they can put in the right things to get what they need and then it will create the code for them. So they're, they're creating software, they're creating solutions. They're using AI to solve business problems and I think, think there's just a lot of creativity part of that.
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B
Jason, what, what does Gen Z need from us now? Let's, let's talk about what Gen Z needs from us. What are, there's three things that we've identified and what are those three things?
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A
Authenticity.
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B
Being real. Huh.
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A
So they definitely smell a fake from a mile away.
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B
Okay.
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A
Vulnerability. Honesty is more important than polish.
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B
Yeah.
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A
They're the ones that would rather, they'd rather see like the behind the scenes of something to see if it was real than kind of like the polished perfect version.
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B
And we're not talking about lying, Jason. That's not, we're, we're not talking about. They don't like to lie. I mean we Wouldn't be putting anything out in our newsletters where we were lying. But they want people to be authentic. So in other words, real, open up with us. Tell us how you really feel when you're in a village with people who eat one meal a day. There's 80% unemployment. What are the feelings? What are people experiencing? What are the feelings? How are they, how are they coping? How are they dealing with those things? That's what we're talking about in authenticity.
- [23:37]
A
They're very focused on emotion, right? Yeah. So they're going to be more likely to receive a phone call if you can get them on the phone. But they will appreciate that raw connection. You know, though, they'll love getting together, you know, at a coffee shop and just kind of getting real.
- [23:55]
B
Yep.
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A
So just that's the part that's hard between like the older generation and the younger generation is that the, the older generation kind of feels a little embarrassed if you get.
- [24:06]
B
We never shared anything, Jason. I mean, we were taught by our parents, the, the greatest generation, you know, who went to battle. I mean, my dad went to World War II, fought and saw a lot of individuals die. He never came back and shared that. I didn't learn about those things until I read his diary. As a result, we always kept things private. The, you know, Gen Z is all out there. They are, they're sharing everything out in social media, in public. Jason, what's the second area?
- [24:36]
A
The first one is they value authenticity. Second one is they value relationships. So they want, want face to face connection. They want to feel like you actually care about them. And again, not in a pretending way, but they actually want a connection. So, Jim, in our winner's circle, we talk a lot about, you know, the three through three skip and writing letters and making phone calls and having personal visits. And this really aligns well with the
- [25:03]
B
younger generation to the next level. It's taking it beyond just writing or sending a newsletter or an email to people. People. It's actually connecting with people. Yes.
- [25:13]
A
So first one is authenticity. Second one, relationships. The third thing that they want from us is to have participation in the vision. So they value participation, they value vision, they value the future. So like, again, they're coping, but they're hoping, so they really get excited about what could be. That's why a lot of Gen zers are excited about Elon Musk taking us to Mars, you know, because it's like that's, it's like that new thing, you know, and so they're going to be driven by real impact. They're going to be very skeptical of scams. So in a sense like they trust, like we said, they trust people.
- [25:54]
B
Right.
- [25:55]
A
If you can build that relationship with them, yeah, they're not going to trust the institution as much. And again, they're going to to be more likely to get involved in ministry, get their hands dirty. They're more excited about doing ministry than they are about funding ministry.
- [26:10]
B
You know this though, we have to be cautious on this one because the baby boomers, my generation example, they in a sense we wanted to do ministry but we wanted to go and be in the field for 30 and 40 years. I'm a dinosaur, Jason. 40 years with one organization. Gen Z wants to do ministry but you're not going to see somebody doing it for 30 or 40 years. They're more like I'll be doing this for a few weeks or I'll be doing this for a few months. Frankly, doing a year of ministry for Gen Z is going to be like an eternity for some of them. I'm starting to see that now. One of the best things that Christmas crew did was offer internships and short term missions efforts because that opened the doors for Gen Z to stick their toe in the water of ministry and say, is this for me? But you know, I've even seen how difficult it is for some. We developed a good relationship with a Gen Z who was decided to take a year to do ministry. And the decision that she made to go for a second year took. That was a monumental step for her to go into a second year of ministry. And so yeah, that's, those are all big steps. So.
- [27:37]
A
Well Jim, let's talk about how we can reach Gen Z, how can we connect with them, how can we get them involved in ministry? What can we do to make giving to our organizations more attractive to them?
- [27:50]
B
Yeah, well, first of all, we need to, to be where they are. We need to get down at their level. If we remember Jason, as a parent when our kids were small, advocates were always don't talk down to the kids, go down to their level. Go eyeball to eyeball and that's how you're going to connect with them. We cannot be expecting Gen Z to come to us. We have to go to them. We have to be out on Instagram, on YouTube, on TikTok tock and and remember TikTok is not just for dance videos. You can also present your ministry in a very effective manner because that's where your kids are at. Secondly, we need to let small gifts make big differences. So we need to direct them towards those efforts that are going to see big wins and see big wins quickly. Because once again, as we talked about early on, with their attention sp, it's also that way with giving. If they don't see an impact, a genuine impact quickly, we're going to lose them and we're going to lose their dollars.
- [29:05]
A
I have a, I have a good example for that. I took a young man over to a mission trip to Zambia. I have an organization called Reaching the Heart of Zambia. We run a school there where we help street kids get off the street and we educate them in a variety of things, helping them to get back into, into society and all that stuff. So I take mission trips over with young people from time to time. So a couple years ago I took a trip over with a group of teens and one of the guys there was, he was kind of reluctant. He was like, you know, he was excited to go, but he didn't really know why he was going. And you know, but he just really felt like he should go. And I remember one of the things that really got his attention was when we went to the bank and we exchanged money. I don't. He was kind of like, I mean, up until that point, he had seen, you know, we had take him into, you know, different villages and he had seen a lot of poverty. So his heart was starting to break for the poverty that he was seeing. He was like, I can't believe that this exists, you know, and because he, he kind of thought that, you know, he had seen a lot of, of poverty videos on YouTube and he kind of just assumed that people just use that to manipulate, you know, he kind of thought like, surely the world isn't really like this, you know. And then when he actually went to Africa and he saw that it's not just like, oh, on this one street, it's like literally everywhere. It's just, he couldn't believe that this is actually real in, like in this day and age. He just couldn't believe. And then when we went to the bank and we exchanged, I remember he handed me, you know, he, he had brought over, I think two or three hundred dollars of spending money. And he was like, he handed me a dollar bill or he handed me a hundred dollar bill and he said, can you exchange this for me? And we went, we went into the bank. He didn't go in, but, you know, one of the local guys went in and exchanged, came back with a bag of money, like stacked this high.
- [31:06]
B
Oh, man.
- [31:07]
A
I think there was like several stacks of money inside A bag all wrapped up in rubber bands. And they handed it to him. And he was like. He was like, what is this? You know, and he like looked in and he was like, that's your money. He was like, this is all my money. He was like, I'm rich. You know, he was like, he couldn't believe. But then he started, like, looking through because he had been there for a week, and he realized, like, how much things cost there. He knew, like, to buy food, it was like, you know, 100 kwacha or whatever. Like, he knew that 100 kwacha was a lot, right? He knew that, you know, a lot of the locals don't have a lot. And here he just has like thousands and thousands and thousands of quacha. And it all came from like $100 bill that, you know, that he just flippantly said, can you?
- [31:52]
B
Yeah.
- [31:53]
A
And so he realized, like, wow, I can make a difference here. Like, and that. That really changed his perspective. Ever since that point, he realized that it didn't take a lot of money to make a big impact. And that's what I'm trying to get at is this generation gets excited about small things that can make big impacts, right? And so he, ever since he got back, he started a landscaping business where he cuts grass and stuff. And so there's that entrepreneurial spirit. But he donates a portion of his profit to reaching the heart of Zambia because he, he loves making a difference. And he realized, like, it doesn't take much to make a small difference, you know, over there. And so that's just something that, that I realized. That's a. That's a Gen Z thing now, the opera.
- [32:45]
B
Big differences, you know, those include that they love to be involved in peer to peer opportunities, the social giving, the group challenges and crowdfunding. All so important. The third area is offer experiences. We've got to make sure that we give them the chance to do ministry and not just fund it. And you know, we've talked about that before. Volunteering, interning, visit, mission trips, all so important. And then.
- [33:15]
A
And making it personal for them, you know, not just doing it for the sake of doing it. You know, they're not really into the traditional. Like, let's just have Bible studies for the sake of Bible studies. You know, they.
- [33:26]
B
Right.
- [33:26]
A
They want to roll their sleeves and get things done.
- [33:28]
B
Y. Yep. And then lastly, we want to talk to them like people. And I know that sounds so trite and, and really sounds basic, but it's so important that we, you know, take them out for Coffee. That we show up in their life and we be a part of their life. We live life with them and treat them like we care. And once again, I know that, that, you know, it sounds like, okay, are we faking it? Do we really not care about them? We should care about all of our partners. But it's so important that we especially show that to them. So, Jason, take us home.
- [34:06]
A
Well, certainly one of the ways that we can give Gen Zers a good introduction to our ministry in a very experiential way is by inviting them to be a part of our Vision Dinners. You know, they may not host a table, but they might be.
- [34:22]
B
Be.
- [34:23]
A
They might be able to be invited in to sit with you at your table or, you know, be able to, you know, see and get the vision for your organization at the Vision Dinner. I think it would be great to start inviting some of these people to your Vision Dinners because again, they, they value that personal connection. It's not too long, you know, it's only an hour and a half program.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah.
- [34:49]
A
You get a good meal, it's usually at a fancy venue.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah.
- [34:53]
A
And so they're gonna, they're gonna be captivated by the, the nice. The nice venues. They're gonna be captivated by the program. And, and then of course, you know, they're gonna be really inspired by the vision. Now the trick with them is getting them, you know, they might give that night or they might be really, really, really interested and just, it seemed like, wow, I wanna just dive right into this.
- [35:18]
B
Yeah.
- [35:18]
A
And then like the next day or the next week, they're going to be off somewhere else. So it's going to be hard to follow up. It's going to be hard to keep them engaged, you know, but the Vision Dinner is a great way to kind of try to make that connection.
- [35:31]
B
Yeah. Well, that leads me to be thinking about. We've got a whole class right now going through our Perfect Vision Dinner training, leading up to a spring dinner. But if you're thinking about a fall dinner, we do our Perfect Vision Dinner training twice a year.
- [35:46]
A
Year.
- [35:47]
B
We are heading into our next cohort
- [35:52]
A
enrollment just open, it's March, and we're two months away from just eight weeks.
- [35:57]
B
Yeah.
- [35:57]
A
Yeah. So we're. Our next class is going to be starting first week of May.
- [36:01]
B
Right.
- [36:01]
A
And. And it's. Again, it's. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about this a lot. But if you're new, the Perfect Vision Dinner mentorship program is a 211 week mentorship program where Jim and I walk you through step by step. It's kind of like a bread recipe, right? It's right. It's a recipe that you follow. We, there's 300 steps in this recipe. The whole point of it is to help you connect the right people with the right place, with the right presentation, with the right appeal, with the right environment to be able to create the output of at least six figures and 50 to 60% new people at your venue. So that's what the perfect vision interventorship program is all about. If you're looking to take your annual fundraiser to the next level, or if you're looking to just bootstrap a rocket ship to what you're already doing with your annual banquet, maybe you already have a banquet that you do, but you just want to get to the next level. This program will help you. Or if you've never done an annual banquet before and you're like, wow, I really should, should do this. And you just want to start right from the very beginning. You want to just get off to a good start from the very beginning. We've helped many, many organizations do their very first perfect vision that are from scratch. You know, never done one before. And hitting the ground running, raising a hundred thousand or more from day one is very, very, a very, very good place to start.
- [37:29]
B
This would be like strapping a rocket to your development effort. I mean, it's going to launch it into the next level.
- [37:36]
A
Well, Jim, what qualifies you to be able to teach others, you know, the perfect vision inner strategy? Like, you've never done vision dinners before, have you?
- [37:44]
B
I did one once and I saw it and I feel very qualified. Like many of the major donors we work with, they went to one or two dinners, which makes them an expert and that I'm exactly the same way
- [37:59]
A
as they saw what other people were
- [38:00]
B
doing, saw one thing, and, and it seemed right and I did it. Jason, it is a joy, it's been a privilege that I've been able to do over 3,000 dinners in the last 40 plus years. And I have, trust me, I've seen all the best and I've seen all the worst. And the perfect vision dinner strategy that we have, Our mentor program was designed specifically to take the best of what I learned and jettison and teach you to not have to make the same mistakes that I made along the way that, you know, caused me to get well.
- [38:38]
A
And what I love about it is it's principle based. It's not, it's not old and outdated. You know, we're really teaching the principles that have stood the test of time.
- [38:47]
B
Right.
- [38:48]
A
So you've been doing vision Dinners since like the 1970s. They weren't called vision dinners in the 1970s. They were called other things. The name has evolved, the methodology has evolved, has been tweaked. You've added certain things, remove certain things. You've found that some things work better than others. And now we've kind of gotten it. You know, 40 years is a long time to be tweaking and refining, but you've really kind of latched on to these are the principles that have stood the test of time. They are never going away. That's right. And then these are the things that are, you know, kind of can change or shift based on the culture and what's happening. But it's all based on the proven principles. Right.
- [39:28]
B
But also, Jason, I think we're one of the things. In doing a broadcast earlier this year, it really re emphasized for me that everything is biblically based. We took all of our principles and took them right out of scripture, and I think that's why we see the success. So we took the foundation, which is based on the Bible, and we built on that to make it work in today's world and to work successfully.
- [39:57]
A
So, so, so if you're interested in the perfect vision in our mentorship program, scan the QR code on the screen. There's a link also in the description you can click on. But now is the time to get signed up for the next cohort. We do open enrollment around this time and enrollment fills up quick.
- [40:17]
B
There's only two of our cohorts per year.
- [40:20]
A
It's a live program. Right. So it's not one of those programs that like, you can buy whenever you want, start anytime, and, you know, go at your own pace. It's not one of those things. It's a. It's a little bit more like a college program where we have live instructors. Jim, you teach live? You know, I teach live.
- [40:36]
B
There's specific class times, the interaction is live. You ask questions Live. Yes. Right.
- [40:42]
A
And so there is pre recorded content that's more of like the homework. But the, the program itself is live. It's. It's with a real group of people. It starts at a certain time, it ends at a certain time time. There's certain actions that we want to see happen. And the cool thing is that you actually get to do a real perfect vision dinner and raise real money. So it pays for itself.
- [41:00]
B
Yeah.
- [41:01]
A
You know, 10 times over, people always ask me like, what does it cost? You know, well, what good is a vision dinner if you raise a hundred thousand, if you spend $90,000 to do. But we're not seeing that, right? Yeah, we typically see, you know, a 10 to 1 return on investment, you know, costs about 10,000 thousand to do to make a hundred thousand.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah.
- [41:19]
A
And so it definitely pays for itself time and time again. All you need to do is sign up for the perfect vision inner class and walk through the process with us and we'll help you get there.
- [41:29]
B
Yep.
- [41:30]
A
Well, Jim, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Gen Z today. Any final words you want to say about that?
- [41:35]
B
Well, absolutely. I believe that you need to find a happy balance in there. On one hand, we know that it's probably going to be 15 or 20 years before Gen Z is going to get that point where they're going to be as impactful or as significant on our bottom line as the baby boomers are right now. But on the other hand, we don't want to ignore this generation. We don't want to put too much significance on their effectiveness or impact. But don't put much too, too little and say, well, we can just ignore this generation because it's so far off because this is a generation that's gonna move pretty quickly. And I have have a feeling, my gut tells me this Generation Z is going to impact our culture a lot more than we ever expected.
- [42:28]
A
Well, thanks again for tuning in to this episode of the fundraising Masterminds podcast. We will see you next time.
- [42:33]
B
Take care, Sam.