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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.
- [00:10]
B
The silent generation was fine with undesignated money. We trust you. We'll give you the money. You use it where you think is best. Well, this is where James Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, all those televangelists who we gave them their money with, all full expectation they were going to use it wisely put. Purchasing mega homes, building amusement park. So this is where the baby boomer said, no, we want to target our money, we want to see where our money goes and we want to see how our money was used.
- [00:46]
A
Well, welcome to another episode at Fundraising Masterminds. We are so glad that you have chosen to join with us today. We've got a great topic today. We're going to be talking about fundraising, but actually we're going to go through every single generation, from the baby Boomers all the way through to the Gen Z generation. And we're going to be talking about how to fundraise and what motivates these people to give.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so I'm your host, Jason Galasinski and with me, my co host, Jim Dempsey.
- [01:15]
B
Hi, Jason.
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A
Collectively, we Both have over 60 years of development experience working with thousands of nonprofits over the years. And we are excited to have have you join us on this podcast episode. This podcast is geared towards nonprofit leaders and helping you grow and cultivate your growth as a nonprofit leader. So we're so glad that you're here with us. Thank you for joining us, Jim. We've got a jam packed information overload. In fact, we are going to be. There's so much information that we're going to be covering in this episode.
- [01:49]
B
We're going to be moving pretty fast.
- [01:51]
A
In this one and I've prepared a PDF for our listeners at the end. So definitely be looking for that PDF PDF at the end.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So Jim, just tell me a little bit about the generations. You've been working in ministry a lot longer than I have and you've had the opportunity to work with a lot of these generations. So tell me a little bit about why we decided to do this topic.
- [02:11]
B
Well, Jason, one of the reasons that I'm really glad we're doing this and I want to kind of set things up a little bit in that. Why did we choose this in particular? Well, number one, it seems like I'm just hearing so often that we need to shift a lot of our strategies and our efforts to focus in on a younger generation, the next generation. Jason, it's almost like I'm hearing people say let's set aside the silent generation and the baby boomers because they no longer exist. And the problem that we have is that they still happen to be our largest segment of our giving audience, so we can't just ignore them. And so I want to say that, number one, it's really important that we do start to focus in on generationally, but that we can't ignore the older generation. But also too, we don't need to be setting up with a one size fits all communication strategy. So as a result, we're going to talk about unique communication strategies for each generation. So that's kind of the context with this message.
- [03:12]
A
Yeah, I'm really excited. Before we get into, you know, all the different strategies and stuff like that, I just wanted to do like a flyby overview of all the generations and let's just, let's just go back in history and discuss like, what are the generations that we're going to be dealing with during this podcast and like, what's the history behind them? Like, why?
- [03:31]
B
Well, so, Jason, never before in our history have we really had such a span age wise. I mean, we've got individuals who were born in 1928 to individuals who were born in the early 2000s who are giving currently to our organization. That is a wide spectrum. Now we actually cover a wide variety of generations. We cover what's referred to as the silent generation, that they were born between 1928 and 1945. We have the Baby Boomer generation. Those are individuals who were born from 1946 to 1964. I affectionately fall into that generation. We've got Generation X which is born 1965 to 1980. I'm assuming that's you, Jenny. Jason.
- [04:19]
A
That's me.
- [04:20]
B
That's you. Then, then Jason. Then we've got the Millennials, which is from 1981 to 1996. And then Gen Z. Those are a lot of your kids are probably grandkids right now are falling in that Gen Z category, 1997-2009. And then actually those coming up right now, probably not at the age of giving realistically, you know, they may give out of their piggy bank to the degree, but there's a generation Alpha which is born after 2010. So those are our categories that we're going to be focusing in on in our presentation today.
- [04:57]
A
Well, Jim, that was a great intro and kind of gives sets the stage for all the generations that we're going to be talking about. Let's go through Each one now and talk through like what motivates them. So our first point that we want to talk through is how to engage and impact each generation.
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B
Right.
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A
What motivates each generation to give?
- [05:17]
B
Yeah, well, you know, Jason, it's really interesting. Each generation how the biggest overarching principle, I would say is their involvement with the organization. And one of the things that you'll see standing out here is that the level of involvement that they want to have now, the silent generation, that was my dad. My mom and dad were silent generation. My dad fought in World War II. My dad always owned a Buick. He just was faithful to Buick. He always gave to his local church. It was very, very. He was a consistent giver. Not a huge tither, but he was a consistent giver. This falls right in line with where my dad was at. My dad had a. He always felt his life paradigm was he was grateful to just have a job. That was his life paradigm. His attitude to authority was that he respected authority. And that falls right in line with the giving because he trusted the organization, whether it be the church or whether it be a non profit organization. He trusted him implicitly. And he didn't ask for feedback, he didn't ask for those outcome reports. What was important to him was that he was giving. And when someone told him to give, he gave. And so that was part of that. And that trust factor is in there. He didn't give just out of obligation. He gave because he trusted how the money was used.
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A
Is that because of the military background with World War II and stuff like that?
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B
Is that. It is, in a lot of ways, yeah. Yeah, it was. There was a huge trust factor in those. They hadn't experienced the same kind of things that baby boomers did. When we talk about baby boomers, we're talking about the generation that lived through Jimmy Swagger, Jim Baker saw just misuse of and misappropriation of funds. And it built skepticism in the baby boomers. That was my generation. And as a result, it completely changed that trust factor. Yeah, it was a different world, of course, in my dad's. My dad was a world. Not only World War II, but Depression era. And so as a result, they built a trust and a dependency on the government and on other things. But baby boomers broke those molds. Baby boomers, on the other hand, baby boomers life paradigm is that they deserve better. They saw that the attitude toward authority was that they needed to replace the authority. So it moved from trusting the authority to replacing the authority. The values for that.
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A
It was the Steve Jobs of the world. Steve Jobs standing up to the IBMs.
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B
Right to. Yes, it's, it's that picture almost. And in Tiananmen Square with the person standing in front of the tank. Yeah, yeah. It's rejecting authority and just believing that they knew better.
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A
What, where did that come from? Like, why were they thinking that?
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B
You know, it's, it's what I just mentioned a few minutes ago. I mean, it was, there was some of the mistrust, the abuse by the, the individuals who were, you know, television evangelists, individual swindlers. Not that swindlers haven't always existed. They go back to the scripture. But it was just one of those things that they felt. This generation started to feel like they knew better almost.
- [08:44]
A
When you have a generation that just trusts blindly.
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B
Yes.
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A
It kind of paves the way for swindlers to come in and just take advantage of that.
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B
That' and that was the kind of we don't, we, you know, don't just blatantly trust everyone. So they, they, they wanted to look for the value and the vision. Now here's the shift in the value. As an example, my dad, as I said, always bought a Buick. Our generation rejected the gm, Buick mindset. Remember the old slogan, not your father's Oldsmobile? And my generation, baby boomers, we were the first ones to shift to Japanese cars. When we think of quality cars now, what do we think of? We think of Japanese cars, we think of Toyota, we think of Honda. Right, exactly. But prior to that, we used to joke about the Japanese technology, that it wasn't quite where the American technology is. That's the shift. So they wanted to buy. They could care less about loyalty and about brand loyalty. Like my dad's generation, we went for value and for vision. And this is where we first started pulling people in. And it wasn't necessarily that the nonprofits pulled the people in, but this is where the baby boomers said, we want to stake in this. We want to be shareholders in this organization. We don't want to just be contributors or donors. We want to be partners and we want to be stakeholders. So they started that movement towards being involved. They wanted to be involved in the board, they wanted to be involved in the decisions that people make. Gen X moved on. Their paradigm was keep it real. You know, they were tired of people lying to them. They just wanted genuineness. They wanted real. Their attitude towards authority was endure them. They, they didn't love them, but they put up with them. And so the, the big thing towards Gen X was efficiency and impact. So they wanted a product to be done right and they wanted to make a difference. And exactly the same way with the organizations that they supported. They wanted those organizations to do things effectively and efficiently and they wanted a good outcome, they wanted a good result.
- [11:01]
A
With that, Millennials kind of describes my whole life, actually.
- [11:05]
B
There you go. Isn't it funny how. Yeah, isn't it funny how all the generations, we tend to be very much alike now? Millennials, they shifted on their life paradigm. Their life paradigm is life as a cafeteria. They love the choices they were finally given a lot of choices in life. If you really look back at the silent generation, here's a generation that you had 18 year olds storming the beaches of Normandy. Right now you've got millennials who life is a smorgasbord. They're taking advantage of every opportunity that's out there to them. And they don't feel put in a box locked. They, they like choices. And their, their attitude towards authority is that they want to influence who their leaders are. They want to have the authority to choose those people. They don't want their leader forced upon them. They want to choose those. And this is also where we start, the beginnings of the entrepreneurial mindset. When we get to Gen Z, we're going to find that the captains of industry, that was the dream of baby boomers have shifted to Gen Z. Being entrepreneurs. That's what they aspired to be, not captains of industry. So it's really important now, the millennials, authenticity and experience. So they want it real and they want things genuine. But this is where we started seeing people want to experience ministry in action. When I first got into development, it was all about exposing people to ministry so that they could see ministry being done. Now it has shifted to people doing ministry with us. They can't do it full time, but they want to go out and they want to experience. They want to experience it. So this is where extremely fascinating ministries.
- [13:00]
A
Like Teen Missions International came into existence, you know, to, you know, expose people to a mission trip.
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B
That's right.
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A
Summer. Right. It's not like you're going to be a missionary your whole life.
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B
Right.
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A
But you're going to get an experience.
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B
Yes.
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A
Of what it feels like to share the gospel and unknown people.
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B
Well, I can tell you this, one of the most effective things we ever did in crew was that we started seeing that we are. We had a decrease in number of people coming on full time staff. And it was because there was a lot of pressure from parents to get a real job, pay for Things when we entertained an intern program where people could experience, or on a stint, short term international missions, those we saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 75% of those individuals end up coming on staff. So the experience that they had ended up getting us the outcome we wanted. So that was so important. Generation Z, their life paradigm is. I'm coping and hoping so. They're. Yeah, they're. Think about this generation. I mean, Generation Z, we know that the Generation X, they had to go through some really difficult challenges in their lives. That was the 911 generation. And those individuals, those, those millennials had to do that in the D.C. shooter. All those kinds of things were out there. Generation Z, what is, what has set the tone for Generation Z? There's just a lot happened in 2020 that really set the tone.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Covet, right? Yeah.
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A
I was going to say just inflation in general. I mean, I guess Covid set the stage.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And then following up with that, with all this inflation and all the wars and rumors of wars, it just feels like, I guess Covid kind of set the stage for chaos in a way. Like, and then it hasn't, the chaos hasn't really stabilized. It just feels like we're just moving from one chaotic thing to another chaotic thing and the intensity of political wars.
- [15:07]
B
And that's the coping, that's the coping they're putting through there. But they still do have some hopefulness and, and you know, even amongst so much of the despair that we see out there now from their attitude towards authority. How about this? Not sure I need them. That's the, that sounds about right. Yeah. And to be honest, you know, it. That may be. Yeah. That may be interspersed in a lot of different things. And so in a way, they've been taught to be their own authority. This is the entrepreneur mindset that people have. They don't. They don't. Less and less. People in, in generations aspire to working for someone else. They want to work for themselves. That's why you, if you look at the numbers, the vast numbers of people who are YouTube creators out there.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Are. Well, generations.
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A
And when you think about that, why do you want to work for yourself? It probably boils down to trust.
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B
Yes.
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A
I mean, like, if you think about going back to the first generation we talked to before the baby boomers, the silent generation, you had full trust, Right.
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B
In people and authority and everything.
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A
And now you swing to the other end of the spectrum. It's like, I don't trust anyone. I don't know who to trust. So the only person I can trust is myself, because I'm the only one that can actually do something.
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B
Yeah. Now, it's interesting, some of the individuals who've researched and we're not going to get into the alpha generation much, but some of them have talked about this pendulum starting to swing backwards, that there's going to be a much different perspective. In fact, they are kind of implying that the alpha generation may be closer to the baby boom generation from that standpoint. So that's interesting. But in Gen Z, you know, they're interested in social causes and activism. You know, they. That's where they're at. That can either be good or bad for the nonprofit organization. If you're a social cause or you have activism, then you're doing well. Some Christian ministries may take some hits because there isn't as much in evangelism, discipleship. Some of those kinds of things are less in this generation.
- [17:10]
A
That's kind of more where we want to move to in kind of point number two is of the generational communication preferences for each one. Like, how do we. Knowing what we know about what motivates each generation?
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B
Right.
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A
You know, how do we best communicate. Communicate with them and also communicate our vision and our mission.
- [17:30]
B
Right.
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A
Because, you know, like for crew, for example, reaching people for Christ, that's a very general mission since Jesus, you know, was around on the Earth.
- [17:41]
B
Well, even more help fulfilling the Great Commission.
- [17:43]
A
Yeah.
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B
If you do a survey of Generation Z, you probably have found that less than 20% even know what the definition of Great Commission is.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So that just begs the question, the mission hasn't changed.
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B
Right.
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A
But how we present them, how we communicate it, how we inspire people, what kind of actions people are interested in, that's changing. So we have to understand how this all compares. So let's go through each generation.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And we're talk through this.
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B
We're going to talk about the mediums. You know, what are the mediums that. That we need to use to reach.
- [18:15]
A
And I am very aware that this is a lot of information. So we are going to be putting all this in a PDF. So don't worry if you're taking notes and stuff and you're like, slow down, I got to get all this written down now. You don't need to worry about it. We got a PDF coming at the end of the episode. So all this is going to be laid out and really nice thing, but I think it'll be really helpful to have this printed out on your desk as you're thinking through, you know, how you're communicating to nonprofit as you're communicating to your partners. You know, it might even be helpful to categorize, you know, if you have a. If you have an Excel document of all your partners, maybe have a start a new category that says generation, and, you know, start categorizing them into the generation. You could actually, you know, target your communication preferences that we're about to talk about right towards each type of generation. That.
- [19:05]
B
That's right. So let's.
- [19:06]
A
Yeah, let's.
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B
Yeah, let's start with the first generation. The first generation is that silent generation. Now, this is. These are the people that are generally 80 plus age, not surprisingly. Direct mail, the hard copy things, the old traditional methods, hard copy letters that they receive in the mail, phone calls, of course, connecting face to face, meetings. Not surprisingly, those three things are really vitally important. Baby boomers, once again, your traditional communication strategies, direct mail and phone calls. But the added twist on this is that we are starting to move more towards technology. So they are accepting of emails and text marketing, and so we're seeing more acceptance. I live and die by the text. Nowadays. I communicate so much with family members, friends via text, and I do like to get texts. Now. I. What I don't like are the spams. Hey, your name looks familiar in my book, but who are you again? Yeah, delete. Yeah.
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A
One thing about the baby boomers that I've noticed with my parents is they just answer the phone every time it rings. So it's kind of like, you remember back in the 1980s before.
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B
Sure.
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A
Before there was caller ID.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And the phone would ring and you just, like, drop everything and, like, pick it up. Hello? Hello? You know, they still have that mindset. And so I. Joking.
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B
And landline, too. Jason. I mean, do your parents still have a landline?
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A
Not so much.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah, they do.
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B
But there are still landline people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
I mean, and. But what's interesting is we actually play some pranks on my parents because I know that they'll pick up the phone. So, you know, there's. There's been some A.I. you know, calling, pranking things.
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B
Yes.
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A
And I'm like, well, who could I try this out on? Oh, I know my dad will always answer the phone. It doesn't matter what number. It doesn't matter if he recognizes the number or doesn't recognize it. He's gonna answer the phone.
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B
Right. Oh, Jason, that's cruel.
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A
But you. If you know that about someone.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Then you know, like, hey, if I call this person a baby boomer, they're gonna always. They're gonna pick up.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because that's the kind of people they are.
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B
Yeah. Well, and then, of course, we went to, you know, voicemail, voice machines, and you listen to those playbacks and then all those things.
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A
Well, the Generation X. My generation, I was introduced to caller id.
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B
Yes.
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A
Voicemail.
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B
Very. Yeah.
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A
I'm a little bit more like, well, let me see who it is and I'll decide if I pick it up.
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B
Exactly. Yeah. And less and less. Well, of course, that generation, your generation is. They're. They're genuine email people. So this is email and social ants and the beginning of social media. May I use the F word? Facebook, that is. And of course, Gen Z and Millennials are like, oh, man, don't even want to come close to.
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A
They're like, instagram, please.
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B
So that's not on there. Millennials, they prefer email and text marketing, which is interesting. But social media platforms, a lot of. Like, you mentioned Instagram. Tick tock. Exactly. We're starting.
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A
You know why they don't like Facebook is because Facebook is really hard to use. Like, I remember setting up social media accounts for my daughter. She was born in 2003, so she fits in the Gen Z. Yeah. Category.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And, you know, you set up a Facebook, Instagram kind of thing together. Right. And Instagram is just easy, simple, straightforward. I get it. It was just like, I get it. I know what I need to do. And Facebook is just like this. It's like. It's almost like the Internet of everything.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's like, how. What am I supposed to do here? I create a post, but then I have react. But then you don't really create reels like this. You do like that. And there's all this, like, weird stuff. And they're, like, trying to be everything to everybody. And for some reason, it feels like the generation that grew up with Facebook kind of morphed with it. So they're kind of used to it.
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B
Right.
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A
But the generation that didn't grow up with it, you know, when you just sign up for an account and you look at it, it's just so overwhelming. And it's like, why is this helpful? You throw on top of that all the different, you know, algorithmic things. It's like, it's so hard to reach people, and I don't know. So it's like the younger generation just rejected Facebook altogether.
- [23:24]
B
I think it really reflects the older. I mean, it's old and stodgy. I mean, it really does. Even though it's been only early yeah, it really does.
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A
And I, I've even moved to Instagram completely. I haven't, I haven't embraced TikTok because I just.
- [23:38]
B
Dancing is not.
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A
Yeah, I just. It's more focused on video.
- [23:43]
B
Yeah, right.
- [23:44]
A
You know, Instagram is more focused on, you know, communicating through pictures, active video, like text to each other. Yeah, yeah, but they're similar. Yes, but, but, yeah, I think Instagram is so much easier to use and I much prefer to use Instagram than Facebook. So I've just got it set up where, you know, I just. Every post that's on Instagram just goes to Facebook. But I very rarely intentionally go to Facebook anymore.
- [24:11]
B
That's right. Yeah. But looking at the next generation, so millen millennials, as we talked about email and text marketing, Gen Z is they focus more on mobile apps and digital platforms. So be thinking of ways to communicate, certainly social media. As you mentioned, Instagram, TikTok, that's an.
- [24:33]
A
Interesting trend that's actually happened is with the App Store revolution through mobile devices on Google and Apple.
- [24:41]
B
Right.
- [24:42]
A
There's a lot of big push in businesses to create your own app.
- [24:46]
B
Right.
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A
And at the beginning it was really hard to create your own app because you had to hire a developer and it was really complicated. And. But nowadays you can create apps. There's, there's platforms that help you make apps.
- [24:57]
B
Right.
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A
So it's not that hard to make an app. And we're finding that a lot of people just go to the App Store looking for, you know, do you like, almost like the app is like the Internet.
- [25:07]
B
Right.
- [25:07]
A
In the sense, you know, if you have an app, I'm going to use that more than your website. Right, right. So it's, it's just really interesting. I know for fundraising masterminds, we created our own app and it wasn't hard. You know, we just, we found a platform that makes apps for companies and they already had like a system for doing it and it was just like it was no different than making a website. Right. You know, it was just dropping in different components and then they take care of distributing it to the App Store and updating it and everything.
- [25:35]
B
And more people are used to using that.
- [25:38]
A
It's a lot more. The younger generation appreciates that.
- [25:40]
B
Yeah.
- [25:40]
A
You know, they're like, oh, if you have an app, then you are speaking my language, I guess.
- [25:45]
B
Right? That's right. So the overarching principle in this is that don't just take one medium. Hopefully this showed you that direct mail, social media, emails, texts, face to face phone calls, all those Things work. Don't just stay with Now, Jim, as.
- [26:02]
A
You'Re going through this, you know, it can be a little overwhelming, you know, to think like, oh, man, I got to do direct marketing and I got to do phone calls and I got to do face to face, and I got to do Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Apps Now. I mean, I'm exhausted just thinking about this.
- [26:19]
B
And, Jason, I believe this is where segmentation comes in. This is where you need to take a look at your mailing list and say, okay, first of all, let's start with the critical few that 80%, the 20%, bringing in 80% of your dollars. What generation are those people part of and how best do I communicate with them? Focus in on that first and then slowly start to work your way back. Work your way backwards. Exactly. Because Generation Z and even to a degree, millennials are not necessarily big givers at this point in time. They're just starting to come in, so you can really grow with them. As they start to increase their giving and increase their involvement, you can increase your communication.
- [27:08]
A
Well, that leads us to the third point, which is customized giving options for every generation. So let's go through each generation and talk about how we can customize giving. But before you do, if you've been enjoying this episode, I would love it if you could just write us a comment and let us know what you think of this generational historical lesson, so to speak. I know I found it very interesting. And let us know in the comments below, like, what generation you're a part of. Are we describing your generation correctly or are there anything that you can add? We'd love to hear from you and let us know what you think. You know, are we, if we're not describing your generation right, or if you're like, you know, that thing about Facebook, you know, is not really true, you know? Well, let us know. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you. We personally read all those comments and we enjoy hearing from you. And while you're in there, subscribe to our podcast. You can. If you're on YouTube, you can click that little subscribe button. Make sure you hit the bell so you get notified. You can also subscribe on Apple podcasts and Spotify as well. The main reason why we want you to subscribe is because this podcast is all about gearing towards helping you learn how to grow your nonprofit. So if you are a nonprofit leader, such as an executive director, a development director, you're involved at a board level, you're involved in an operation level. Anything involved in leadership with nonprofit. This podcast is for you. You are gonna get a lot out of this podcast and you can click back through and see all the different topics we've covered. But we release weekly episodes for nonprofit leaders and we would love for you to catch the next one. So, Jim, let's get into the final point. How do we customize giving for each generation?
- [28:58]
B
Yeah. Well, first of all, if I had to look at it from the big picture and just kind of narrow it down quickly to a response, is that the larger donors need to have legacy giving options. In other words, they need to be looking towards leaving a legacy. So wills, trust estates, asset giving. This is what is going to change the next generation. Younger donors are focused more towards micro donations. They're at a point where they know they want to get involved, they need to be activists, but they don't quite have the revenue at this point.
- [29:33]
A
It's really interesting, though. That's not on your list. That should be on your list probably for Gen Z is the cryptocurrency movement has really been embraced by a lot of the younger generations. And because it was kind of an industry that kind of has exploded in the last 10 years, a lot of the older people just think that it's fake money and just they've kind of written it all off. But the younger generation, there's actually quite a bit of wealth. There's a lot of millionaires that have sprung up because of cryptocurrency. And just like you said, their money isn't in US Dollars, it's in Bitcoin or Ethereum or other things, which are assets, digital assets, but it's still an asset. Right. And so as we talk about that generation, we're going to be talking about, well, how. How can we enable them to give some of those digital assets?
- [30:22]
B
Yep, right. That's exactly right.
- [30:23]
A
So let's go through each generation and talk about this.
- [30:25]
B
Well, first of all, the silent generation, that generation is willing to give of anything based on trust. So they really had that huge trust factor. As we said earlier, they trusted authority, they trusted government. They had no problem turning over their wealth because they trusted people. The practical application of the silent generation is that they wanted personalized communication and personal letters, and they still like community events, doing things collectively. The baby boomers became that skeptical generation. That was the first beginning of a skeptical generation. They needed to give towards programs specifically because they wanted to see the impact. Remember, we talked about value and impact in what they wanted to do. So designated giving. What we loved about the silent generation, and especially our friends in the finance department, love that the silent generation was fine with undesignated money. We trust you, we'll give you the money. You use it where you think is best. Well, this is where James Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, all those televangelists who we gave them their money with all full expectation they were going to use it wisely. Purchasing mega homes, building amusement parks with our money. So this is where the baby boomer said, no, we want to target our money, we want to see where our money goes, and we want to see how our money was used. The practical application for the baby boomer is that they are legacy giving. So they want, they're looking for legacy giving programs, wills, trust estates, ways that they can make a difference on eternity and leaving a legacy, naming buildings after them, naming rooms after them. All that is the legacy giving Generation X. They're looking for flexibility. Remember, this is where we start talking about the cafeteria choices that they have. They also have cafeteria choices in their giving. They want flexible giving options. They want to be able to give a single gift when they need to. They want to be able to give recurring and they want to make it easy. This is where, you know, our automated monthly partners are, our bank withdrawals, those kinds of things, automatic bank withdrawals, those all that's that recurring giving. And then skills based volunteer. This is where they want to start giving back using the skills that they have now in, in the practical application for Generation X. These are. They want to be socially responsible investing. They really want to make sure that the things that they're giving to are socially responsible.
- [33:04]
A
Yeah. This is where the tree planting came from.
- [33:07]
B
Right, right.
- [33:08]
A
Not just giving towards something, but actually going out and planting trees. Sure, that's my generation.
- [33:15]
B
So that there'll be more oxygen and, and whatever for the next generation. Yeah, yeah, you're leaving that. Now. The millennials, a little bit different. The millennials, they're interested in mobile and online giving. They want a straightforward donation process, no bells and whistles. You need to make the giving as easy as possible for the millennials. I can't tell you how many nonprofit organizations I actually think it's almost like they intentionally make it difficult for people to give. You need to go back to your give site and you need to look at it from the perspective of is this easy? And have others go out there and find out is it easy or difficult to give from your website. Too many nonprofit organizations make it very difficult for their people to give the Practical application in the Millennials is that once again, they want experience based fundraising. And we're seeing that. This is where, I mean, when I was involved in the campus ministry of crew, I set up a whole department when I was with the campus ministry to give people experience opportunities. Everything from going on summer missions projects, to taking online Bible classes, to being able to go and experience life as a missionary.
- [34:34]
A
Right, right, right. Well, let's talk about Gen Z. Yeah.
- [34:37]
B
Generation Z now, interestingly enough, and it probably is just because of their. They're still young and not a lot of giving potential at this point in time, or giving currently micro donations and crowdfunding very important to them. How can they make the little that they can give go as far as possible? And crowdfunding, of course, bulk, you know, teaming together with a group of others, pooling your money together to finish a campaign or make a difference. That works.
- [35:08]
A
Well, we were just at a conference in a Stadium with 55,000 Generation Z people. And it was that kind of thing. They did a fundraiser for translating the Bible and it was, it was that kind of feel of like, let's pool our money together, you know, together we can make a big difference. And so there was a lot of little gifts.
- [35:29]
B
Yeah.
- [35:30]
A
Given. But they, they raised a lot of money together. So they're not giving million dollar checks, but they still raised a million dollars. Yeah, they actually raised $2 million, but it was through the group effort.
- [35:40]
B
Yeah.
- [35:41]
A
You know what's interesting about Generation Z, because you had mentioned that they have a desire to become entrepreneurial.
- [35:46]
B
Yeah.
- [35:47]
A
But yet they're also the ones who are experiencing the crypto boom as well. So like I said before, a lot of the Generation Z are becoming wealthy, very young.
- [35:57]
B
Right.
- [35:58]
A
And they're using that wealth to start companies.
- [36:00]
B
Right, right.
- [36:01]
A
So they're in that kind of, of mode right now of like, I want to be the next Elon Musk.
- [36:05]
B
Right, right. Or Mark Zuckerberg or whoever. Yeah.
- [36:08]
A
And so a lot of that is happening. So I think to anticipate, you know, 20, 30 years down the road.
- [36:14]
B
Right.
- [36:14]
A
These people are going to be some pretty good givers. And knowing that the trend is going back to paper and stuff like that, it'd be interesting to just see how that all plays out. But I definitely wouldn't write off Generation Z.
- [36:26]
B
No, that's exactly right. And we want to make sure that they're, we take advantage of their, their interest to focus on campaigns that allow small donations and ptp, peer to peer fundraising as well too. Now the practical application with Gen Z is that they love digital and social media challenges. The, you know, water bucket challenge, the, you know, other other kind of challenges where they, you know, are called to.
- [36:53]
A
Seeing their friends doing something and they want to jump in and do it.
- [36:56]
B
And do it too.
- [36:57]
A
Yeah, that's exactly right.
- [36:58]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, those are important.
- [37:02]
A
Yeah, there's a lot in here. And again, if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, this is great information. Well, I've got good news for you. We've packed this all up into a downloadable PDF. You can scan the QR code and that will take you to a place where you can download it. We'll send it to you in your email, and you'll have that for future reference. I would encourage you to print that out, keep it next to you, keep it on your desk and use it. You know, I think a great practical application from this episode is that we're thinking about segmenting our partner database in terms of generation. Right. It's easy. I know a lot of us, we segment them according to gift amount. Right, right. But I think we want to do gift amount and generation.
- [37:45]
B
Yeah.
- [37:46]
A
You know, so that we can know, okay, this is where they fall in terms of major donor, mid level donor, whatever. But also, so understanding what generation they're a part of is going to give us some insight into how we should communicate to them.
- [37:59]
B
Segmenting is, is extremely valuable. Yeah.
- [38:02]
A
In this, I mean, it's no different than, you know, when you have friends.
- [38:06]
B
Yeah.
- [38:06]
A
You know, you have different friends that prefer different communication.
- [38:08]
B
That's right.
- [38:09]
A
It's kind of annoying in the sense because in the old days we just had the telephone.
- [38:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. One form of communication.
- [38:14]
A
We just all use the telephone. It was really easy. But now you've got some people that prefer they respond to email.
- [38:20]
B
Right.
- [38:20]
A
And you email them and you get an email right back.
- [38:22]
B
Yeah.
- [38:23]
A
Other people, you email them and you never hear from them, but if you send them a text, they're gonna get back to you right away.
- [38:28]
B
What I thought is funny is you mentioned earlier that your dad wants you to text him that you sent him an email. And that says it all.
- [38:35]
A
Right.
- [38:36]
B
It really does.
- [38:37]
A
Yeah. And same thing with the younger generation. You know, some people, you send them a message on TikTok, boom, they're right back to you.
- [38:43]
B
Right.
- [38:44]
A
You send other People messages on TikTok and you never hear anything from.
- [38:48]
B
Right, yeah.
- [38:49]
A
You know, DMs, everything.
- [38:50]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:50]
A
So it's, it's a little bit confusing and complicated nowadays. I actually did prefer just the good old fashioned telephone wire phone that used to hang on the wall. That was really cool. You get all wrapped up in the core.
- [39:03]
B
I'm old enough. I had a tin can and two springs.
- [39:07]
A
I was still alive for the rodeo. Telephone. There you go.
- [39:11]
B
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Rotary. The rotary one.
- [39:14]
A
Rotary phone. Yeah. Those are good days, you know. Got a QR in the screen. We just scan the QR code and you can, you can download this PDF and you know, print it out. I think it'll be really helpful for you to not only categorize your partners as far as how much they've given, but also, you know, have notes on there, what generation they're from because it's really important that we communicate with them in the preference that they prefer. Just understanding all that is really helpful. So thanks, Jim, for your expertise in this area. I know that you have experienced a lot in your 40 years of experience working in nonprofits worldwide. You've experienced all these generations to a certain degree, and it was just really cool and fun. I enjoyed being able to sit around and talk about all the different generations and how we can relate to them. So definitely print out the PDF and put this into your practice and I think you'll see an increase in your giving and how you communicate to people. So thanks a lot for tuning in to this episode and we will see you next time.
- [40:16]
B
Take care.