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By Greg Fox
Before launching into focus on the new, young, and shiny, let’s take a moment of thanks for the current generations of donors. They’ve enabled the great causes of this nation to thrive. Any steps toward reaching the next generation of donors will be made possible by the generosity of this one.
Yet, the earth continues its unceasing orbit around the sun. Every day, non-donors are born, and donors pass away. We must do something in the middle to convert non-donors into donors, lest nonprofits expire along with all the good they do.
There is a dual mandate, then: treasure those who make the present possible and find and convert the next generation to the joy of giving.
Here are a few tips for finding young donors:
Use data to understand the younger donors already on file. Every time an organization’s digital data is matched back to its acquisition mailings, two things are found. First, half (and often more) of the gifts made by people younger than age 50 to mail acquisition don’t happen in the mail. They happen online. That is, they get a mail piece and go online to donate rather than mail back the enclosed envelope.
Second, the organizations involved are systematically underinvesting in acquiring younger donors through the mail. Think of it this way. If half or more of the results of a mailing are hidden, it looks like young donors don’t give to mail pieces and you should give up on them. In reality, they give to mail pieces; they just don’t give through mail pieces as much. This cycle perpetuates itself if unaccounted for as single-channel modeling will then serve you up fewer younger donors.
On the plus side, matching back reveals that younger donors are the best type of donors — those that cost less to acquire.
A good modeling partner should be able to ingest donor data regardless of channel and create effective acquisition targets ready to donate in any channel. They should also be able to skew their audience younger to meet goals if that’s desirable.
Explore new channels. Not every younger person engages with the mail, however. Younger donors frequent channels such as:
- Face-to-face fundraising. This is where one organization found a robust number of new monthly donors with an average age of 39.
- Texting. Calling people only reaches those who use their phone as a phone, which is rather uncommon these days. These campaigns skew younger and have 30-40% click-through rates on fundraising broadcast messages.
- Connected TV. Most people younger than age 50 don’t have cable or satellite, but they still watch TV. So, when Haiti had an earthquake, one organization launched CTV ads with a $10 monthly ask, aiming to attract a younger donor cohort. This strategy was successful, and not only did they acquire younger donors, but they also generated 3.2 million impressions with a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 1.52.
Expand your data horizons. Often, organizations use transaction-based modeling, including factors such as how long someone has been giving and how many gifts they’ve given.
Now, who is more likely to have given for 40 years: an 80-year-old or a 39-year-old? This isn’t a trick question. Looking only at transactional data focuses on those donors who have the longest history of giving and who have been in a self-reinforcing cycle of working because they get mail and getting mailed because they work.
On the flip side of the coin, algorithms like those used by Meta or Google have all the information in the world except donor data. Their lookalike models do what it says on the tin: find prospects who look like your current donors, including variables such as age. So, that also reinforces older lists.
The ideal is a mix of transactional and other data. By putting in thousands of other variables, modern AI modeling can learn more about an individual — both their giving history and what makes them tick — so that neither length of giving nor age is so large a determining factor in whether they are selected to receive communications.
Start at the beginning. Donating is not usually people’s first step with an organization. The AIDA (awareness, interest, desire, and action) model of marketing doesn’t exactly translate from the for-profit world. Still, generally, people will need to be aware of an organization and likely try it out a bit before making their first donation.
That’s why it’s important to start at the top of the funnel with marketing. CTV can be a help here — one organization ran a brandraising campaign with mission-affected 18 to 34-year-olds. They increased their brand awareness by more than six percentage points with this audience and generated web traffic at about $2 per click.
Influencer marketing campaigns can also be excellent ways of both introducing yourself to new audiences and generating them as leads. For example, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (ifaw) worked with 11 influencers to create 55 pieces of content about getting your pets #DisasterReady. The focus was on lead generation by offering a free pet disaster starter kit. The results included 44% more impressions than expected; a conversion rate of more than 50% to new leads; and, a higher-than-average text adoption rate. These leads skewed much younger than the bulk of the ifaw file.
In fact, looking through this list, one could say that the key to attracting and retaining younger audiences is the key to attracting and retaining any audience: start with awareness, build effective audiences, meet them where they are, and customize content to them. It’s simple, yet not easy, and necessary to create the future of philanthropy.
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Greg Fox is senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Moore. His email is gfox@wearemoore.com
