Are Millennials Really Worth Targeting for Fundraising?

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We all want younger donors.  But is it worth the investment?

Certainly it is for donors around the 40 year old mark - face to face (direct dialogue) has done really well there getting millions of people around that age to give.  But what about younger?

The idea that by getting donors in early, we will make them more likely to support us later is not entirely flawed, but just stepping back and thinking about that logically, it breaks down. 

Surely it would be easier to get the more valuable donors in NOW, and only go for the long term get ‘em in young when you have got all of the older ones in?

I suggest:

1. Look at your current donor database by age, you will likely see a stark correlation between age and every measure of success.  Generally older donors tend to:
1. Higher ave donation
2. Higher second gift rate
3. Higher retention (especially in monthly giving)
4. Higher amounts raised (in events)
5. Higher chance of supporting an event again
6. Higher life time value
7. Higher chance of putting you in their will
1. And higher chance of realising that sooner
8. Higher chance of becoming a major donor
9. Higher chance of responding to most of your communications

In regular/monthly giving the upwards trend tends to stop going up over 67/70 years old. 

In cash / direct mail it doesn’t seem to ever stop going up.

And when you take that line to people below about 40 you begin to see that the Return on Investment over (say) five years is simply not worth the effort.

In other words - older donors are better.

Why?

One theory is that charities are simply not good at marketing to younger people.  

I don’t believe this, because thousands of brilliant charities try all the time and fail, and have done for years with tons of ideas.  

Maybe it is true - after all, before face to face charities had repeatedly tried and failed.  But it seems the effort of finding the magic has wasted far too much charity time and money already.

My theory is a bit more simple, and shared with pretty much every fundraiser who has ever looked at demographic data as well as fundraising data: 

The older you get, the more disposable income you have.  Then, when you get REALLY old, some peoples disposable income may go down, but the asset in your legacy is still going up.

Should we write off young people then?

Not at all.  They like purchasing cheap quick things, like Ice bucket Challenge (IBC).  

But note, probably more than 80% of the revenue raised for IBC would have come from just 20% of the participants.  And that 20% will be heavily represented by older participants.

In other words, they got loads of young people involved, but most of the actual $ will have come from people over 40 or 45.  We see this in all events.

But having 8,000 young people to an event, effectively funded by 2,000 old people could have other benefits – for campaigning for example.

All fundraisers WANT young people to give.  They really believe in it! I really wish it was so too! But wishing something were true doesn’t make it true.

In the table below, age of donors – across about 70 charities, where age is known, you can see there are some younger groups.  But even within those younger groups (like face to face regular givers, averaging 43 years old) we see all of the points I made above still hold true.

GiftClassification	Channel	Income	Donors(age known)	Age at recruitment
Regular Gift	Street/Mall Face to Face	$165,216,714	620,857	43
Cash	Direct Mail	$78,436,142	612,500	70
Regular Gift	Phone	$24,150,667	100,655	54
Regular Gift	Other	$25,153,095	72,101	54
Child Sponsorship	Street/Mall Face to Face	$36,042,920	68,052	44
Regular Gift	Direct Mail	$21,022,016	64,000	61
Child Sponsorship	TV	$26,524,368	42,876	47
Child Sponsorship	Other	$27,903,102	43,071	47
Gift To Child	Direct Mail	$7,091,384	82,601	52
Regular Gift	Online	$11,190,781	30,828	44
Regular Gift	Door to Door Face to Face	$4,931,672	19,558	44
Child Sponsorship	Online	$8,977,320	15,126	41
Child Sponsorship	Phone	$7,064,422	12,601	48
Child Sponsorship	Direct Mail	$7,722,054	11,543	54
Child Sponsorship	Door to Door Face to Face	$5,488,382	8,830	45

The trend for all the other areas looks like that too.  i.e. older DM donors are better, as are older online donors etc.

And even in bequests from regular (sustainer/monthly) givers.

The chart below shows that older people communicated with by direct mail, including appeals are more likely to donate (there are more of them) AND they give more after their initial gift than younger ones.

Put simply, an average 75 year old paying by cheque will give over 7x their initial gift in 5 years, but a 35 year old cheque donor (of which there are not many) gives about 4 times as much.  A MASSIVE difference. And for credit cards, it is 7x and 5x, still a BIG difference when you consider how expensive and tight the costs of donor acquisition are.

In major donor giving… older is better.

On Facebook… Successful (fundraising) charities have profiles like this…

The bottom line:

There is no measure that I can find anywhere that tells a fundraiser that younger people are a priority over older donors.  The only time we need to go for younger people is after we have:

* Exhausted sources of older donors AND

* Following best practice with donor-centric and frequent communications with them AND

* We have a great mid value donor program AND

* We have a great legacy/bequest program AND
* We have established a face to face sustainer/monthly/regular giving program (or can't for some reason)

Only when we can tick all those boxes should we start mass marketing on a strategic level to younger people.

OR

* Involving younger people is core to your mission.

Sean