Wanna Know What Millennial Donors Want? So Do We.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a nonprofit, a hot new restaurant or a wannabe fashion trend, one thing is certain – you’re spending a lot of time and energy these days figuring out how to attract and then keep Millennials coming back to your cause, your store or your brand.

When it comes to assessing Millennials' attitudes and preferences in supporting nonprofits, much can be assumed about what it is they want to know before giving, and how they want it. But thanks to Achieve and JGA, there is research that has helped shed some light on how to best engage Millennial donors, and you might be surprised to learn how they want to be reached.

Last year, the Millennial Donor Survey found that donors not only wanted to give financially, but they wanted to affect change and create direction – they wanted access to the board’s leadership and real opportunities to get involved. Perhaps we assume that since Millennials are doing everything else online, they must be giving there as well – but last year’s survey found that 91% of Millennial donors are at least somewhat likely to respond to a face-to-face request for money from a nonprofit organization (with 27% highly likely), but only 8% are highly likely to respond to an e-mail request.

This year Achieve and JGA are at it again. They have launched a new survey for Millennials to understand their donor preferences and to hear more about why donors decide not to support a cause, perceptions on gifting trends such as text campaigns, and views on young professional groups. The results of this study will be released in April 2011 and will help guide nonprofits that work closely with Millennials.

The information gleaned from this survey is important to all of us. If you’re a Millennial (ages 20-35, for purposes of the study) please take 5 minutes of your time to fill out this survey and help organizations throughout the country understand how to involve Millennials more strategically to impact our communities. We’ll be covering the results of the study here on Social Citizens when it’s released in April.