Nancy Lublin

Q: What can teens do to help change the world with no money, no car, and no adults?

A: More than you think, according to DoSomething.org.

Last week DoSomething.org held its annual meeting to review the past year and discuss the year ahead for this 19-year-old organization. If Nancy Lublin, CEO and self-proclaimed “Chief Old Person,” and Aria Finger, COO of DoSomething.org, get their way… teens across the country will be able to choose from 25 to 30 different campaigns this year to get engaged and make a difference in their communities.

Fostering the next generation of Social Citizens, the organization’s purpose is rooted in its goal to “make community service as popular, cool, and most importantly, normal as watching TV or playing sports—something so ingrained in young people that they wouldn't think twice about helping others or volunteering.” As Aria puts it, "To DoSomething.org, teenagers are NOT future leaders. That's right. They are leaders right now. We've seen 17-year-olds register 10,000 bone marrow donors to save lives, outfit thousands of homes with energy-saving light bulbs, and clothe millions of homeless people nationwide. They do not need to wait. They can use their passion, smarts, and fearlessness to change the world right now."

So far so (very) good. Currently, DoSomething.org is one of the largest social change organizations in the U.S. for teens and they are aiming for five million active members by 2015. They are well on their way to reaching this goal both in the scale of its programs and depth of engagement. Aria noted in her presentation that DoSomething.org’s programs numbered 12 in 2010 with 1.2 million teens participating, and 16 in 2011 with 2 million teens participating—in 2012 they want to create 30 programs such as: Teens for Jeans; Give a Spit About Cancer; Animal Welfare; Cause Scavenger Hunts; and Grandparents Gone Wired, all to generate even more teen involvement.

Their formula for success is simple, but reflects years of refinement and the smarts to bring together the right team to execute these types of projects. Aria explained that their team decides what projects to undertake based on three key factors:

1. Pop culture/current events: What are people talking about? Has a celebrity that teens respect taken up a new cause? Has a natural disaster impacted teens somewhere in the world?
2. What do people want?: DoSomething.org relies heavily on crowdsourcing. In fact, they have a youth advisory council which they convene every two weeks to find out what’s on their minds and consequently, what DoSomething.org should be thinking about as well.
3. Data: The numbers don’t lie. The team looks regularly at data, online rankings, Facebook traffic, number of unique visitors to their website, and other quantifiable stats that clearly show where their constituents’ interests lie.

Are you interested yet? I know we are. To learn more about DoSomething and how you can get involved, check out dosomething.org.

Charity can take many different forms and mean many different things. As the year draws to a close it is a time many of us take to reflect on acts of charity and how we may help others.

What do you think of when it comes to charity? Is it dropping some change into the cup of someone in need on the side of the street? What about performing acts of volunteer service to help others? Does purchasing a good or service that supports a cause or nonprofit organization count as charity?

It is a word with many complex layers. On the one hand, it is a personal matter tied to how we as individuals relate to one another and to those in need. It is also a public issue that impacts our society and is fraught with many implications. The two sides of charity are linked together, but how we leverage and build upon that foundation is up to us.

New Forms of Giving

For the “next generation”, these issues are highly relevant. Looking to Millennials we see that they want more than a “transactional relationship”—they want engagement. According to a study on Millennial donors, 91%of 20 to 40 year olds noted that they were at least somewhat likely to respond to a face-to-face request for money from a nonprofit. Moreover in the Cone Cause Evolution Study, 94% of 18 to 24 year olds find cause marketing acceptable (vs. 88% average), and 53% chose to purchase a product that supported an issue or cause in the past year. This group will play a key role not only as the next generation, but also in forming and shaping the next generation of charity.

Getting from Giving

I recently attended the NextGen:Charity conference with my colleague Sokunthea Sa Chhabra to hear how leading non-profit and social media experts, CEOs and innovators from various sectors are helping to shape the philanthropic space and approach these very questions.

The goal of the conference was to help “inspire revolutions in efficiency and innovation in non-profit work, [to] help more people, more effectively.” With more than two dozen renowned presenters, including: Scott Harrison of Charity:Water; Jonathan Greenblatt of Ethos Water and All for Good; Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise; Pamela Haas of the IBM Foundation; Melissa Kushner of Goods for Good; and Ami Dar from Ideaslist.org, the conference highlighted different areas of expertise, experience and learning.

Learning by Giving

Each of the presentations contributed to a larger discussion about how the next generation will impact charity. The end result was a day of lessons learned, anecdotes, reflections and inspiration.

Highlights from the sessions included:

If at first you don’t succeed…

Early on in the day Nancy Lublin, DoSomething.org’s CEO and “chief old person” (as she referred to herself) explored the concept of charity and how it will evolve within the next generation. She believes that the younger generation possesses a special talent and ability to attempt things, push things and pursue things that others will not. It’s a characteristic that must be cultivated among youth and celebrated by all.

Which one are you?

Seth Godin, founder of Squidoo.com asked the audience a single question (made famous by Zig Ziglar) that one could spend a lifetime searching for—are you a wandering generality or a meaningful specific? That is to say are you focused and dedicated, passionate and engaged, or just the opposite? Many in the audience took this question to heart and I think it’s worth asking yourself as you read this and contemplate how you want to embrace the next generation of charity.

It doesn’t take much.

Numerous speakers took the stage to share stories of how they started with nothing but a vision or a dream and turned it into successful projects like Charity:Water and Goods for Good. Speakers acknowledged that one of the greatest challenges and deterrents to taking that big leap is money. However, Nate Westheimer, founder of AnyClip.com was there to shatter this myth about financial obstacles and shared his methodology for starting an organization with less than $60. In fact, Adam Braun started Pencil of Promise by opening a bank account with only $25. In the end, Braun reflected that the critical element for him was his decision to “say yes to possibility.”

Rethink generosity.

Sasha Dichter of the Acumen Fund shared details of his generosity experiment where he spent 30 days giving to anyone and everyone who asked. While he didn’t want to imply this was the “smartest way to give,” he did want to change his mind set when it came to generosity. Rather than saying no, he chose to say yes and this helped him to better understand not only acts of philanthropy, but himself as well.

Since when does going out of business equal success?

Scott Case, co-founder of Priceline.com and CEO of Malaria No More explained that the end goal for all of us in the philanthropy world should be to put ourselves out of business. Case proceeded to clarify that essentially it’s what everyone wants. This mentality will help prioritize the cause before the organization, free up resources and creativity, and provide a great excuse to celebrate once the goal is met.

Each of these speakers gave of themselves and in the end received much in return. They shared their best practices for creating positive change now we want to hear from you. How do you plan to embrace charity, generosity and philanthropy as we move into the “next generation of charity?” How do you think these ideas may inspire or “reboot” our current framework for philanthropy?