scott harrison

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?

Last week BusinessWeek posted an article by Jeff Bussgang, a seasoned investor and entrepreneur, who shared his concern that we are suffering from a lost generation of entrepreneurs. It seems he tried to make a list of significant entrepreneurs under 35 and wasn't able to get very far. Jeff argues that since the 2000s were lean years that did not produce many substantial start-ups, that generation of 20-somethings was not able to develop company-building skills. He says we have not had the opportunity to see success at a young age or learn the important lessons of start-up leadership, so our generation has also missed out on the early start-up experience that would have made great mentors and serial starters later in life. Further, we are lacking good entrepreneurial role models, and he worries the next generation of entrepreneurs too could be lost without footsteps to follow.

With all due respect, I think maybe Jeff worries too much. If he's looking for examples of young people with start-up leadership experience, skills and success, he may just be looking in the wrong place. This generation is less interested in making as much money as possible and more interested in starting organizations that are mission-focused, so we are looking at nonprofits and companies with double or triple bottom lines. While the 2000s may not have been a good time to start a business, that hasn't kept twenty-something entrepreneurs of every stripe from starting nonprofits and social ventures.

As much as I might have tried to discourage them, the upshot of all the Millennial nonprofit start-ups is that people of our generation (successful and not) are learning a lot in the process. I don’t think Jeff should be worried about a lost generation of entrepreneurs; rather, I think he should be glad to see that whatever the economic climate has been, this generation of entrepreneurs is using innovation to address social challenges, even when that means sacrificing opportunities for personal gain – the same types of opportunities that might have drawn them into the circles that would get Jeff’s attention.

In an effort to ease his worries, we at Social Citizens would like to offer few people he can add to his list of under 35 success stories with leadership experience and start-up skills that will have no problem serving as role models for their peers and the next generation of entrepreneurs, who may also focus a little less on profits and a little more on changing the world.

Blake Mycoskie, 33, founded TOMS Shoes with the idea that promising to give away one pair of shoes for every pair purchased. Prior to starting TOMS, Blake has founded four other businesses since college. 

Emily Pilloton, 28, who wrote “Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People,” and founded Project H Design, a nonprofit team of designers, architects and builders that mobilize product design ingenuity to benefit humanity, habitats, health and happiness. See her on the Colbert Report earlier this year.

Scott Harrison, 34, who left his job as a successful nightclub promoter to start charity:water, an incredibly successful nonprofit providing clean water for hundreds of thousands of people.

Jonny Dorsey, 24, who while in undergrad at Stanford decided to take a leave of absence to start FACE AIDS and oversaw the expansion of the organization to 150 schools across the country. He's now cofounder of Global Health Corps, which strives to promote global health equity.

Ory Okolloh, 34, is a blogger, co-founder of Ushahidi, an innovative technology platform originally developed to map violence after the 2008 Kenyan election, and co-founder of Mzalendo, which tracks the performance of Kenyan policiticans. 

Esra'a Al Shafei, 23, who promotes human rights for ethic and religious minorities through multiple online campaigns and is the founder and director of MideastYouth.com, an interfaith network developed to provide young people with freedom of expression. 

Sam Adelsberg, 22, who is the co-founder of LendforPeace.org, which allows people to support the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through online microloans to vetted entrepreneurs in the West Bank.

Courtney Macavinta, 34, started Respect RX, a social venture that promotes self-respect, relationship respect and respect for all for teens and young adults, and has been featured consistently as an expert on issues facing teens and women.

Jacob Colker, 26, who after managing numerous political and advocacy campaigns founded The Extraordinaries, a social enterprise which gives people the opportunity to volunteer their spare moments for causes they care about using their mobile phones. 

I've more than doubled Jeff's "depressingly short list" here, but do your part to help him feel better...add to the list!