Do you have board members and senior leadership who keep harping on about reaching younger donors?
If so then look at this slide from The Benchmarking Project.
The data tells us that the majority of your budget should go to older donors. This slide from The Benchmarking Project shows that Gen Ys and Gen Zs make up a measly 11% of income from regular givers and single givers together. If you take single giving on its own, Boomers and the Silent Generation make up 85% of income. And if you look at RG on its own, you have Boomers, the Silent Generation and the older Gen Xers making up 62% of income. And that makes sense because the Silents are now in their 80s and 90s and on limited incomes while the older Gen Xers are in their prime working years so yes, they can afford monthly giving.
“Ah but what about Community Events (CE)?”, they ask in triumph. “Gen Ys and Gen Zs make up 62% of income in that category!” Which sounds amazing until you realise that Community Events makes up just 9% of all 2024 income in this dataset (and that hasn’t shifted much in the last 5 years) as per this slide. Again the majority of income — 56% —comes from regular giving and single giving. When you add in Gifts in Wills, which obviously comes from your older donors passing on, that’s 81% of income that comes largely from older donors.
Also consider that it’s taking an average of 17 years to realise a Gift in Will from the time a donor confirms a bequest. If you manage to confirm a bequest from a Gen Y or Gen Z, you add DECADES onto the amount of time you have to steward them before you realise the gift… and that’s assuming the don’t take you out of their will as they get married, have kids and other life events happen.
So ask yourself: how much do you really want to spend on younger donors when you can see the majority of your income comes from the Silents, Boomers and older Gen Xers?
Big thanks to The Benchmarking Project for your awesome data work! You are legends.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. You may have a young and engaged database of donors. Or your charity might run a hugely successful community engagement campaign each year. While you shouldn’t make any rash decisions, this data could still help you refine your existing acquisition and conversion strategies—and I’d love to help! To enquire about working with Creagivity on growing your donor base, please get in touch at: june@creagivity.com.au
