How Millennials Are Reshaping Charity And Online Giving by ELISE HU October 13, 2014 4:13 PM ET i Charity: Water CEO and founder Scott Harrison, on a trip to Ethiopia. Courtesy of Charity: Water This story is part of the New Boom series on millennials in America. Millennials are spending — and giving away their cash — a lot differently than previous generations, and thats changing the game for giving, and for the charities that depend on it. Scott Harrisons group, Charity: Water, is a prime example. Harrisons story starts in New Yorks hottest nightclubs, promoting the proverbial models and bottles. At 28 years old, I realized my legacy was going to be just that. Here lies a guy who got people wasted, Harrison says. So he changed his story. Harrison volunteered to spend the next two years in West Africa. What he found when he first got to Liberia was a drinking water crisis. He watched 7-year-olds drink regularly from chocolate-colored swamps — water, he says, that he wouldnt let his dog drink. Most childhood diseases in the developing countries he visited could be traced to unsafe drinking water, so everything changed for Harrison. He got inspired to start raising money for clean water when he returned to the states, but his friends were wary. They all said, I dont trust charities. I dont give. I believe these charities are just these black holes. I dont even know how much money would actually go to the people who Im trying to help, Harrison recalls. So his one cause became two: He started Charity: Water to dig wells to bring clean drinking water to the nearly 800 million people without access to it around the globe. But he also wanted to set an example with the way the organization did its work. Were also really trying to reinvent charity, reinvent the way people think about giving, the way that they give, he says. “That sense of I need to give out of obligation — I dont know that its going to be around 20 years from now. - Amy Webb Demographic change is a huge reason for rethinking this. With around 80 million millennials coming of age, knowing how they spend their cash on causes is going to be critical for nonprofits. And their spending patterns arent the same as their parents. Our culture is changing pretty dramatically, says Amy Webb, who forecasts digital trends for nonprofit and for-profit companies. That sense of I need to give out of obligation — I dont know that its going to be around 20 years from now. One piece of advice she gives on appealing to younger donors? Dont even ask them to donate, because younger donors want to feel more invested in a cause. Choose a different word, with a different connotation: investment. It may seem something simple. Its just semantics: donation vs. investment. But I think to a millennial, whos grown up in a very different world, one thats more participatory because of the digital tools that we have, to them they want to feel like theyre making an investment. Not just that theyre investing their capital, but theyre investing emotionally, Webb says. And theres the tech part. She says any philanthropy without a smart digital platform — not just for donations but for empowering a community of givers — will be left behind. Which brings us back to Charity: Water. Designers spend most their time finding ways to save their donors time, trimming as much lag time or obstacles to giving online as possible. There are a lot of people who are more willing to be generous with 20, 30 and 50 dollars, but their time is actually worth something. And the thought of pulling out their credit card and fighting through a two- and three- and four-page form is just too much, Harrison says. On its site, giving is as simple as a couple of clicks. And Charity: Waters big tactical success, the approach for which its earned notoriety, is getting young people to call on their own real-life social networks for help. Its the same approach that made this summers Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS so unavoidable. Join the Conversation Use the hashtag #newboom to join the conversation on social media. Were always taking selfies, were sharing details about our lives. So why not do a little social narcissism for a good cause, Beth Kanter, author of Measuring the Networked Nonprofit, told NPR in August. Charity: Water stokes that by building campaigns around birthdays. One of the big ideas that the millennials embraced, Harrison says, is this idea that we sorta stumbled into, when we asked people to give up their birthday for clean water. So I went around asking everyone I knew to give $32 for my 32nd birthday. Soon, tech CEOs were raising tens of thousands of dollars per campaign by giving up their birthdays for water. This spring, NFL safety Kam Chancellor joined in. And the generation that comes after millennials — the children today — are getting into it, too. We had 7-year-olds in Austin, Texas, go door to door asking for $7 donations. We had 16-year-olds in Indiana asking for $16 donations, Harrison says. The groups focus on social networks and simple design means 4 million more people, in 22 countries, now have access to clean drinking water. But you dont have to take our word for it. Charity: Waters latest tech improvement is putting remote sensors on wells — so donors can see just how much water flows from what they helped build. We think this is just going to be game changing, Harrison says.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:43:49 +0000
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