Read any front page, listen to any news anchor, or talk with any foreign-policy expert, and you’ll learn the same thing: Nuclear war is a real possibility. As a millennial, I find this inconceivable.
The nuclear fallout-shelter signs in my high school were seen as either ancient relics from a time plagued with hysteria or ironic trophies for pranksters to hang in their lockers. I grew up under the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks but only learned about nuclear weapons in college, and then as cold-war history, not a modern-day reality.
This perception gap between millennials and older Americans about peace and security is an issue philanthropy needs to tackle.
Many foreign-policy experts still use terms like cold war, peacenik, and grand strategy, alienating an entire generation of activists, advocates, and grant makers from getting involved with organizations that advance peace and security. Given that foundation giving for peace and security work was only $351 million in 2015 — less than 1 percent of philanthropic grants that year — it is crucial to find ways to attract more support from millennial philanthropists.
To get the attention of young philanthropists, millennial tech giants, and wealthy influencers under 35, we need to start speaking their language. We need to make peace personal, relevant, and compelling to make it possible.
In short, we need to overcome peace’s PR problem.
Powerful Examples
The good news is that some grant makers and peace and security experts recognize this challenge and are beginning to tackle it.
For example, N Square, a coalition of donors concerned about nuclear issues, funded Nucleus Strategy to audit today’s communications strategies and to conduct research to find more compelling messages. The result was a tool kit with insights into how young people view nuclear threats and recommendations on how best to get them interested in the key issues.
Such research is an effective tool, but it’s just the first step. Conveying stories of peace and security work in creative and persuasive ways, and telling them on social media and other sources of information that millennials use daily can help peace and security experts connect with people they miss when they simply issue reports or try to get programs on broadcast news.
N Square also collaborated with the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California to vet the storyline of the season finale of the hit television show Madam Secretary. The finale explored a variety of themes involving nuclear security, making real a topic that many in my generation have a difficult time conceptualizing.
The Ploughshares Fund, a top grant maker on nuclear-control issues, hosted a special screening of the finale, complete with an “Ask Me Anything” session with the Nuclear Threat Initiative on Reddit — an online platform used overwhelmingly by millennials in every income bracket.
Websites Tell the Story
Grant makers focused on nuclear security aren’t the only ones working on ways to harness interest.
Peace Direct worked with luggage designer Away to create an interactive webpage showcasing powerful media from organizations in the Congo, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. When viewers scroll through the first page of the site, they are met with headlines that read, “27 Dead, Including Bomber, in Congo,” “Roadside Bomb Kills 17 in Nigeria,” among others, and then confronted with the question, “What if there was here?”
It’s impossible to look at the site without considering what that violence might look like in your own hometown. Scroll farther and meet Regina, Shakirea, Shehu, and others who are trying to build peace in their communities, putting faces to the description “peacebuilder.”
Outrider, an operating foundation focused on ending the threat of nuclear war and reversing the course of climate change, developed an impressive educational website on the two issues. Not only is the information on the site accessible and devoid of jargon, it features modules that intimately show how nuclear and climate insecurity can affect people who live near the viewer and all around the world.
This approach brings climate and nuclear insecurity down from the ivory tower onto our smartphone screens, making real two issues that can seem inaccessible and, at times, irrelevant to our daily lives. These modules had me captivated for hours.
Changing Attitudes
But we need more of this — more effective messages and better methods of storytelling. The stories of peace and conflict don’t necessarily need to be flashy or sexy, and they don’t need to look like blockbuster films or read like best-selling novels (although it doesn’t hurt). At the very least, these stories need to be relatable and compelling.
The general rise of authoritarianism worldwide, the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, atrocities in the Congo — the list of global peace and security crises goes on and on. Changing attitudes toward peace and security is a far-off goal, but if we want to engage wealthy millennial philanthropists looking to make an impact, we need to act now to make them eager to act and direct money to causes making a difference.
Genevieve Boutilier is a program associate at the Peace and Security Funders Group.
