Millennials Are Ready to Give More, and 6 Other Takeaways from a New Donor Survey

Is giving starting to cool down?

One in four donors say they will give more to charity in 2018 than they did last year, according to a new survey.

However, that share is down from the 31 percent last year who said they planned to give more in 2017.

The latest Burk Donor Survey, produced by Penelope Burk, president of Cygnus Applied Research, a consulting firm, offers both bright signs and warning lights for fundraisers and their charities.

Among the bright signs: Young donors are starting to step up, and are most likely of all age groups to give more this year. Forty-six percent said they’re ready to dig deeper this year.

Since the recession, Burk says, millennials have been hobbled by underemployment and student debt. But with many now enjoying better career momentum, “They’re moving ahead with their philanthropy.”

Among the warning lights: Seventy-one percent of donors supported no new causes in 2017, an indication that most donors aren’t seeking to add additional charities to their philanthropy.

The survey drew on responses from more than 12,200 active donors who were contacted through charities they support; the donors answered online questionnaires from March through May this year. This year’s report focused especially on planned giving and support of disaster-relief causes. It cast light not only on how young adults are giving but also on how charities can persuade donors to give more than they intended, the slowing of the politically-fueled giving some charities experienced after the 2016 election, and the surprising openness of donors to work with planned-giving officers who are young.

Here are seven takeaways from the latest report.

There’s still lots of untapped giving.

Fifty-three percent of donors told researchers they gave more to nonprofits in 2017 than in 2016; that’s the highest percentage in the study’s nine-year history. And yet, 36 percent of donors said they could have given more in 2017; and of donors who plan no changes in their giving this year, 31 percent said they could be persuaded to dig deeper. Among the things donors said charities could do to unlock that potential: Make a compelling case of “extraordinary need” (cited by 31 percent) and stop sending donor premiums, such as trinkets, calendars, and the like (28 percent).

To make the most of young supporters’ generosity and also tap donors of all ages who can give more, Burk recommends that charities treat everyone like they have the potential to give big. Share detailed information about the organization’s impact with small donors, she advises. Charities, she says, often “make the mistake of withholding that information from donors until they give a certain amount.”

Millennials are eager to give more.

Seventy-three percent of donors under age 35 in the study said they donated more in 2017 than the previous year. Nearly half of those donors said they supported new causes in 2017.

While the average total annual donation of people under age 35 ($1,600) still pales in comparison with that of people 35 to 65 ($7,400) and of people 65 and older ($11,000),that gap has grown narrower. In 2011, according to Cygnus’ data, the average total contribution of people under age 35 was 11 percent that of middle-aged people. In 2017, the percentage was 22 percent.

Charities have a lot of secret bequests coming.

Of the donors in the survey who have a will, roughly one-third have made provisions for a gift to at least one charity. More than half in this group have not told their beneficiaries they will receive a bequest.

Seventy percent said they keep their bequests secret because giving is a private matter. When asked who influenced them to make a bequest, 56 percent said “no one” — by far the most popular answer.

Also, 42 percent said they want the freedom to remove a charity from their will if they change their minds. Twenty percent of donors who have a will said they have removed one or more charities from the document.

Fundraisers “must communicate with all their donors, because they don’t know who’s done what,” Burk advises. Charities must spell out the work they’re accomplishing with bequests as well as with annual-fund contributions.

Donors want to talk about planned giving with young fundraisers.

Contrary to expectations, the report found that 72 percent of donors who have a included a charitable gift in their wills said they would be comfortable discussing planned giving with a fundraiser under age 30. “This is my favorite finding in the whole report,” Burk says.

“Donors love spending time with young people,” she says. “Yet, in the planned-giving industry, there’s an assumption that only very seasoned professionals would be appropriate to talk to.”

Charity supporters who are thinking about their legacies, Burk says, welcome the opportunity to be mentors and to hear what the younger generation thinks.

With younger members of fundraising staffs more inclined to jump ship over the lack of upward mobility at their organizations, assigning ambitious millennials to planned-giving programs seems like “a match made in heaven,” Burk says.

Politically-motivated giving is cooling off.

The spike in gifts to causes that donors perceived as being under threat after the 2016 presidential election has tapered off, though the motivation remains a factor in giving, according to the study.

One in three donors who intend to give more in 2018 said President Trump was a reason why. The percentage is down from the 51 percent who said the same thing in last year’s study.

“A lot of politically-motivated giving is a kind of emergency giving, like giving to disaster relief,” Burk says. But, she adds, “one thing about political giving is, as time passes, you can get used to almost anything.”

Online giving is now just as important as direct mail.

Forty-eight percent of donors said they gave by direct mail in 2017, and the same percentage said they gave online. However, direct mail’s future is fading: Only 22 percent of people under 35 gave that way.

Disaster giving won’t hurt other charities.

Donors’ contributions last year came partly in response to major natural disasters: Fifty-nine percent of donors in the survey said they gave to a disaster-relief charity in 2017. This year’s hurricanes and wildfires are likely to spur similar support from donors.

Gifts for disaster relief tend to be smaller than donors’ other contributions and are more likely to be influenced by media reports (62 percent of donors cited this influence) than by messages from the organizations themselves (13 percent). One reason attracting repeat gifts might be a challenge for disaster groups: Only 61 percent of disaster-relief donors reported receiving a thank-you letter from the charities they supported.

Other charities shouldn’t worry that their donors will forsake them this year to support disaster relief, Burk says: “Donors who set a budget tend to add to their budget for disaster giving.”

Note: Data comes from a survey of more than 12,200 active donors.

Source: Burk Donor Survey 2018, Cygnus Applied Research

A version of this article appeared in the February 2019 issue of the Chronicle.