Are Millennial Stereotypes Costing Your Nonprofit Funding?

I fit at least two millennial stereotypes: I moved back home twice post-college and I spent a fair amount of time underemployed in hospitality jobs.

After a three year career in inpatient mental health and addiction, I enrolled as a distance student at UND and began classes towards a graduate degree in public administration. I utilized an internship required by my MPA program to pivot into my next career, and consequently independent living in Phoenix.

I make a modest income (<40k), value experiences over things, and I believe I am the donor that most organizations are overlooking.

A recent NPR article, quotes a National Association of Realtors’ study reporting millennials as the “largest group of homebuyers for the fourth consecutive year.” It’s time to shake the popular misconceptions about economic inactivity, and start building the millennial donors who will carry our missions forward.

This month I committed $1,000/year ($83.33/month) for three years to a giving circle run out of the Arizona Community Foundation, with additional plans to become a sustaining donor for my local NPR station next year. Before sustained giving, I gave only in one time transactions to GoFundMe pages and local NGO events.

I know $1,000/year is small money. It will not move mountains or change systems, but it is more than anyone has ever asked me to donate. On a timeshare presentation a few years ago in Las Vegas, the salesman asked me for a $7,000 down payment on the product after a 60 minute pitch.

I didn’t buy the timeshare, but there is something to learn from the non-discriminatory attitude of the salesman. He had a goal (read: mission), and asked me to be a part of it. Nonprofits are not selling timeshares, but they are selling something far more important: a better world and an opportunity to be a part of creating it.

Quoting Allyson Knox, Director of Education and Policy Programs, Microsoft, who I recently heard speak at the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s America Working Forward conference in D.C., “ask us [employers] to do more.” Allyson was encouraging attendees to ask employers to engage more in workforce development, but I echo her calling and appeal to nonprofits to ask us [millennials] to do more.

I believe that the influences that led to my decision to take a more active and intentional role in philanthropy are not unique to me, but represent a growing sentiment among other “purpose-driven” millennials. Given the current political climate and renewed frustration with the status quo in Washington, we are at the peak of engagement. If correct, there is a growing opportunity for mission-based organizations to cultivate and sustain new donors.

For more insight into my donor motives:

I became a philanthropist to…

1. Counter political inaction and market failure
2. Make an investment in my community
3. Go beyond low-skilled & traditional time-based volunteering
4. Connect with other humans who care about social impact
5. Live my values
6. Move from hopeless to hopeful
7. Bend the arc of the moral universe
8. Provide my shoulders for someone to stand on
9. Be the change
10. Remind myself of my privilege

Katelyn Harris Lange is a current workforce development practitioner supporting cross-sector synergy and innovation in the Greater Phoenix Area. She is a philanthropist involved in the African-American Women’s Giving and Empowerment Circle, Phoenix Sister Cities Board Member, and the current Diversity and Inclusion Director with Net Impact Phoenix Professionals.