Cohorts x Millennials
Many Orgs have turned their efforts towards capturing Gen Z’s attention (those born between 1997 – 2012), drawn in part to using channels like TikTok and Instagram. Some Org’s are even trying to tap for dollars with “Generation Alpha”. Yet the immediate donating power lies with the Millennial population.
Context: Monthly donor counts seem to be increasing across the board. That said, Org data I’ve seen also suggests that mid- and major-donor giving from a traditional “core” group of donors is falling behind at the same pace, if not faster. Add to this the ever-decreasing share of GenX and Boomers and by 2028 Millennials will likely represent up to 60% of total giving for every Org. So lots of Orgs are being put in a tight spot, which only underscores the urgency of engaging
Millennials in fundraising today.
Let me say this before I list 7 approaches that have worked well for me: There aren’t specific acquisition tactics that work only for Millennials and nobody else. Rather, your approach must be cohort-driven. Horses for courses, in other words. Take what you will from the following plays then let’s get into the critical “cohorts” piece.
- “Digitalize” and embed Direct Mail into the broader program – Direct Mail remains one of the main drivers of donations for the Millennial population, and can be added to the digital donor lifecycle at a fraction of the cost.
Action to explore: Utilize USPS’s Informed Delivery service – those emails sent before the physical piece’s arrive. Use that “digital real estate” to show your direct mail piece alongside a QR code (for mobile scanning) and add a learn-more link with a personalized, unique landing page.
- Real-life connections – Millennials are probably the last generation who still prefer real-life, face-to-face, interactions to sliding into social media DMs or connecting on Zoom calls. On top of that is Millennials’ willingness to donate time more than money.
Action to explore: Consider curated, local gatherings over mass, impersonal gala-type dinners.
- Vary payment options – Beyond credit cards, offering PayPal, Apple Pay and Android Pay is the baseline.
Action to explore: Donate now/pay later, or options to donate with stock and crypto. Each of these grows that little more “normalized” quarter over quarter as consumers get used to seeing and using them online while transacting with other brands.
- Don’t forget about Mobile – It should be no surprise that Apple Pay’s adoption is highest among millennials (used by 51% of millennial digital wallet users) and 45% of Millennials donate only on their mobile devices. This trend ain’t reversing itself!
Action to explore: Accessibility is key, design your website experience for mobile, optimize for page speed, go through the web experience yourself – see and feel what you’re subjecting your Supporters to.
- Security and transparency – Millennials care more than any other generation about knowing where their money goes.
Action to explore: “Journey of a dollar” messaging is key here and figure out what type of storytelling best works for sharing progress and impact numbers. Bring donors on a journey with you, show them where their money is going, to whom, to what, what that impact looks like in numbers, pictures, videos, captures people’s smiles… storytelling is the answer.
- Donor-generated content – Most Orgs already utilize content gathered at their points of impact to show the value of each donation.
Action to explore: Millennials are driven by social proof. Tap into this. See bullet 6.
- Adjust your LTV expectations – Millennials donate to an average of 3.5 Orgs every year. As they accumulate more wealth, the number of Orgs they donate to is more likely to grow than the amount they contribute to each one.
Action to explore: Winning “market share” amongst this group is more important than their individual lifetime value.
Boomers, GenX or GenZ donors are different from one another. Same with Millennials. Focusing fundraising campaigns on the “needs” of only one population will fail. Ultimately you want to take the approaches above, for example, and experiment with combining them in various ways for different groups. That way you’re structuring your fundraising objectives around different “cohorts” of donors – see more in SPN #87. You want to be looking at each of these cohorts separately and breaking them into segments.
“Cohorts” are donor stages in their giving lifecycle with the Org: First Website Visit, First Donation, Second Donation, and so on. The image below is a reminder of what I’ve shared before.
However, at each of these stages, donor segments are also present. If we take Age, an example could be we have a group of Millennial first-time donors, GenX first-time donors, and GenZ first-time donors – all with the same current “state”. But they’ll all likely require very different communications to advance further through our donor journey.
The key to advancing the majority is to treat them differently. If TikTok doesn’t work as a channel for GenX first-timers, it doesn’t mean TikTok is the wrong channel. It only means it’s the wrong channel for this specific segment.
Orgs can get ahead of this by adopting the following workflow:
- Use data available in your Web Analytics platform or CRM to identify your existing donor segments. As I discussed in Episode #17, you’ll probably need to enrich the data.
- At each vital lifecycle point, break down your communications – whether paid media campaigns, website A/B-testing maps, or email cadence – into those segments.
- Establish different benchmarks. Millennials are unlikely to have the same LTV as GenX’ers, for instance, so their cost-per-donor benchmarks should be lower.
- Test “combinations” separately – making decisions to stop, change creative, or increase the budget at this more granular level.
The resulting “matrix” would likely resemble a version of the below:
Each of these unique segments and lifecycle stages will require – and work best with – a mix of creative, website flow, and post-donation communications. This is why having a variety of different types of content available to you is so vital. Orgs would do well to focus on developing more of what resonates with each of its audiences (hopefully you’ve found specific examples throughout today’s SPN). No one piece of content is going to work equally well across all segments.