Reaching Donors Under 40

Almost 2 years ago I did a blog post about reaching donors under 40. The post was based on an excellent presentation I saw at the AFP Northern New England chapter conference. I think back on that presentation often and when I make presentations myself I often include some of the wisdom that was shared there.

I often visit nonprofit websites where it takes multiple steps to get to the online donation page and then the online donation page takes multiple steps to fill out and I think back to that presentation and the donor under 40 who said "If your online donation page doesn't load within 6 seconds and doesn't work with Google autofill forget it, I'm not donating to your organization." These donors are busy and because they grew up in the Amazon era, they expect technology to be easy to use and they expect a high degree of personalization.

Last week I was one of the speakers at a conference put on by the Arts and Business Council of Chicago. Gerald Yoshitomi was the keynote speaker. One of the topics Yoshitomi addressed was engaging younger arts patrons who are different from the older generation. He talked about how commercial firms develop sideline brands so they can continue to meet the needs of their older customers and at the same time develop a new customer base. An example was a makeup company that offers different lines for different customer segments. He said that arts organizations should be doing this too. For example, younger arts patrons may not want to sit through a 2 hour performance or they may be more interested in attending a 9 p.m. performance than a 7 p.m. performance.

Engage your stakeholders, donors, prospects, and patrons. Learn what is of interest to them and what annoys them. Develop new ways to serve them. Understand that they are busy and focus on WIFM (what's in it for me -- that's them not you)