Millennials Respond Better to Peers Than to Bosses When Asked to Give, Study Says

Peer-to-peer encouragement is key to boosting participation in workplace charity efforts among millennials, according to a new study.

Nearly half of the young people surveyed for the 2015 Millennial Impact Report said they were likely to donate if a coworker asked them to, while only a fifth said they’d probably do so at the request of their companies’ chief executives. Sixty-five percent of millennials said they were more likely to volunteer if their coworkers participated, while 44 percent said they were more likely to if their supervisor participated.

Appealing to the charitable instincts of millennials—people born from 1980 to 2000—is of increasing interest to organizations because of the generation’s interest in doing good, said Derrick Feldmann, president of the consulting firm Achieve, which released the report today. "More and more companies are taking stances on social issues and community building because their employees are asking them to," Feldmann said.