The Next Big Thing

There's a mobile-giving revolution knocking at the door of fundraising in the United States. Internet? E-mail? Old news. Even social media, which hasn't come anywhere near reaching its fundraising potential, already is looking stale in some circles.

Technology happens, and it keeps happening. And people react to it in a number of ways. Give Uppers reach critical mass and refuse to accept innovation. Old-timer Give Uppers use phrases like "dag-gum whatchamajiggers." They pay for things with checks and blow their noses into handkerchiefs. Younger Give Uppers still look for pay phones on city streets, ask for your fax number and take photos that need to be developed. The youngest of the bunch check MySpace every day, don't mess with "the Facebook" and couldn't tell a tweet from a Tootsie Roll.

Polar opposite to the Give Uppers are the Gimmie Gimmie-ers. If it's new, they want it and can't comprehend why you don't. They're in line at the Apple store three days before the next iteration of the iPhone goes on sale. And they're proud of that. Their computers do things most people think are only possible in the movies. They're cool friends to have because they tire of — and give away — stuff that the rest of us don't even know exists yet.

Somewhere in between are the Wait and See-ers. Cool, even-keel, realistic. They didn't pay $1,300 for a microwave oven in 1955, and they're not the ones walking the streets muttering to themselves because they tossed their LPs in favor of eight-track tapes during their 15 seconds of fame in the 1970s. Wait and See-ers walk a fine line. Sometimes they wait just long enough to avoid high prices and the Gimmie Gimmie frenzy. But sometimes their patience backfires and they turn into Catch Uppers, a distinct subset of the population that's too depressing to discuss at length but has been defined over the years as the guy wearing MC Hammer pants at a party in 1993 and the woman on the bus last week who looked like Melanie Griffith's character in "Working Girl." Note: Catch Uppers often are mistakenly confused with the even sadder Can't Let Go-ers or the elusive Ahead of the Curve-ers, who can spot (or in rare cases, spark) the resurgence of a trend long before the rest of the general public.