TechTalk: Why Silver Surfers Use Phablets

As I was thinking about a topic for this month's column, a recent study caught my attention. It was conducted by Dunham+Company and found that older donors are just as likely to donate online as younger donors. More specifically, the percentage of donors age 66 and older who are giving online increased from 29 percent in 2010 (the first year of the study) to 59 percent in 2014. This puts the 66+ donors on par with younger audiences in terms of how likely they are to donate online.

In my time as an online fundraiser, I've had many conversations with people who assume that the audiences on their websites, Facebook pages and online donation forms are young. This just isn't the case.

Last month I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout next to an older man. He looked sophisticated. Like a hip grandfather. He pulled out his Samsung phablet (one of those really big smartphones that are a cross between a phone and a tablet) and started checking his email. I happen to use a smaller Samsung smartphone (smaller than a phablet, but larger than an iPhone) so I asked him how he liked his device. He grinned and said he loved it. "Why did you choose such a large screen?" I wondered. "When you get to my age, you need the font to be REALLY BIG" he explained.

Of course.

So this leads to one of my questions for you: How does your website look to your "silver surfers"? Let's define this audience as your 66+ aged online audience. Now we know that these supporters are just as likely to donate to you online as your younger crowd. And I bet they're much more likely to read your "Leaving a Legacy" page about your wills and bequests program. But is your font big enough? And how does your legacy page look on a tablet, which we know from other studies trends much older than smartphones.