Playing the Long Game: How Nonprofits Can Find and Keep Gen Z, Millennial Donors

Nonprofits have become adept at acquiring and retaining donors from older generations. They’ve had decades of practice fundraising from baby boomers and, to a lesser extent, Generation X — but their systems were largely built with boomer donors in mind. While boomers still drive much of today’s revenue, their giving will not sustain nonprofits indefinitely.

Now, fundraisers have to confront a new challenge: acquiring and retaining millennial and Generation Z donors. Solving this puzzle is crucial as nonprofits plan for longevity.

What Drives Giving

There are some key differences between baby boomers and Generation Xers (who make up much of today’s established donor base) and millennials and Gen Zers (emerging donor cohorts), rooted in a fundamental shift in why donors give in the first place.

“I think a generation or two ago, there was certainly a sense of civic duty — this is what you did,” Kari Anderson, principal at Incite! Consulting Group, said. “If you think back to when the charitable sector originally began in the ’40s, ’50s, it was filling the space that government entities and the private sector were not filling. … And so certainly it was a sense of civic duty that you wanted to make sure that you were supporting the library. Or you wanted to make sure that you were supporting the school or the hospital.”

As Anderson explained, this civic duty was intertwined with faith in the recipient organization, with baby boomers and Gen Xers trusting their gift was going toward what they intended it for.

Trust is now the difference maker. While older generations have implicitly trusted organizations — nonprofits included — millennials and Gen Zers often expect proof of trustworthiness before giving any sort of support. That means younger donors want nonprofits to spell out for them exactly what impact their support will have.

This change in what prompts a gift is evident in giving patterns. Younger donors are more likely to give to a cause they care about rather than a particular institution, Alicia Lifrak, CEO of Dragonfly Collective Agency said. What that ends up looking like is donors making a greater number of gifts that are smaller and spread across multiple organizations. A Gen Zer interested in animal welfare, for instance, might give to some larger organizations as well as local shelters. Their Gen X counterpart might give a larger gift to just one organization.

“They're not making big meaningful gifts,” Lifrak said. “They're kind of testing it out. That's harder for organizations to get that stickiness. So for a nonprofit who is building a fundraising campaign and a strategy, it's a lot harder to pin them down because they have less stickiness.”

Building Authentic Relationships

To add millennials and Gen Zers in their donor files — and keep them there — nonprofits must tap into that core value of impact. There are many ways to do this, but they all revolve around making the supporter feel like they are part of something.

“We were much quicker, for boomers and [Gen] X, to get to the asking quicker,” Anderson said. “And millennials and Gen Z are really forcing this sector to think about, ‘No, no, no, it's relationship and engagement first and always.’ Because if we're developing that, then there is this entree for those two generations to really get involved with the organization — and involvement for us is time, talent, and treasure.”

On that note, both Anderson and Lifrak stressed the importance of offering more ways for donors to support your organization beyond monetary gifts. Recent data from GoFundMe and Giving Tuesday Data Commons shows that Gen Zers in particular are drawn to personal, relational forms of giving like advocacy and volunteerism.

“You have to invite them to do more than just give,” Lifrak said. “If that's the only time that they're hearing from you, if that's the only ask that you're making of [millennials and Gen Z], they're going to find someplace else.”

It’s also crucial to form relationships not just between your organization and a donor, but among donors themselves. Younger donors in particular want to connect and build community with like-minded people — and your nonprofit can create the space for that.

“The organizations that, A, have the resources, but, B, have the willingness to do that are finding they're getting the stickiness with those donors, because it's more than just math,” Lifrak said. “They're now feeling like they're a part of that organization, they're a part of that culture.”

Communicating With Millennial, Gen Z Donors Right

The path to building authentic relationships with millennials and Gen Zers is paved with effective communication that will likely vary from traditional best practices for older generations.

This is due to the hyperpersonalized marketing millennials and Gen Zers expect, shaped by their experiences on social media, Lifrak said. Nonprofits need to bake that expectation into their communication strategies.

“Understanding that, from the philanthropic sector standpoint, there has to be this balance of knowing that, recognizing that, and telling the story that puts them, as the donor, at the center of it,” she said, “but in a way that connects them to the impact so they feel like their contribution — small or large as it is — made a difference and made this story possible.”

Key to this is using more than one communication channel, Lifrak said. Using multiple channels means you can reach someone when they check their mailbox, scroll on social media, and sort through their text messages.

“You have to be showing up and available for them to give in whatever fashion that makes sense to them, or where they're living and breathing at the time,” Lifrak said. “... When they're scrolling, or when they're cleaning up their email box, or whatever, and they're in that moment, you've presented the most seamless and frictionless path to make that gift, because you're showing up in all those places.”

For Anderson, communicating with millennials and Gen Zers is about distilling the authenticity they want from you in the first place.

“Our younger donors want to know where the money goes, what impact is being achieved, how decisions are being made, and whether the organization’s actions match its values,” Anderson said. “I don't know that those pieces were missing before, but they were probably just implied. And now there's a specific callout to say, ‘Hey, we want to see behind the curtain. We want to see how all this is working, because we want to learn to trust you again.’”

Nonprofits can meet that demand for transparency by leaning into impact reporting, authentic storytelling, and honest communication about challenges.

“Authenticity beats polish anytime — I would say with anyone, but especially with youngers,” Anderson said. “So what that means is imperfect but genuine communication. It's OK if you make a goof, right? … What I will often encourage clients I work with is: The most effective communication is a conversation. It doesn't have to be perfect. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.”

Recognizing Things Will Change

While these best practices are a good starting point for nonprofits trying to retain millennial and Gen Z donors, it’s important to acknowledge that these generations are still new to giving.

“We're at the outset of understanding how these generational cohorts will behave differently because the next gen — which I would put millennials and Generation Z into that general bucket — don't have enough years of giving history to completely inform how they will behave as lifelong philanthropists,” Lifrak said.

And, importantly, Lifrak noted that donor behavior can be influenced — but is not dictated — by the generation they belong to.

“You can be a Gen X with young kids because you had kids later in life, and be behaving in a similar fashion as you would if you were a millennial who graduated college, got married, and had kids,” Lifrak said. “So where you sit in your life stage probably informs your giving choices more so than anything else.”

That means nonprofits have to keep the whole donor in mind, and not just engage with them based on their age.

The bottom line is this: Communicating with millennials and Gen Zers in the ways they prefer and creating a true connection with them is not about generating immediate ROI. It’s about building the trust that earlier generations already had in your organization that kept them loyal to you.

“Money is only one of the ways that youngers can add immense value,” Anderson said. “And if we treat people well early in their relationship with [us], then they're going to want to stay, and as their income and circumstances change, they will give more.”