This post won’t help you raise more money tomorrow.
However, it deals with a demographic and attitudinal shift that will affect nonprofit fundraising for decades to come.
There are lots of "Boomer experts" touting their insights … you might say it’s a booming business. My favorite, because he’s so deeply grounded in data, which he wisely sifts, is Matt Thornhill of the Boomer Project.
Here’s an excerpt from a brief piece he’s written in the course of promoting a new book, Longevity Rules: How To Age Well Into The Future, a collection of essays by 34 experts (Matt is one) from a wide range of disciplines …
"We also can safely say, based on hard economic numbers, that most Boomers have not saved enough to finance a secure and comfortable retirement. The Center for Retirement Planning at Boston College says that more than half of all Boomers are at risk of failing to replace their pre-retirement income. Include the risk of needing long-term care, and the number is three out of five.
"Logic tells us that there is a considerable gap between Boomer aspirations for the third and fourth quarters of their lives and what they as individuals, supplemented by the federally financed social safety net, can afford. The numbers point to a future of lessened material expectations for Boomers.
"Our analyses of monthly consumer surveys by BIGresearch suggest that Boomers are turning their backs on consumerism. They are rediscovering the traditional values of thrift and frugality, which they see as consistent with emerging "green" values of conservation and recycling."
So the bad news, or at least a warning, is that Boomers might feel — and actually be — financially stretched and stressed as the years roll on … making them less generous as donors.
But on the other hand, certain causes and charities — e.g., environment and health-related — might match up well against the attitudes of aging Boomers.
As Matt says, we’ll have to wait and see. Meantime, I plan to read the book!
Tom
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This is an excellent point. We who are looking to build relationships and of course revenue must realize that Boomers will not be the same as their parents in terms of giving. While the values may remain the where with all to support them may not. In order to get the support they are willing to give we will need to bond them to the mission by developing long-term relationships…quality and not necessarily quantity.
But how does this fit in with the “huge generational shift of wealth” everyone has been talking about? Aren’t the Boomers inheriting from their parents now and for the next 10+ years? Is that shift concentrated in a small percentage of Boomers?
Excellent post, Tom! I agree that Thornhill’s book should/will be a must-read for nonprofit advancement folks.
I also agree fully with Jim McLachlan’s comments about the importance of underscoring synchronized values (case articulation), while cultivating, building and sustaining solid and positive relationships. These are the foundation of productive advancement efforts.
What I also ponder in this discussion is the fact that we can build our strategies, plans and initiatives on facts and assumptions that might not work out in the ways we predict.
What was projected and assumed about the philanthropic behavior of the “boomers” over the past 20 years or so might be quite different from what we will see transpiring as real time goes on from here.
Life in the larger world and society will always be affected by a huge array of factors and realities that can alter human behavior in the heat of the moment. Economic conditions, political upheaval, cultural shifts and societal crises all can undermine the earlier predictions of a group’s evolving behavior.
Maybe, in the final analysis, the boomers might not be the vaunted champions of philanthropy that many have expected them to be. If not, the lesson to be learned is that we in the nonprofit advancement profession must remain vigilant about changes in the larger scheme of things, attuned to the current mindset of a specific population group, and ready to adapt, at every turn, to the changing environment in which we operate.