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Millennial Donors: Show Me the Impact

Stanford Social Innovation Review Dec 3, 2018
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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millennial donors
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• In this Stanford Social Innovation Review post, the authors of Generation Impact: How Next Gen Donors Are Revolutionizing Giving discuss younger funders and their desire to see direct results.

• How can we tap into the passion of millennial donors and help them refine their philanthropic visions?

• For starters, engaging Millennials in your cause requires thought and empathy.


We’d be hard-pressed to find any donors of any age who say they don’t care whether their giving makes much of a difference. But for next gen donors, impact is everything. As the leaders of the new Golden Age of Giving, as donors with unprecedented resources and the power to revolutionize philanthropy, making a tangible difference is their top philanthropic focus. They want an Impact Revolution. They want to reshape philanthropy in ways they believe can finally lead to meaningful progress on our toughest challenges.


Impact Philanthropy is a complex topic, and others found these selections from the Impact Giving archive from Giving Compass to be good resources.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Getting the Best Possible Failures in Philanthropy

    Giving Compass' Take: • In this Stanford Social Innovation Review post, the Bush Foundation's Jen Ford Reedy discusses the nature of "good" failures in philanthropy and how to generate more of them. • Are we willing to embed the lessons here in our strategic giving? How can we both learn from mistakes and discover more flexibility as we seek solutions in the social sector?  • Here's more on why it's healthy for nonprofits to be innovative and embrace failure. We in the foundation world talk a lot about embracing failure, but it’s not something to take lightly. When a social or environmental investment fails, it can negatively disrupt people’s lives and erode community trust. It can also have a huge opportunity cost, taking resources and energy away from other efforts. This is why risk mitigation planning is a standard part of good philanthropic practice, and why we regularly ask ourselves: How can we design our strategies to reduce the chance of failure? But while success should always be the goal, it’s important to remember that not all failures are created equal. There are good failures and bad failures. Many investments don’t achieve their intended outcomes, but they nevertheless: 1) contribute knowledge to the field, 2) have a significant, positive, but unintended consequence, or 3) increase the capacity of all involved to try other approaches. Given this, I suggest we add another element to our standard practice: failure optimization planning. Read the full article about getting the best possible failures in philanthropy by Jen Ford Reedy at Stanford Social Innovation Review.


Our interviews with Gen X and Millennial donors of many backgrounds, from inheritors to earners, showed the same desire. Impact is what they want—and worry about—most. … When we surveyed over 300 major donors in their 20s and 30s, we asked them to indicate the importance of various reasons for engaging in philanthropy. Out of 23 possible choices, they ranked “seeing that my contribution makes a real difference and the organization has real impact” as one of the top three reasons for giving.

Will next gen donors, with decades of giving ahead of them, have the patience to stick around to see the real change their giving can have on long-term, complex issues? Time will tell. But some of the next gen donors we talked to were keenly aware of this challenge and tried to take the long view.

Read the full article by Sharna Goldseker and Michael Moody about millennial donors from Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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Looking for a way to get involved?

Family Philanthropy is a fascinating topic, and others found these events, galas, conferences and volunteering opportunities aggregated by Giving Compass to be relevant for individuals with a passion for Family Philanthropy.

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