Millennials: The Giving Generation?

• Only 7%25 of people believe Millennials are more generous than previous generations.
• But 56%25 of Millennials have given a charitable gift%2C a new survey shows.

Millennials have been characterized as lazy, selfish and coddled. Time magazine dubbed them the "me me me generation." Kim Kardashian faced an angry backlash after holding a "charity" auction on EBay—and donating only 10% of her profits.

Perhaps people could be forgiven for characterizing them as downright uncharitable.

But a survey released last month from World Vision, a relief and development charitable organization, revealed that 56% of men ages 18-34 have given a charitable gift, compared with 36% of older men and 37% of their female Millennial counterparts.

"Instead of this generation being called the selfish generation or the 'me' generation, it's more likely that they should be called the misunderstood generation," said Carrie Swanson, a gift catalog specialist for World Vision.

As the Christmas season approaches, Swanson expects to see a larger influx of charitable gifts.

"Only 7% [of people surveyed] believe that young people are more generous than previous generations," she says. "That just shows us that the reality is very different from the perception that we have right now."

Kevin Carty, a junior at Brown University, became interested in donating to charity after taking a social justice class his senior year at Gonzaga High School in Washington, D.C.

"My teacher said you shouldn't wait to start donating money to charity until it feels like it's comfortable, because it'll never feel comfortable," Carty says. "You just have to do it. You just have to start."

Carty started to receive a regular paycheck from an internship last summer, and he began to donate a set percentage of it monthly.

"I am lucky enough to be able to do so," he says. "Among people lucky enough who are able to do so—even as college students — I wish there were more people who [gave regularly]."

But Millennials are giving, according to Dennis McCarthy, the vice president of strategy and business practice at Blackbaud — a non-profit technology provider. Last August, Blackbaud released a study of charity across generations, The Next Generation of American Giving.

The study found that 60% of Millennials donated an average of $481 per year across 3.3 charities.

"You have to look at where you they are in their life," McCarthy says. "Millennials are dealing with their first or second jobs, so they certainly are not going to give as much as a mature (seniors over 68 years old)."

The study found 62% of Millennials gave through mobile platforms — and tended to learn about charities via their peers.

"How (Millennials) give is sufficiently different, they tend to give to their friends or to an event," McCarthy says. "A bunch of my friends who are Millennials run marathons or participate in bike races. They raise a ton of money, and they ask me for it as a gift."

Millennials often require a greater degree of transparency when giving charity — 57% reported a desire to directly see the impact of their donation, according to the Blackbaud study. He attributes this to the success of new crowd funding platforms, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

"The guy who did Humans of New York, Brandon Stanton, did a great Indiegogo around a young boy who wanted to go to cowboy camp," McCarthy says. "He raised the money in less than 24 hours. It was quick, it was organic and it was done. I knew what the impact of my money was three hours later, and I got videos and pictures later of the boy and his mother enjoying camp."

Carty, as a college student, knows the amount of money he can give is limited, so he says it's important he gets "the biggest bang for his buck."

"I donated to Planned Parenthood, and I donated to GiveDirectly," Carty says. GiveDirectly, a non-profit charity, gives unconditional cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty in Kenya and Uganda.

"If there needs to be redistribution, it's from the first world to the third," he said. "It comes down to a point of efficacy… what can you do with a hundred dollars in the developing word? How many HIV antivirals can you buy? How many malarial vaccines?"

The Millennial Impact Report — released last July by Achieve, a creative and fundraising agency — found that 83% of Millennials had made a financial gift to an organization in 2012, and 52% of Millennials were interested in "monthly giving."

Yet non-profit organizations have trouble getting Millennials to stay committed to causes after donating once.

"Millennials are attracted to the causes, but organizations struggle with connecting with them on recommitting to the cause," says Derrick Feldman, the CEO of Achieve. "What organizations should be doing with social media is talking about the cause issue, because that's what the Millennials are excited about. They should be using social media to show how their dollars are being used through imagery."

The key to getting Millennials' charitable participation, Feldman says, is to get Millennials involved in incremental steps. Even tweeting, sharing or liking a cause on Facebook counts as participation.

"That's a form of engagement… some people look upon that negatively," Feldman says. "But who wouldn't want somebody out there telling other people about a great cause?"

The bottom line, Feldman says, is that "Millennials give. Organizations need to learn to work with this generation to figure out how Millennials can get involved on small levels."

Cara Newlon is a senior at Brown University.