How to Connect with Young Donors Online

The youngest demographic of donors, Generation Z (1995-2015), are hungry to make this world a better place. They’re motivated to support nonprofit organizations and are strong advocates for social change.

They’re also the most tech-savvy generation, so their preferred methods of giving are online or through mobile apps. While most of us are now connecting and fundraising only online, this is a great opportunity to try new methods of outreach to connect with a wider range of donors.

Here are some ways you can cater to younger donors and raise more support for your work!

SOCIAL MEDIA

• Set up donation buttons in your social media channels. Both Facebook and Instagram offer charitable giving tools you can use to accept donations without any fees. (Make sure your Facebook Page is verified as a nonprofit organization.)
• Reach new donors on Snapchat and TikTok by creating content that shares the story of your mission and inspires others to support your work. Today, Snapchat has an active 360 million monthly active users, with 90% of those users being between the ages of 13-24. TikTok, a video clip-sharing platform, has seen its number of unique views triple in the past 3 months.

TWITCH LIVE-STREAMING

Twitch, the world’s leading live-streaming platform, is a great way to engage with young donors. Twitch gained its popularity through video game livestreams, but in the past several years, charitable streaming—or “digital telethons”—have picked up steam. Between 2012 and 2017, Twitch raised more than $75 million for various charities and nonprofit organizations.

To get started, you’ll want to connect with an affiliated Twitch streamer. There are so many streamers who partner with nonprofit organizations to raise money for their causes. The most popular fundraisers involve video game streams that often run a full 24 hours or occur over a number of days.

Before the livestream fundraiser, you’ll want to register your nonprofit with Tiltify—a full-service fundraising platform—so the streamer can easily embed donation tools for your organization into their stream.

This pandemic has its challenges, but it’s also an opportunity to innovate and try new ways of connecting and fundraising. Whether you’re trying to reach new donors or long-time donors, it’s important to keep that line of communication going.

For our recent findings on the successes of virtual fundraising events, read our blog post.