Charitable giving and young
modern-day activists

I’ve worked for multi-award-winning brand design agencies and also headed up the Design team at Comic Relief, delivering two of the UK's largest fundraising campaigns in Red Nose Day and Sport Relief. I'm keen to share my knowledge of the charitable sector.

I’ve worked with clients in the Educational sector, and as a result become accustomed to engaging younger audiences; something charities find notoriously hard to do. Often the primary target audience is the older generation who are deemed to have more disposable income and more willing to donate to charity. However, according to the Future of Giving survey from Barclays, on average people aged 34–55 gave more to charity last year with the next highest being under-35's. A surprising statistic to many and one we should all take note of.

Perhaps though, we shouldn't be surprised! Since the introduction of social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Tik Tok, younger people — a group I just about include myself in — have been making their voices heard; protesting against injustice, taking on governments and campaigning for a better future. Our modern-day activists. No shocks then that the under-35's are still the most active in volunteering and participating in a fundraising event. And now it seems they are putting their money where their mouths are; backing their words and actions with donations. Over half the younger audience are even saying they are more likely to donate than they were three years ago.

So how do we engage with this audience? Well... while traditional channels remain popular, many are seeing online fundraising as the future. This is not unexpected, given how many people now get the latest news from Twitter rather than a newspaper and entertainment from Netflix, the online streaming channel, rather than traditional TV. 73% of charities are saying that street giving is falling simply because people do not carry enough cash, so investing in digital solutions seems the inevitable way forward. Expenditure on technology is still often perceived as a big risk but with 90% of charities now saying that their backing of technology has paid off in under a year, I think investment is a must to keep up with a changing world.