I know it has a lot to do with the company I keep, but there has been a whole lot of chatter for the past few years about “the next generation of donors”. The commercial sector has been having a similar discussion – except they don’t want donations. They just want to sell more stuff.

I think that this chatter has led to some suspicious reports about the death of direct mail and the reason why everyone in the fundraising sector has been jumping on the new media/internet bandwagon. There seems to be some search for the holy grail of donors – and from my chair – it seems that fundraisers think it is Generation Y. But what of the other generations? For each generation there is a ‘holy grail’ approach(es) to seeking and receiving donations. Have you already figured those out?

And speaking of Generation Y, I’ve been reading a fantastic blog as of late by Miriam Kagan called Generation Y Give. Miriam is a thoughtful and inspiring, Generation Y donor. And – yes, she does work in the sector at Merkle. I think you might be surprised by some of her observations. And I hope to have her featured in this space soon.

I’ve said it before. If you work in fundraising – you needent drop $4000 to fly around the world to a massive fundraising conference (although if you have the funds – it’s not a bad idea!), most of the NEW creative and strategic thinking is already here. It can all be found all across the blogsphere. From professionals to donors.

If you’re not in touch with some of the biggies, then, you’re not in touch at all.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 8:44 am and is filed under Blogs, Inspiration, Two Cents, direct mail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.