Millennial donors are becoming an increasingly important source of support for charities, outspending older Gen X donors by 18 percent, according to a new report by Giving USA and the fundraising firm Dunham+Company.
Millennial households were already giving slightly more than Gen X donors in 2021, but the gap has grown, the study found. In 2024, millennial donors gave an annual average of $1,616 to charity, compared with just $1,371 for Gen X donors.
The survey, conducted with the research firm Campbell Rinker, is based on responses from 1,500 donors who gave at least $20 to charity last year. It’s the third time the group has conducted a study looking at giving by generations. The first report was released in 2016, and the second in 2022.
Baby boom households, the oldest generation included in the survey, continued to give far more than others, contributing an annual average of $3,256 — twice the rate of the second-place millennials. Gen Z, only now entering the work force, donated an annual average of $867.
The rising philanthropic might of millennials might be related to their increasing interest in religion. In a surprising finding, 50 percent of Gen Z donors and 43 percent of millennials said they attend religious services in person every week or almost every week. Only about 30 percent of Gen X and boomer donors said they attend worship services in person that often.
The younger religious donors also want to give more. Gen Z donors were three times as likely as boomers to say they plan to increase their support for churches and other places of worship. Among Gen Zers, 29 percent said they would give more to places of worship in the coming year, compared with just 9 percent of boomers.
“The level of spirituality among younger people is higher than among the older generations right now,” says Rick Dunham, chair of Dunham+Company. “We really saw a pretty dramatic shift in attendance by boomers post-Covid. What’s really interesting is that their level of participation went down, and then it stayed down.”
Donors in every generation were most likely to give to places of worship, but the second-biggest category of support varied. For boomers, the No. 2 spot went to education, while Gen Xers and millennials chose faith-based organizations, and Gen Z tapped health and medical organizations.
Despite being somewhat tight with their money, Gen X donors were the most likely to volunteer, the survey found. The Gen X respondents volunteered an average of 39 hours a year, compared with an average of 30 hours a year for both boomers and millennials. Gen Z donors volunteered 26 hours a year.
“I think that’s probably just related to aging and Gen Xers having a little bit more time on their hands,” Dunham says.
The study also looked at what prompted donors to give. The younger generations were far more likely than either the boomer or Gen X donors to make a gift in response to content they found on the charity’s website or because they were asked to do so by someone on social media.
The boomers, not surprisingly, were most responsive to that venerable form of solicitation, direct mail. Twenty-eight percent of boomer donors said they had made an online gift in response to direct mail — a rate 50 percent higher than any of the other generations.
Donors are also becoming increasingly comfortable making gifts through their smartphones, the study found. Fifty-four percent of millennials, 43 percent of Gen Xers, and 27 percent of boomers said they had used a smartphone to make a gift — all up sharply from 2022. That should send a message to fundraisers, Dunham says.
“In this day and age,” he says, “you’ve got to make sure that your giving form is uber-easy to use on mobile.”
