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How are young people in Canada giving back to charity? In our April 2024 CharityVillage Connects podcast episode, we took a look at some of the most recent research seeking to understand the generosity of Canadians. 

As part of our discussions, we interviewed Wen-Chih O’Connell, Executive Director and President of PayPal Giving Fund Canada. In our interview, Wen-Chih discussed the findings of a recent report, published by PayPal Giving Fund and AGENTSC, which aimed to better understand how Canadian Gen Z and Millennials approach charitable giving. 

We started off by asking Wen-Chih about whether younger Canadians have a changing idea of what generosity looks like, particularly in terms of giving back to their communities. 

Wen-Chih O’Connell: So one of the questions we had when we started this project was whether younger Canadians had a different definition of generosity than the traditional one, given the more recent rise and normalization of crowdfunding, social sharing, and advocacy through consumerism. But what the data told us is that younger people’s definition of generosity is actually still quite traditional, in that it’s the giving of money, time, and things towards supporting a cause.  

But what we found was that Gen Z respondents are significantly more likely to have engaged in civic action, volunteering, and giving gifts in kind in 2022 as compared to Millennials. Both Gen Z and Millennials are supporting varied causes, and the top three causes they’re supporting includes children and youth and animal welfare for both groups. But education was number two for Gen Z, and health and medicine was number three for Millennials. So they are supporting a variety of causes. But we did find that Gen Z respondents are significantly more likely to support inclusion-related causes, for example, disability services, human rights, crime and prevention, and criminal justice than Millennials. 

We were curious about the barriers that might prevent younger Canadians from giving, and how organizations might work around this when engaging with younger donors.  

Wen-Chih O’Connell: The most common self-reported annual donation amount among our survey respondents was between $50 and $200. And the most common barrier for not being able to give more was not being able to afford to give more. And so that was cited by 50% of respondents across the board. While there is a lot of data out there highlighting the decrease in donations generally, what we saw in our survey data was that the desire to give and support charitable causes and organizations is there. And it may just be these especially challenging economic times that’s impacting their ability to give financially.  

However, especially among Gen Z, they are really keen and active in volunteering and providing support in other ways. One of the tips for charities highlighted in the report is to continue reaching out with other opportunities for engagement, such as volunteering, and maintaining a connection, such as through social platforms where younger generations are active. And that will help increase lifetime donor value as they’re likely to resume or increase donations once they’re able to. 

When they make a gift, how are younger Canadians doing it? Wen-Chih explained what the latest research has revealed. 

Wen-Chih O’Connell: They are all giving online, and not surprisingly, much prefer using their mobile phones. So organizations really need to make sure that the platforms and the sites that they’re using to fundraise are mobile friendly. Our survey also asked an open-ended question about what platforms were preferred when actioning their generosity. And I found it interesting, but not really surprising, that social media platforms were mentioned the most.  

The number one platform for Millennials is Facebook, followed by Instagram for late Millennials and nothing or none for early Millennials. And number three is the same across Gen Z and both Millennial groups, which is GoFundMe. But for Gen Z, the number one platform is Instagram for them, with Facebook and TikTok tied for second place.  

So all of these social media platforms are really the ones that all of these people in these younger age groups are active on and are looking to actually be generous on as well. And so, you know, since Gen Z and Millennials prefer to engage in acts of generosity through social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, charities can leverage these channels and the integrated fundraising that PayPal Giving Fund is powering on these platforms through our partnership with Meta to reach a range of younger donors using both mobiles and laptops to make online donations. And I’ll note that giving on Instagram is only available on the mobile app, but that actually kind of aligns with younger donors’ preferences anyway. 

The report included a spotlight feature on ethnocultural expression and philanthropy. We asked Wen-Chih to explain why this was important and what the findings suggested. 

Wen-Chih O’Connell: Part of why we partnered with AGENTC on this report was for their expertise in diversity and inclusion research in the field of philanthropy. And both AGENTC and PayPal Giving Fund wanted to bring that lens to the data analysis for this report to see if there were any significant findings across the diversity of ethnocultural identities. And we included a number of initial learnings in the spotlight section of our report, with a note that our survey sample was not statistically representative of the ethnocultural communities discussed. So while these findings can help start a conversation of the emerging themes around diversifying Canadian philanthropy, further research is still needed for a more robust understanding.  

But a couple of examples of the initial learnings from this data…the first is around the fact that ethno-culturally diverse respondents are significantly more likely to be open to serving on a nonprofit board in the future than White respondents. So it was 48% versus 26%. This data point should be encouraging to charities looking to diversify their leadership through board service to know that people of colour are keen to engage in this way. Another finding that stood out to us was a large majority of Black respondents prefer giving on mobile. So 69% of Black respondents prefer giving on mobile versus 52% White, 51% Asian. So there is an opportunity for organizations to use mobile phone messaging and mobile-friendly platforms to encourage engagement with young Black donors and volunteers. 

Want to hear more from Wen-Chih? Listen to her full interview in the video below. And read the full report, The Future of Giving: Looking Beyond the Selfie, here. 

Listen to Wen-Chih and other experts discuss whether the generosity of Canadians is declining – and what this might mean for Canadian fundraisers – in our new podcast episode. Click here to listen.