A fascinating study looking at the differences in giving for affluent Americans over 40, versus Millennial and Gen Z donors has found some really interesting changes. The study, the 2021 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy: charitable Giving by Affluent Households, looked at more than 1600 American homes.
The major shift they noticed is one away from giving to organizations and towards issues. Younger people are looking at issues of climate change, race relations and other issues and are putting their money into fixing these crises, rather than to giving to organizations, as older people to to do. Researchers also discovered that givers are using Venmo and GoFundMe for their charitable gifts and engaging in much more direct giving. They also found that women, in particular, give to crowdfunding campaigns more than men.
They also found that approximately 90% of affluent Americans gave to charity in 2020. Volunteering was definitely down in 2020 because of the pandemic; however, interestingly, Americans who did give their time gave twice as much money to charitable causes than did those who did not volunteer.
The study is certainly worth seeing and understanding in more depth.