Digging a little deeper into Gen Y.

As our mature donors — those born before 1945 — exit the giving scene, the imperative to attract new and younger donors has never been more important. Two critical questions arise as we work to engage the next generations of donors today:

- How will we optimize bringing on younger donors without compromising current revenue from our current donors?
- What generational age cohorts are the most strategic and economically viable to pursue?

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Despite a recent thawing in the nation's pessimism, donors continue to experience stress and worry because of the stubborn effects of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. More than half of older adults – likely the demographic that comprises the majority of your donor database – said their net worth dropped "significantly" in the current economic downturn, according to one recent survey.

Even more significant, 3 in 5 older adults made the surprising statement that "they fear depleting their assets more than they fear dying." The conclusion: death may be frightening, but to a majority of older Americans, the possibility of outliving their savings is an even more terrifying prospect.

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As the marketplace fills with more and more noise, more and more “empowered consumers” are tuning out.  Today, over two-thirds of consumers go out of their way to avoid marketing messages.  That’s why TiVo is so popular.  And that’s why more and more mail – snail mail and electronic mail – goes unopened.

In 2012, alongside the presidential race, 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, 11 gubernatorial, and a host of state and local seats will be contested in the national election on Tuesday, November 6.  This will likely mean that in the months, weeks and days before the general election, your constituents and donors will face more competition for their attention than at any other time in the last four years.

This year’s campaign – conducted against the grimmest economic backdrop for a presidential race in 75 years – is shaping up as unusually frenetic, costly, grueling and unpredictable.

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This is my first posting from Cape Town 2010. As the Creative Director for Cape Town 2010, the on-the-ground team here has been working 24/7 and I've been trying to keep up with everyone…our print team, Internet team, social media team, video team, translation team (8 languages), and analytics team, media tea, public relations team. At any given time of the day, we number well over 100. It's an impressive effort. I constantly worry about brand and message integration.

Deadlines and the tyranny of the urgent drive everything. We are in constant motion, with frequent accelerations and decelerations. The pace is dizzying. One of our lead video producers told me earlier this morning that the frustration level is "danger-level high." We need to pray.

In my more reflective moments, I ask myself, “Are we making a difference?” Who's paying attention? Who really cares about what 4,000 of the top Christian leaders in the world are having conversations about?

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