When you consider young people are getting hung out to dry for eating smashed avocados, perhaps it’s time to reflect on the scale of their giving.

Yesterday Generosity Magazine published an article on Lifelong giving: Snapshot of next generation philanthropy, which drew more from the Giving Australia 2016 research and provided a snapshot of the giving behaviours of younger Australians.

The future looks bright for us when we consider the insights the feature shared.

That’s a lot of smashed avocados

“Their average total amount donated annually was $486.72, compared to $764.08 for all donors” – however, when you consider that this is the demographic who earns the least, possibly paying the Government back for their HECS debt and then getting hung out to dry by the media for eating smashed avocadoes when they should be affording a house – they’re doing ok on the donation scales.

Six per cent of 18–34 year old respondents also gave an average of 101 hours during the year, compared to 134 hours for all volunteers. That’s a significant amount of purpose driven and motivated human capital.

How they give

It’s digital. And no surprises there.

The feature in Generosity Magazine highlighted that when donating using direct debit, credit card, PayPal or BPay younger givers were more likely to donate via the charity website (67.8%) than all givers (57.8%). Better yet, more than 20% consulted the organisation’s website prior to making their donation.

The digital native generation is discerning. They want to do their research, connect personally to their cause and understand who the beneficiary of their donations will be. They also want choice or referral – with the 18–34 age group specifying a preference for online requests to donate: through a friend on social media.

Unfortunately, only 29.1% of 18–24 year olds and 48.8% of 25–34 year olds lodging tax returns claimed deductions for their donations, compared with at least 55% for older respondents.

Connecting to Cause. Provide Choices.

At Good2Give we’re excited to see younger Australians engaging in giving. Frankly, it gets us in the feels to see young Australians demonstrating that there is a new wave on the rise of generosity, philanthropy and a desire to get behind the causes that count.

Young talent in organisations might not be aware of their options to give while they’re at work, which is a point highlighted wonderfully by Jane Andrews from Stockland yesterday at our Sydney Roundtable event on Inspiring giving. Jane stated that she engenders a culture of giving at her organisation by being a part of the on-boarding process – demonstrating how easy it is to connect to 1,800 charities from point go.

And you can! We filter our charities by 16 cause types:

• Aged Care
• Animals
• Arts and Culture
• Children and Young People
• Corporate Foundations
• Education
• Emergency Services
• Environment
• Health and Wellbeing
• Indigenous
• Medical research
• Mental Health
• Overseas Aid and Development
• People with Disabilities
• Sports
• Welfare

And – you can give as little or as much as you like, and your tax benefits are immediate with no need to report to the ATO. It’s private, it’s online, it comes straight out of your pay or you can access your own private dashboard, select a charity and make a one off donation.

It’s as easy as smashing an avocado. In fact, it probably costs a bit less.