How to treat boomer volunteers and donors

If volunteers are an important part of your work, you'll want to read this GuideStar article on baby boomer volunteers: Is Your Organization Ready for "The Boom"?

... baby boomers boast a large number of well-educated, highly skilled executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders, many of whom will feel that their talents are not being put to use in low-level volunteer positions. Research indicates that these boomers should be placed at programming levels to utilize their abilities fully and to keep them engaged.

It would help to think of boomer donors this same way: They're less likely to be content with the old low-involvement, low-impact way of making a difference. They demand more power and influence.

You can ignore them and fail to meet their needs. Or you can reap the benefits of their commitment, energy, and affluence. Whether they're volunteers or donors, they have a lot to offer, and they'll demand a lot from you, including:

• Information
  
• Choice
  
• Voice
  
• Respect
  

Technorati Tags: fundraising, volunteers, boomers

Comments

[Maya Norton]

Hey Jeff,

Is it possible to subscribe to your blog in a feed reader (not e-mail)? I am not seeing a link.

Thanks.

[Jeff Brooks]

I'll add a link that makes it easy to subscribe to a variety of readers.

In the mean time, if you click on "subscribe to this feed" (it's at the end of each post) that's the feed URL that you can use at any reader.