This book began with a somewhat audacious claim: Major Gen X and Millennial donors will be the most significant philanthropists ever.

Not only will these next gen donors have unprecedented resources to give, but they are giving and will continue to give in game-changing new ways. They are leading an Impact Revolution in philanthropy, which will be the hallmark of a new Golden Age of Giving—certainly in the United States, and perhaps across the globe.

This view of the next generation is surprising in part because it clashes with the images we often get of wealthy people in their twenties and thirties now: living in a materialistic bubble, sheltered first by helicopter parents and later by elite private institutions, obsessing over the next start-up to fund or gala to attend. Philanthropy for them, we're often told, is simply a luxury good they acquire to show off, a vanity project to build their brands.

While plenty of jet-setters fit this stereotype, especially given the current economic climate of explosive wealth creation and concentration, those are not the next gen donors we've met in our research and in this book. Instead, we've spent time with social entrepreneurs like Daniel Lurie, working closely with community partners to identify and invest in better ways to fight poverty; rising philanthropic leaders like Jenna Weinberg, learning with peers while earnestly stewarding and advancing a cherished legacy of giving; and passionate global donors like Sara Ojjeh, building close relationships with people in need and the nonprofits serving them.

Troubling social problems persist on the global, national, and local levels. And the biggest donors can have a disproportionate impact on those issues by investing in research and strategy, experimenting with promising innovations, and funding advocacy to change unjust or ineffective systems. Their role is magnified even more in these politically turbulent and uncertain times, when policymaking is in a stalemate and divisiveness inhibits much progress. We need engaged major donors perhaps now more than ever.

Not every reader will agree with our cautiously hopeful depiction of the next gen donors in Generation Impact. Their brash eagerness and willingness to experiment might elicit skepticism or outright resistance from stalwart philanthropic traditionalists. Their fervent desire for closer engagement with organizations—engagement that makes use of their time and talent as well as their considerable treasure and social ties—might seem a recipe for disaster. What nonprofit wants to coddle overly intrusive donors? As such, we've tried to not only disclose what we have learned about these earnest next gen donors but also give a sober assessment of their limitations and challenges. And we have offered guidance to nonprofit professionals, giving families, advisors, and next gen donors themselves about how to work together, avoiding potential pitfalls in the world of major giving.

Two things we hope we can all agree on are that the next generation of big donors will have a huge impact on our collective future and that we need to learn more about them, specifically what kind of philanthropists they are becoming. Conveying their plans in their own voices has been the chief goal of this book.

The Coming Revolution

Like previous generations of major donors, Gen Xers and Millennials feel a responsibility to give and want their giving to make a difference on a diverse array of causes. Unlike previous generations, they prioritize impact above all else, and they are willing to revolutionize philanthropy to get better results.

This drive for impact means next gen donors feel they have no choice but to make changes to philanthropic strategy and to take risks that could lead to new results. As one put it, “We need a different MO [modus operandi] here. This one isn't working.” Next gen donors from philanthropic families are ready to work alongside their parents and grandparents on a multigenerational team, but they, and first-generation donors, will go it alone if they have to. They will even be unreasonable—to use Scott Belsky's word—if having more impact requires that.

Their vision, though, is to be both revolutionary and respectful. They want revolution not for revolution's sake but for impact's sake. Next gen donors acknowledge what they have learned from previous generations and want to be good stewards of legacy. They see their philanthropic innovations as honoring what donors in the past have accomplished by taking giving to the next level. They credit parents and grandparents with teaching them positive values around giving and want to instill and inhabit those values seamlessly across all parts of their lives. In fact, this search to find the right balance of the past and future, of respect and revolution, is the central identity challenge facing Generation Impact.

We know next gen donors themselves are eager to launch the revolution now. To us, this means there are big transformations on the immediate horizon, and the pace of change will steadily increase in the next few years, with some areas shifting faster than others.

In the short term, we expect to see many donors launch trial experiments to test out new innovations—like more next gen giving circles and funding collaboratives, new social responsibility screens introduced for foundation endowments, and use of sector-blending giving vehicles by individual donors to maximize their options. Other changes will take much longer, like nonprofits retooling their donor engagement strategies to bring donors more meaningfully into their everyday work and families sharing full decision-making power across generations. But even these complex and long-term changes are starting to happen, as the next gen donor stories in this book have illustrated. Hannah Quimby is starting to fundamentally change funder-grantee relationships in her home state of Maine. Katherine Lorenz has guided her family foundation to become a working multigenerational team.

The pacing of the revolution is one area where we noted a difference between first-generation earners and next generation inheritors. While both groups want to revolutionize philanthropy in similar strategic ways—to be more innovative and hands-on, to give and learn more with peers—they differ in their capacity to implement those changes right away. Earners can implement their ideal philanthropic strategy more rapidly, while inheritors usually face the added complication of working through established family structures. Earners can blaze their own trails, while inheritors often have to protect the trails as well as forge ahead.

All next gen donors, however, face the challenge of actually implementing their revolutionary visions, which will not be easy in a field full of large institutions, diverse stakeholders, and entrenched practices. There is no small amount of trepidation among nonprofits, especially about rapid changes that might negatively affect the people they serve or the crucial social outcomes their mission aspires to achieve. This means the Impact Revolution could take longer than next gen donors would like, which could in turn leave them frustrated. But if their focus is impact and they're committed to being engaged, we expect they will stick around to see their changes take full effect.

Will the Golden Age Really Be Golden?

As we discovered in Chapter 1, the next generation of major donors will have more money to give than any previous generation, which is the first requirement for a new Golden Age. The historic wealth concentration we are experiencing in the United States, plus the $59 trillion wealth transfer—most of it occurring among a relatively small group of high-net-worth families—ensures this. And remember, American families with $1 million or more in net worth account for 50 percent of the total amount of charitable contributions, even though they are only 7 percent of the total population—and this concentration of wealth and big giving is likely to increase.¹ But this economic reality, even compounded by the fact that next gen donors want to give throughout their lives rather than only after they retire, doesn't alone guarantee a Golden Age of Giving. These vast resources also need to be given with care.

Next gen donors will likely ruffle a few feathers as they become the donors they aspire to be. Their push to change giving is motivated by good intentions and values, but as we've said (and history has shown), revolutions are messy. To ensure the impact is both genuine and positive, we must try to facilitate healthy and respectful relationships between next gen donors and nonprofits, and between next gen donors and their own families as well as advisors. And we must help ensure that resources end up where they are most needed. But adapting will be well worth the hassle if next gen donors can help move the needle on persistent, complex problems. That possibility alone is enough for us to believe Generation Impact warrants the chance to try to revolutionize giving.

We are resolutely optimistic, but nonetheless we've tried to identify potential shifts as next gen donors enter the playing field. For one, large organizations, intermediaries, and other organizations that have a harder time showing the direct impact of gifts will struggle to attract next gen donors. The same holds for organizations in which opportunities for skills-based engagement by donors are harder to find. Adjusting will require time, effort, and a willingness to reallocate staff and other resources. The upside is that if organizations can adapt, engaging next gen donors in the hands-on, meaningful ways they crave, those donors will be both bigger and better donors over a longer period of time.

The Impact Revolution will also blur the boundaries between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, as next gen donors avidly embrace market solutions to social problems. Of course, there are times when market solutions can solve a problem in a more sustainable way—like building a factory to employ locals to make and sell mosquito nets instead of distributing the nets as an act of charity. Next gen social investors are right to be excited about these cases. And we applaud how devoted they are to aligning their capital investments with their social goals, using their economic power to pressure businesses to become more socially responsible, and funneling the increasingly concentrated wealth in our society toward ethical companies and the highest-performing nonprofits. Yet there are times when business solutions can lead to mission creep for nonprofits, and business metrics are not always appropriate to measure the achievement of social goals. We expect that such tensions will continue to arise in new and difficult ways as next gen donors blur the boundaries more and more.

Also, we should never forget that next gen donors, no matter how earnest, will have tremendous power in this Golden Age. Like all donors, they will operate outside of the formal strictures of democratic accountability—free to give, or not to give, to what they want, when they want.² We can't vote away their power if they fail. This is why we are strongly encouraged by how frequently and fervently current next gen donors told us they want to be helpful, even humble partners with the groups they support. Whether they maintain this approach will determine whether they are leading a revolution with healthy power dynamics or not. The fact that next gen donors believe so deeply in transparency is encouraging, if they are willing to apply that belief to their own giving and avoid the secrecy of many big donors of the past. Their intense interest in peer engagement can also help—as peers check each other on strategy, they can also balance each other on the misuse of power.

We should note that few next gen donors talked much about how they want to work with government (or not) to help solve social problems—though some did see philanthropy as an experimental realm, where they have the freedom to design innovations that government can then “take to scale.” However, as next gen donors ramp up their giving, it will be essential for them to have a clear grasp of how their investments integrate with government efforts on the same causes. This is especially the case in a time of major uncertainty and disagreement about the proper role of government. We suspect if our interviews occurred after the 2016 election there would have been much more discussion of this issue.

Finally, we need to remember that the active donors that we have described in this book are not the only members of the Gen X and Millennial Generations who will eventually become major donors. The concentration and transfer of wealth suggests there will be plenty more on the rise, and they will have plenty of money to give. How can we be sure these not-yet-active next gen donors will be equally forward-thinking, conscientious, and focused on impact?³

Here, too, we have some reason for cautious optimism. The current next gen donors we talked with for this book are the pioneers of their generation and are already outspoken proponents of a next gen approach to giving. We believe, based in part on what we've already seen, that their peers will follow their lead and look to learn from their experiences, especially in a generation that is so highly networked. We also know that research has identified distinct “generational personalities,” which will likely influence new next gen donors. Still, some of the newer next gen donors will likely come from more diverse social and ethnic groups than current donors, bringing fresh ideas and practices to next gen giving. And as giving continues to expand outside the United States, what next gen donors “look like” will become more complex. Future research should certainly focus on these newer next gen donors.

This is a crucial moment in history. Next gen donors are actively taking over big giving in ways that we think will transform philanthropy. Many readers of this book will be supporting these donors along their journeys, as parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, friends, advisors, grantees, partners, and peers. We hope all we've learned about next gen donors in this book can inform that work, helping both the donors and those engaged with them to take best advantage of their historic opportunity.

The following summarizes the advice offered throughout the book—first, the lessons for nonprofit professionals, families and family staff, and advisors; second, the lessons for next gen donors themselves.

Seek Transformation Not Transaction

Next gen donors are seeking transformation—in themselves, in their interactions with organizations and peers, and in the issues and causes they care about. Nonprofit professionals, family members, advisors, and other staff can help the next gen achieve these transformations and can also benefit in the process. This is because transformation involves trust, genuine partnerships, and long-term, meaningful results—things that will be good for all of us.

Use Your Power for Good

Next gen donors, you have incredible power—not just as people with money to give but as the hope for the future of the groups you support, perhaps even for the world. It might not always feel this way, especially to those of you who are just coming into your own as donors, but know that you have power—in your financial resources, in your family legacies, in your networks, even in your youth. But with this power comes responsibility. As you work to find the best way to use your power for good, you might ask yourself, as Bill and Melinda Gates suggested in their annual letter to the field in 2016: “What is your superpower?”⁴ Here are the themes that came up in our research to consider as you take the lead in effecting change for the better.

The Next Gen Are the Now Gen

After years of research and other work with next gen donors, our best advice is this: Don't wait! Gen X and Millennial major donors are eager to jumpstart their Impact Revolution—to get their hands dirty and take their seats at the philanthropic table. They might not be the biggest donors to our favorite causes this year, or even for 5 or 10 years to come, but eventually they will be, and then they will give more than any previous generation as they dominate major giving for decades to come. Those organizations, professionals, families, and advisors that can figure out how best to engage next gen donors now will gain loyal and active supporters for a very long time.

More broadly, we all need to realize that a revolution is coming, and we need to make the most of it. Learning more about the eager and well-meaning leaders of Generation Impact is a crucial first step in our journey. We hope this book helps us all to make a lasting impact on the world.