It’s generally accepted that the nonprofit world is closely modelled
on that of business. A positive balance on the owner’s year-end bank
statements, or a positive impact on whatever cause the nonprofit was
formed to support? There’s a strong parallel. And nonprofits can benefit from the never-ending corporate research into what drives the "citizen-consumer" — especially teens and young adults, the first generation born into this high-speed, high-tech world.
Miriam Kagan (GenerationYGive) has been wondering, along those lines, could catalogs be Gen Y’s version of direct mail?
Her question springs from between the lines of last year’s “State of the
Media Democracy” report from Deloitte Touche — you can read the highlights here (PDF) — that revealed a startling fact about the under-25 crowd:
Generation Y, the “Millenials,” are still going to traditional media
as well as the ‘Net for their information: 71% enjoy reading print
magazines, even when virtually the same content is readily available
online, and 58% say they look to magazines to tell them what’s hip.
If all these young people admit to reading magazines, then perhaps
all is not lost for paper fundraising? At a minimum, those magazines
could be a great place to get young donor’s attention. Now that I think
about it, I do recall seeing ads for some *** cancer fundraisers in
some of those style and fashion magazines I happen to read. But where’s
everybody else?
Looking at the bottom line, most likely. Magazine advertising calls
for a sturdy marketing budget, something that most small to medium-sized nonprofits simply can’t
manage. But there may still be room here for nonprofits to benefit from Generation Y's keen interest in print publications. Done wrong, it could be an expensive flop. But what if...?
Despite all the cool things we do, I think few nonprofits have found
ways to really get in with the Gen Y crowd (a great exception were
those Lance Armstrong bracelets—no matter how you or me might feel
about them, young people loved em, and they were certainly hip). But
then it seemed like everybody and their mother had a different colored
bracelet out there, and it wasn’t cool anymore.
So here is a
thought—maybe instead of DM we get at them through catalogs. Ones that
tell our story more than “sell” our products—a mix of a magazine and
catalog…
Kagan goes on to explain how she sees such a nonprofit
magazine/catalog might work to “tell stories” — both on paper and in
concert with the organization’s online outreach.
At first blush, the idea has echoes of the empire built by the
National Geographic Society, and of some of the better museum catalogs
that create excitement around the institution and its collections as
much as they raise funds. But, surely, with all the cool-thinkers
active in the sector, nonprofit print marketing could be brilliantly
reinvented to grab the eye and engage the imagination of this new generation of young adults.
Fodder for a brainstorming session? It might very well be worth exploring. After all, which piece do you think would hit the 20-something’s
recycling bin faster — an enticing magazine-style catalog, or yet
another direct mail letter?