Many nonprofits today are facing the same struggle: How should they appeal to the younger generation? Millennials are a discerning bunch, and many want to feel a strong connection with a cause before they even consider giving to it. With that in mind, consider these few tips to make millennials care more about your cause.

1) Improve Efficiency
Young donors today want to know exactly how much their money is helping. A recent Stanford study focusing on nonprofits adopting businesslike practices showed that younger donors prefer organizations that appeared to be run more like businesses. Nonprofits managed in this way seem more professional, more official, and more trustworthy. A young professional will be much more likely to give to your nonprofit if it seems to be professionally run.

2) Improve Transparency
Another major finding of the same Stanford study is that nonprofits that adopt businesslike practices also increase transparency. Millennials want to be able to trust the organizations they donate to, and transparency is a huge boon in building that trust. If a potential donor is able to quickly and easily understand what a nonprofit has done with its funding in the past, then they will be quicker to trust the organization and, in turn, more likely to react to a call for funds.

3) Allow for a more personal connection between the donor and the cause
Along with a feeling of trust in an organization, millennials desire some sort of emotional connection to the cause they are giving to. Whereas millennials currently make up for 11% of giving to traditional charitable organizations, they constitute around 33% of giving on cause-based crowdfunding sites. The reason behind this threefold difference is simple: Millennials want to know more about who they are giving to. They want to know the stories behind the people they are helping. They want to see the positive impact they are having on the world in a concrete way, and crowdfunding websites allow for that to happen, oftentimes with donations going to a specific individual in need.

To achieve this same feeling of connection, traditional charitable organizations need to allow access to specific examples of their work. That could be through video interviews with people who have been helped, website pages and social media posts detailing successful endeavors, or through other similar methods. While this will not perfectly simulate the feeling of giving directly to an individual, it will allow for a much closer connection between the donor and the result.

4) Become more digitally aware
As we talked about in an earlier blog post, Millennials are a tech savvy bunch. An organization that has a strong presence in the digital world will seem much more modern and functional than an organization with an outdated website or lacking social media. Active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts are a must for any nonprofit trying to appeal to a younger audience. Furthermore, an easily accessible website that clearly details the work done by your nonprofit will allow readers to easily understand your cause and make them many times more likely to trust and care about your organization.