Generation Impact, Updated and Expanded Edition

CHAPTER 7Inspirational Peer Pressure

Time, talent, and treasure. Encouraging people to give that full triad of gifts has long been a common maxim. We know Gen X and Millennial donors consider it essential to give all three in their own ways. But next gen donors believe they have a fourth valuable asset to offer: their peer networks, their connections to fellow philanthropists who have their own assets to give. So moving forward, we need to add one more T to the mantra: time, talent, treasure, and ties.

The next generation, especially Millennials, are seen as more highly networked than any generation in history and fundamentally peer-driven. This is the Facebook Generation, the generation that thinks of “friends” as the extended network they connect with daily around the country or even the world, not just the people they hang out with in person.¹ Their ability to communicate, advocate, and congregate through an online click, a text, or a tweet has had impressive consequences. It has helped candidates get elected and activists mobilize thousands for movements like Occupy Wall Street. These young Gen Xers and Millennials stand on the leading edges of our networked society.

As one next gen donor reflects, “Being a networker, and being networked, is now seen as something really respected, whereas in the previous generation, it was something that was respected, but people were a little dubious of it. If you were pushing too much and networking too much, you were looked at with disdain, ...