Generation Impact, Updated and Expanded Edition

CHAPTER 12Conclusion: Making the Most of the Golden Age of Giving

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 ...