Episode 36: Social Media and its Effects on Philanthropy

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall,” Your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

Thank you for joining me here on, “Around with Randall”. Today's subject is something that I'm not an expert at and need to learn a lot more about and that's the idea of digital social media, the impacts of it, how we're going to use it in philanthropy. This all kind of came to me recently when reading a book by Brian Polian. Brian Polian is an assistant football coach at Notre Dame, special teams. During the pandemic, he wrote a book. The book is entitled Coaching and Teaching Generation Z, and there were some elements in it that I found to be fascinating in terms of communication, in terms of the responsibility of that individual or those individuals looking to do outreach versus how it's received.

That led me into some little bit of research on what is the communication patterns or thoughts and social media for different generations. Today we want to talk a little bit about the book, a little bit about some statistics and as always finished with some tactical of some things that you might be thinking about in this area.

I started here at the top of the podcast, mentioning my lack of expertise in this area and that's an understatement. I'm someone who doesn't have a Twitter account. I don't have an Instagram account. I don't have Snapchat. I don't even have a Facebook account. I'm more old school. I'm being, as I have said before being drug into the 21st century, but it's probably a good thing for me and it should be a good thing for you too. What Brian Polian's book talked about was his revelation in recruiting to start, and then into the aspects of coaching, these student-athletes and the premise of the book started with a recruiting visit to Boston where he and the Head Coach, Brian Kelly at the University of Notre Dame were talking to the headmaster of the school and ask the question, I believe it was the Head Coach, Brian Kelly, who asked, is there anything that we can learn or should know because you're an expert in working with young people and his comment was very inspiring. To quote, “I've learned that after these years, you have to honor the relationship before you can ever honor a task.” That sentiment alone grabbed me because that's the heartbeat of great philanthropy opportunities. It's the relationship; it's what's in the best interest of the donor that also helps the organization you believe in. Brian Kelly figured out in talking with many different people, that Generation Z are relationship learners, and that they value the integrity of that relationship as it fosters in time and that you need to honor the human being and what they offer to the world. They have a contribution, even in the case of Brian Polian and Brian Kelly and Notre Dame and recruiting even a 16, 17, 18 year old person there's value in what they have to offer. More importantly, they believe in that value, that whole-person approach is all based on the concept of the importance of trust.

The other thing that he realized, and I think there is a lot of conversation about this from a psychological perspective is that you can build a meaningful relationship with those who are using social media in an effective way for themselves personally, without a lot of face contact, which is so contrary to the way I was raised to the way I came into this profession. Many younger people are developing deep, heartfelt, legitimate relationships with third-party applications, texting, Instagram, Facebook. They impart that trust into what they see and what they read. That can be very strong and powerful as a positive, but it can also be a negative if those things aren't legitimate and real. The change in behavior that was fostered in this, was that just being able to hang out and watch and listen and in Brian Pauline's case, get a chair and bring it into the locker room and just sit for 25 minutes and watch the interaction. It has not been an evolutionary change to his perspective, but a revolutionary change.

Based on that book, I then did a little bit of digging on generations and social media. So just for context, the baby boomers are anywhere from just after WWII 1946 to maybe in 1964-65, Generation X 1965 to 1979. Millennials are 1980 generally to about 1995 to 1997. Then Gen Z’s are born anytime, after about 1996- 97. So just some basic big picture statistics, and then we'll get into the tactical because there's some application here that could be really important to all of us. Number one is that, believe it or not, in terms of baby boomers, 82% use the internet and many of them have a social media account, generally it's Facebook or LinkedIn. They're very careful about sharing personal information and about 54% enjoy watching video content in some way, shape or form. It's like they've discovered a library of VHS tapes that they can watch on-demand. Generation X, they are actually using social media more habitually than millennials, meaning they do it more consistently. It's not as much though and we'll talk about the differential here in a second. They'll spend about an average just under seven hours a week on social media networks, but it's very consistent in their ability or willingness to engage with it. Very few actually share, much like baby boomers, personal information, 24% view this sharing personal information as ok with the strong majority being no that's personal, I don't do that or if they do it's in restricted areas and they spend most of their time connecting to friends and family. Millennials change the paradigm pretty dramatically. They were the first generation who basically doesn't remember time before there was social media and it's a conglomeration of personal and professional information. They don't delineate the difference and they give their privacy away like crazy. Facebook is the most popular platform. Instagram shortly behind and they're heavily influenced, heavily influenced by what others are doing. They'll change their behavior and decisions based on other people's posts or declarations on their social media channels.

They are so influenced when we talk about purchasing power, 72% have indicated that they purchased something in fashion or beauty product based on someone else's Instagram posts and 84% have said, yes. that it's influenced their major purchases when somebody else is what they call user-generated content, meaning it's not a formal review. It's like a whole bunch of people that just say, I like this, or I don't like it. They're engaged with their social media content all the time. They trust the internet more than their peers and those reactions or posts more than any other generation. Generation Z, so just the youngest group, they view social media as entertainment, not information sharing. YouTube is where they spend their time. They view it as a way of engaging with the world and seeing the world in a different set of eyes. Interestingly enough, 64% will check their social media platforms every hour. They're very much more like Generation X than millennials. They've watched the mistakes of privacy destroy lives. They're a lot more careful with their personal life. It's entertainment and they have fewer platforms in which they gather it. 

So, if we take Brian Polian’s book and we take some of the information regarding general information or research on millennials and Generation X and even into Generation Z, what does this mean for philanthropy? What are the tactical outcomes of this conversation? Well, let me start with the big, and then it'll kind of morph or go into the more specific. We're going to be forced, even us dinosaurs that are being dragged into the 21st century, more slowly than most. We're going to be drug into this century. We need to come up with a digital platform strategy for our organization. What is it we're going to do? What is it we want to do? How many resources do we have to do it? It's not as if you have to go all-in or all-out because I don't think that's the answer. I think the more appropriate question is how much do you have in resources? How many resources can you apply to building out that strategy? So, let's go from that general concept and its specifics. So, the first thing is that we're going to have to realize that expectations on how we communicate are going to be different as we go along. In the Brian Polian book and then jumping into some of the data on the different generations you heard me talk a lot about what I would constitute as video or visual. The very tactical, zero feet above the ground, should your annual reports be written any more or should they be visual -- meaning are there videos? Will they be more consumed if we put them in different places in bite-sized pieces, instead of one large book? Do we do them and spread them out over 12 months instead of produce them once a year? 

The idea of giving is going to change. We heard a lot about where, particularly millennials, that they can be influenced for involvement by others. Do testimonials and expert engagement, high-level respected people, that endorsement, become part of the normal outreach to say that our organization is doing great things and we hope people join in the effort?

We're going to have to change the way we view the standard annual report or the standard just send out an email or send out even snail mail isn't going to resonate. It's going to continue to diminish. So, we've got to find new ways of engaging at a higher level. We're also going to have to realize that as if you're building a major gift relationship or principal gift relationship, or maybe it's an intermediate, maybe a high-level annual fund, you can build a relationship via texting, via Instagram, via Facebook, particularly if someone is moving out of the lower end of the Generation X and into millennials. You have to be careful though your credibility is on the line even more so than face-to-face in some ways. One wrong comment and we've all seen people post things that are beyond reprehensible or just plain stupid ruins the relationship. We have to realize that the internet and the postings of social media and communication, they never go away. So, we have to be careful in what we say and what we post. This is true of the term, which I was unfamiliar with until a couple of years ago, but catfishing, where somebody makes up a persona or misrepresents who they are, and a relationship is developed even to the point of things like matrimonial engagement, but in some cases, you may never have met them. There are stories about those things. We have to realize that our ethics should be at the highest possible level of representing the best of who we are and what our organization stands for in this process. It's quintessential that we honor that relationship and the true morality that philanthropy should really be about.

Third, tactically, I think there's going to be changes in communication, but not, maybe not changes in impetus to want to engage. What does that mean? I'm a big believer in Prince and Files, Seven Faces of Philanthropy. If you've listened to the podcast or seen me speak, I use it quite frequently. I think it's a hallmark study that we should all know and the seven faces deal with why people choose to engage in non-profit work. I think the communication though that was done in 1994 is going to slowly begin to change. One of the great things about the study was it declared based on the research, different things you could do to develop a relationship in terms of communication. The thing is that it was built before social media and before these generations that we talked about a few minutes ago, built their lives into different modes of communication. We're going to have to figure how that changes. So, the impetus, the rationale is probably the same. If you're as an example, a dynasty and it's a family tradition, it probably will continue to be, but the decisions that that next generation or to make may be different in terms of how they're communicated with so it's something to realize that the rationale may be similar, but the way in which we work with individuals might change. 

I think a very tactical thing is how we qualify people. I'm beginning to see this, particularly in healthcare with younger grateful patients and families, where you can get a qualification visit and conversation via text. Fifteen years ago, I would have fallen over dead if someone would've said that's a possibility, but I'm watching the evidence both anecdotally and from a quantitative standpoint, indicate that we can do more by text messaging, by LinkedIn, by Facebook and we're going to have to become more comfortable with that. We also can't disclose information we shouldn’t so it may become simpler and more direct, but it may have a different vehicle in terms of outreach. It may be harder to get ahold of people if you don't accept some of these changes as well. 

I think what I would take from all of this is that some of the basic principles that I started with in this profession 25 years ago, and I still think are critical today will be even more critical in the future. In many ways, this understanding of social media and, and how people communicate, reinforces that we take care of the person first; we're donor-centered. We're going to have to find different ways of talking with people, but at the end of the day, it's the person first and the solicitation second. And if we continue to represent that at an ethical and moral level, what we're going to end up with is a lot of positive success in this industry, no matter what kind of digital strategy you build-out. I am going to join this digital revolution in some way, shape or form, at least eventually. 

Don't forget to check out the website -- going to be posting a three-part series on how to support gift officers from an institutional or organizational perspective. In particular, if you're in infrastructure or prospect management or work with data, kind of an understanding of what gift officers think about and are concerned about and how to best work with them and some suggestions on that. A lot of great stuff on the website, 90-second reads on the blog, you can watch or listen to this podcast via the website or on a podcast downloading places like Spotify or iTunes or wherever, please like, pass along if this is valuable, share it with somebody else. Of course, you can always email me podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. If you have a suggestion or if you have a concern or disagree with me entirely, I'd love to hear from you. That's reeks@hallettphilanthropy.com. 

Let me conclude, as I do each week. This is a tremendous profession. This is the opportunity to help people who are wondering what in the world's going on with them. There are so many different ways of doing it, whether it's social services, whether it's healthcare, whether it's education and providing opportunity, whether it's preserving our history and the great contributions that history has provided. It could be artwork. It could be sculpture. It could be writing. There's so much out there and non-profit work is all about bringing those opportunities to the public and filling holes. Don't forget -- I conclude every podcast with the same. “Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened.” The great thing about nonprofit work is we're people who make things happen, partnering with the community, with other people who want to make things happen for people who are wondering what happened. I can't think of a better way to live a life. I hope you think about it that way a little bit today. I hope it helps you get through the challenges that you're working through. I hope today was helpful in the idea of social media. I appreciate your time. I'll look forward to seeing you next time, right here on “Around with Randall” and don't forget make it a great day.