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The Benefits of
Involving Donors’ Kids
—to You and Them
By Jayne Pearl
and Richard Morris
Charitable
organizations often approach wealthy individuals
with their hand out. There’s nothing wrong with
that, of course, it is important to raise funds to
support their mission. However, potential donors are
bound to respond more favorably to an offer to
support one of their donor’s favorite causes: their
children.
We’re talking about providing opportunities for
helping parents inspire their children to become
philanthropic as well as sharing values and time
together . There are many ways your foundation can
do this.
For
grade-school children:
• Host a
parent-child party with fun activities that will get
them excited about all the good your organization
does. For example, if your group supports research
for a childhood disease, perhaps you can provide art
supplies and ask the kids and parents to create a
get-well card for children in treatment at a nearby
children’s hospital.
• Provide
opportunities for them to help. If your group
supports animal shelters, you can sponsor a visit to
a local shelter where they can feed the animals and
play with kittens or puppies. If your mission is to
advance music or the arts, invite young children to
a concert or kid-friendly exhibit.
• Create
parent-child volunteering opportunities. Families
that volunteer together —serving or preparing food
at the local soup kitchen, visiting the elderly at a
local nursing home—send powerful messages about the
importance of giving back, share extremely bonding
experiences and learn firsthand about people who are
less fortunate.
For
children in middle school through high school:
• Encourage
kids to participate in a fundraising campaign. They
can help design posters, for example, to put up
around the community announcing the campaign.
• Social
networking. Teens are the experts in this
department, and the possibilities here are only
limited to your and their imaginations. Contact
kids of adult donors and prospects, inviting them to
attend a brainstorming session to create a Facebook
fan page for your organization. Encourage them to
post news about your activities on their own
Facebook and Twitter pages.
• Host special
kid-friendly events, such as an ice cream social or
even a formal dance for children of potential or
current donors, where they can also learn about the
causes your organization supports, the results of
your grant-making, and future goals.
• Sponsor
activities or vacations that involve volunteering in
needy communities, such as building homes with
Habitat for Humanity or installing water pumps at
school playgrounds in South America or Africa
through Play Pump International. Investing sweat
equity in organizations to which families donate
their financial equity engenders a deeper
connection, not only between the family and your
foundation, but also among the family members
themselves.
For
young adults:
• Create an
internship program, either as volunteers or in paid
positions, where they can earn college credit, gain
experience and job references. You can develop
separate internships for marketing, accounting and
finance majors, for example, in departments where
they will learn related real-world skills.
• Set up a
junior board or committee. This is a great way to
harness the energy, passion and creativity of
20-somethings. The committee can focus on marketing,
fundraising and/or community outreach.
As we explain
in our book, Kids, Wealth, and Consequences,
the benefits of involving children are many. Not
only do you develop a new generation of potential
donors who feel emotionally tied to your group and
its mission, you also develop deeper connections
with their parents. As we all know, as parents, if
our children are involved in an activity or cause,
we’ll likely want to become involved as well.
The most
effective way to deepen your bond with adults is by
your bonding with their children. Parents will
greatly appreciate your efforts to help them teach
their kids about giving, to provide bonding
experiences between parents and their children and
to expose their children to the
parents’ values.
Sometimes
giving a hand to your donors and prospects is more
effective than reaching out with an open palm.
Jayne
Pearl and Richard Morris are authors of
Kids, Wealth, and Consequences:
Ensuring a Responsible Financial Future for the Next
Generation (Bloomberg
Press). Visit their website at
www.kwandc.com.
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