When it comes to online fundraising, it pays to know about the giving habits of every demographic. One interesting way to divide your pool of donors is on the basis of their age. Social researcher Josh Harden had conducted a study in 2015 to understand how students and young adults practice charity. Today’s #SaturdayScience post talks about his research.

Harden had conducted the study along with fellow researchers Ian Jukes and Paul Joyce. The team set out to find whether the conjecture about millennials being less charitable then elders was true. They conducted online surveys having 425 respondents, 376 of them being millennials.

74% of young adults said they would like to contribute to more charities over the next ten years of their lives. Almost 75% of them said they donate to charity regularly, with the frequency being once a month

Though not many of them donated very regularly, more than 80% of millennials had volunteered or raised funds for charity. Helping the homeless emerged as the most popular actions the youngsters take when donating money, followed by animal welfare and children’s causes.

Towards the end of the survey, participants had the option of entering a prize draw contest. They were asked whether they would like to donate a part of the £50 prize to charity. Many of the respondents chose to keep the money for themselves. However, those said that they would donate made a donation of £16.7 on average.

“Good news! It turns out that majority of the people were more generous in practice than they thought they would be. And even better news, the winner of the prize draw kindly donated £25 to Dementia UK,” wrote Harden in a blog post after the completion of the survey.

If charities focus on harnessing the imagination of young adults, the positive effects will be felt decades into the future, believe the researchers. These engagements can be in the form of building relationships, social media engagement and non-monetary participation .

You can yourself find out if the findings of the team are correct. Come over to Crowdera and start a free fundraiser today!