75% of Millennials Plan to Give More, Using Vehicles Built for Their Parents

The nonprofit sector has spent a decade worrying about the aging of its donor base and the arrival of the next generation. According to new survey data from Bloomerang and The Harris Poll, the next generation has already arrived. Seventy-five percent of Millennials plan to give more this year. Thirty-six percent of Baby Boomers say the same.

The 2026 Giving Signals Report, based on a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. donors and 400 nonprofit leaders conducted in March 2026, finds that Millennials are now the most strategically active, most acquisition-ready, and most tax-vehicle-sophisticated donor segment in the country. Forty-two percent of Millennial donors used a donor-advised fund, a giving account that lets a donor make one tax-advantaged contribution and then recommend grants to nonprofits over time, or a similar tax-advantaged vehicle in the past year. Eighty percent plan to give to at least one nonprofit they have never given to before. And 97 percent cite belonging, feeling part of something, as a primary motivation for giving, making community the first-gift driver, not just a retention tool.

For nonprofit and foundation professionals, your acquisition system is the problem, not the donor pool. A Millennial donor who is already using a DAF, already open to new nonprofits, and already giving based on community alignment is a donor whose acquisition requires a different trigger than the direct mail cycle or the year-end appeal. The data confirms the generational wealth transfer is not a coming event. It is a current event.

For digital and crypto-native giving leaders, Millennials are the most likely overlap between DAF adoption and crypto giving intent, which means the digital donor thesis, the idea that a single donor can give through crypto, stock, DAF, and cash through one unified interface, is a Millennial-centered story. The infrastructure that serves this donor best is not the one with the most payment options. It is the one with the clearest community belonging signal embedded in the giving experience.

For donors and family-office advisors, advisors who are still calibrating Millennial clients against Baby Boomer giving frameworks are misreading both the intent and the sophistication. A Millennial client who is already using a DAF, already thinking about cross-cutting causes, and already making belonging a first-order giving criterion is a client who needs an advisor who can map giving strategy to values rather than tax optimization alone.

For corporate giving and CSR leaders, the 97 percent of Millennial donors who cite belonging as a primary giving motivation are the same employees in your corporate giving program who want community, not just a matching dollar. An employee giving program designed around transaction, match, receipt is designed for a donor behavior profile that describes the cohort leaving the workforce, not the cohort entering it.

For NGOs and international organizations, Millennial donors' openness to new nonprofits, with 80 percent planning to give to at least one organization they have never given to before, is the most important recruiting signal for any international NGO working to build a domestic donor base. This is the acquisition window, and it is open right now.

The diagnostic question for any organization reading this is when the last time was that your donor acquisition materials were designed for someone who already uses a DAF, already gives to causes rather than institutions, and already gives based on community alignment rather than organizational reputation, because if the answer is never, you have been building acquisition for the generation that is aging out.

“Millennials didn’t wait for your organization to update its giving portal. They built their own infrastructure. The question is whether you are building toward it or around it.”

EILEEN HERNANDEZ, THE STRATEGIC STEWARD

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This is a Participatory Ownership story dressed as a donor behavior report, because the 97 percent belonging figure is not a sentiment. It is a design specification for what giving infrastructure must do to earn and keep the most strategically active generation the sector has ever produced.