Generation Z Faces a Deeply Uncertain Future. Is Philanthropy Listening?

While nostalgia can provide a much-needed escape from the volatile present, it’s usually a good idea to resist the urge to look back on the past through rose-colored glasses. That said, I suspect some Gen X readers may recall the late ’90s rather fondly. I know I do.

When I was in college in the late ’90s, I watched a televised press conference where President Bill Clinton announced the U.S. budget surplus had reached $70 billion. (Here’s the speech.) At the time, I was getting a good education at an affordable price and my post-graduation prospects were promising, even for a liberal arts major. My naive younger self figured adulthood would be a breeze.

It was a breeze — at least compared to many members of Generation Z, typically defined as individuals born between 1997 and 2012. Those on the older side of that spectrum are entering adulthood in the midst of a pandemic, only to also face crushing student loan debt, an incipient recession, an expensive housing and rental market, and unmet mental health needs. It’s no wonder Gen Z collectively feels “undervalued and unheard” by society’s key institutions.

Those two adjectives come from a Walton Family Foundation (WFF) press release summarizing the findings of “Looking Forward with Gen Z,” a new report released by the WFF and Murmuration, an education nonprofit founded by Michael Bloomberg’s 43-year-old daughter Emma, that seeks “to better understand and prepare for the outsized level of influence this generation will have on society.”

In the report, philanthropy isn’t immune from Gen Z’s scrutiny. It found that among Gen Z respondents, only 26% felt that “philanthropic organizations” are “doing an excellent or good job of listening.”

How should we interpret that? For starters, we need to engage in a good deal of conjecture. The term “philanthropic organizations” only appeared one time in the entire report. (The word “philanthropy” didn’t appear at all.) Nor does the report make a distinction between funders and nonprofit organizations. This is a problematic oversight. Few readers should be surprised to learn that a 22-year-old feels a calcified multibillion-dollar foundation isn’t listening to them. But it would be more surprising to find they felt the same way about a public health or anti-poverty nonprofit deeply embedded within the community.

Assuming that the report primarily refers to funders, it’s worth noting that when it comes to listening to Gen Z, “philanthropic organizations” actually outperform global companies (24%) — a category, it should be noted, that earmarks billions in market research dollars with the express purpose of listening to customers. Philanthropy also does better than government (20%) and elected officials (18%).

In addition, Gen Z clearly isn’t the only demographic that feels that institutions aren’t paying attention. A week after WFF announced the publication of the report, Gallup reported that Americans’ average confidence across all institutions — think the military, newspapers, Congress — hit a new low of 27%. Gen Z’s mistrust of institutions reflects a broader malaise gripping the body politic. It’s hard to feel confident in an institution that is ignoring you. (And therein lies a bit of irony — a big theme in philanthropy over the past year has been U.S.-based funders’ efforts to listen to and amplify historically underrepresented voices.)

But for argument’s sake, let’s think through this idea that philanthropic funders aren’t listening to Gen Z. This may mean that program managers aren’t addressing the issues that resonate with them. To that end, the study found that at least two-thirds of Gen Z respondents rated the following as very important issues facing America “right now.”

Stopping school shootings (82%)
Protecting access to clean water and fresh air (72%)
Reducing gun violence and mass shootings (72%)
Guaranteeing a quality education for every child (71%)
Preserving individual rights and freedoms (67%)

While it’s difficult to quantify how much philanthropy has earmarked in financial support for each of these issues, a scan of IP’s coverage over just the past week suggests that many funders, broadly speaking, are on the same page when it comes to things like gun violence, the environment and education. Could philanthropy be doing more? Sure. But it’s hard to conclude definitively that funding leaders — who must also acknowledge the concerns of other demographics — are asleep at the switch when it comes to Gen Z’s concerns, at least regarding those statistics.

Another open question is the extent to which your average 22-year-old engages with “philanthropic organizations” on a regular basis. If funders’ priorities are, in fact, actually aligned with this demographic’s concerns, we can attribute the disconnect to a deficiency in messaging. If a 22-year-old’s only exposure to philanthropic organizations is an advertisement for a fundraising event on social media, it’s easy to see why they may feel funders aren’t listening.

All of which brings me to the issue of mental health support. A recurring theme here at IP has been how philanthropy needs to compensate for its historically tepid funding for that field. Mental health is an enormously pressing challenge for Gen Z, so I was surprised to see that it wasn’t a top issue for the report’s survey respondents.

However, page three of the WFF/Murmuration report cites as the study’s most important theme that “family, community, and mental health come first.” The report found that relative to their elders over age 25, members of Gen Z are about twice as likely (42% to 23%) to battle depression and feelings of hopelessness. While not expressly articulated in the report, the takeaway from a philanthropic perspective is clear — funders must do much more to tackle the Gen Z mental health epidemic.

If there’s any good news to be gleaned from this report, it’s that unlike most CEOs and politicians, funding leaders haven’t been shy about admitting their shortcomings. Over the past two years, they have publicly pledged to do a better job at listening and, in some cases, have democratized their grantmaking processes to give voice to the constituencies they serve. Funders like the Rockefeller and Hewlett foundations are members of the Feedback Incentives Learning Group, which is “dedicated to encouraging peer funders to listen to the people most harmed by the systems and structures they seek to change.” As Maurine Knighton, director of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s arts program, told me in the early days of the pandemic, “Humility is the watchword.”

Moreover, at least in theory, philanthropic organizations have plenty of leeway to be more responsive to the individuals they’re committed to serving than to other institutional actors. Global companies are beholden to shareholders, creating the Friedmanesque dynamic in which the business’ responsibility to increase its profits frequently stands in fraught contrast to the best interests of the public. Politicians answer to voters, but also to rich donors and lobbyists. (Some philanthropic funders, on the other hand, have been ramping up efforts to boost civic engagement and democracy among Gen Z college students.)

Then again, some critics argue that the exact opposite is true. There is a case to be made that philanthropy is structurally less responsive than other institutions like membership organizations and businesses because it doesn’t need to cater directly to members, customers or voters. The degree to which philanthropy makes use of its own capacity to take risks and push barriers is also debatable. Nonetheless, funding leaders may find some solace in knowing that Gen Z respondents rated “philanthropic organizations” higher than the other institutions listed in the report.

I’ll let Romy Drucker, director of the K-12 education program at WFF, have the last word. “Supporting youth in finding their unique path to the careers and lives they choose is only possible if we’re actively engaging them,” Drucker said. “This new research makes it clear that we need to better support Gen Z in developing the skill sets and mindsets to harness their own agency. We need to work together to better understand their academic and social-emotional needs. And most importantly, we need to embrace their aspirations and empower them to create new solutions.”

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