The Generational Echo: ’60s Kids Causing New “Boom” in Nonprofits

By Lindsay Walker
Nonprofit Quarterly
www.nonprofitquarterly.org


The startling number of babies born shortly after World War II led to what was called a “baby boom” throughout the United States. Flash forward several decades later, and perhaps there is reason to believe the term “Baby Boomer” has taken on a new meaning. According to several reports, these 50- and 60-somethings are causing yet another boom, one that is altruistic, philanthropic, and reverberating throughout entire nonprofit sector.

2015 study published by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management in partnership with consulting group Age Wave specifically credits baby boomers with donating $8 trillion ($6.6 trillion in cash and $1.4 trillion in volunteer hours) over the course of the next two decades, a pleasantly astonishing figure the Nonprofit Quarterly wrote about soon after the study was released last October. However, that yearning to support a wide array of causes doesn’t just stop at dollar signs and pro bono labor. Boomers are also embarking on second wave careers as founders of their own nonprofit organizations, post-retirement. Data shows that interest among individuals between the age of 50 and 70 in building a nonprofit from the ground up has nearly doubled since 2012.

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