Ageing fundraising
To mobilise culture is to move people, and to move people is to create change
By 2040, a quarter of people in the UK will be over 60. And it’s not just the UK; the world is experiencing a seismic demographic shift. We’re living longer and living healthier. We’re working longer and retiring later (if we retire at all; welcome to your 80s, millennials).
But our stereotypes of ageing are stuck in the last century. Our model of social care is broken and our approach to innovation isn’t working. As Madeleine Albright put it, “We’re taking 21st century challenges, evaluating them with 20th century ideas, and responding with 19th century tools.”
The profile of charity donors and beneficiaries is changing, too, but too many organisations are still planning, innovating, recruiting, and marketing to old myths and stereotypes. Economically, ageing has typically been perceived as something negative: retirement, pensions, ill health, and reliance on the state for support have been seen as economic burdens on society, funded, in large part, by the younger working population and with services delivered by the third sector.
This session will shine a light on the opportunities of ageing, from the potential of the longevity economy to recruiting for an age-diverse workforce. The workshop will myth-bust stereotypes around ageing and older audiences and challenge participants to think differently about how to design for older cohorts.
As fundraisers, we have a unique opportunity to tap into the enormous potential of ageing by moving away from focusing on the negative and better responding to the needs, wants, interests, aspirations, and demands of an ageing audience.