Philanthrokids are determined to change the world

Photo: Roger Jones via Flickr

For years millennials were the economic and cultural obsession of our times. Now the spotlight is on the next folks: Generation Z.

Generation Z is stereotyped as the “Snapchat generation”; the generation that has an eight-second attention span and will lead the world after millennials.

Born in the late 90s, they are now beginning to enter the workforce. Already as teenagers, they were and are changing the world: think of Gen-Z activists like the Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai. They are more than tech-savvy, digital minds addicted to screens: they are on a mission to save the world.

Classy.org published an insightful infographic summarizing Gen-Z. We can see that the “Philanthrokids” are very inclined to make a positive change in the world.

Meredith Kavanagh

The Gen-Z kids have already become activists and entrepreneurs before they land their first job or even graduate from high school.

The whole world watched children and teenagers speak with such zest at the March for Our Lives. A young girl gave us the chills when she said, "People have said that I'm too young to have these thoughts on my own. People have said that I'm a tool of some nameless adult. It's not true." Gen- Z are proactive and fierce. All of us have something to learn from the passionate way they care about and take care of our world.

Gen-Z are digital natives; they consume an insurmountable amount of media each day so they are aware of what is happening in the world — and they are not accepting the status quo. They truly believe they can make a difference, people from their generation already have; they don't need to "look up" to someone, they can find role models amongst each other.

Seeing that Gen-Z has so much potential and motivation, nonprofit organisations have a rare opportunity. If they “befriend” Gen-Z, who are so willing to give, the world could improve at an accelerated pace.

A short attention span is not necessarily a weakness; it just means that information has to be delivered in a concise, digestible way. Remember, these internet experts are also excellent bullshit detectors, so being fully transparent is the only way to go.

Gen-Z don’t need to be convinced to do good. Despite the dog-eat-dog world they live in, they have not lost faith in humanity. The future looks brighter with these philantrokids who will hopefully grow up to be philantro-adults.

Editor's Note: I volunteer with three organizations, two of them not-for-profit charities. Most of my fellow volunteers are teens or early twenty-somethings. If these people are our future, we might be in better shape than we think. My colleagues are energetic, passionate, thoughtful and caring - and they manage to be all those things despite having their heads constantly glued to their media gadgets.

- prh, ed.

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