Old Lady Lifestyle Tips for Twenty-Somethings

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What SOPA and PIPA Taught Us About Millennials

          On January 18, 2012, it was hard to get online without pages being blacked out or censored, signs of panic and outrage preventing each consumer from going about their day on the Internet regularly. Those previously unfamiliar with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) quickly learned that this legislation was driving Silicon Valley to flex its political muscles. Wikipedia shut down all of its content

for the entire day, only showing the message “Imagine a world without free knowledge” and a way to contact one's representatives. Blogging site Tumblr harshly censored its content and encouraged users to take action. The resulting failure of the bills was no doubt hurried by the highly effective ways Millennials mobilized on the issue.

           Brian Knappenberger (2014) discussed the Millennial link to the SOPA protests, “I think SOPA shows that a generation felt very personally about the Internet as something they really cared about and that they didn't want to see changed. They wanted to maintain the freedoms of the Internet.”

Since Millennials grew up with the Internet and it has been an integral part of their formative lives, organizations protesting SOPA had to tap into Millennial civic energy to mobilize their voices. They found success in three vital ways. First, the blackouts certainly found Millennials where they were. Affecting their favorite sites in a noticeable way and immediately providing an action call was highly effective. As a result, three million people contacted Congress on Blackout Day. Over 115,000 websites participated to varying degrees (Wortham, January 20, 2012).

          Next, this event proved that there is power in social media shares. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explained the day after the blackout, “Wednesday’s blackout day signifies a new era for the global digital civil liberties movement. Through

blogs, tweets, and posts, thousands of organizations, activists, and individuals truly made it the success that it was. This has only been a sample of the great advocacy work that took place yesterday (Rodriquez and Sutton, 2012).” Social media was a natural format to vent frustrations, as this was a web-based mobilizing effort, but this netroots organizing soon became a face-to-face showdown. Meetup.com is a social media platform that helps people find groups that meet in person in their areas that have shared interests. The NYC Tech Meetup staged an emergency protest in Manhattan at Senators Gillibrand and Schumer's offices on the day of the vote. This event reached thousands and physically mobilized hundreds in less than a day (NY Tech Meetup, 2012).

          Third, this movement spurred one of the most successful boycotts in recent history, providing Millennials a quick and relatively painless way to use their buying power to fight for a cause. After the domain provider GoDaddy.com demonstrated their support for SOPA, a coalition of organizations speaking against the bill called for people to boycott GoDaddy by transferring to other hosts. This boycott was massively successful and nearly bankrupted GoDaddy, and pulling domain names continued even after the site changed its stance (Masnick, 2011). According to GoDaddyBoycott.org, 22,000 people signed the pledge to pull their domain names, which totaled over 82,000.

        
     This movement's ability to reach Millennials where they were- on the Internet, effectively use social media and translate it into physical action, and spur conscientious consumerism shows us just how powerful tapping into Millennial civic energy can be. Though we cannot say that all of the participants were, in fact, Millennials, we can see that these methods are very powerful catalysts for Millennials in particular since they are the most tech-saturated generation.

          Nonprofits can learn a lot from the success of the SOPA and PIPA protests. See my whitepaper, Twenty-SomethingCitizen: Keys to Reaching and Keeping Millennials for Your Organization for a comprehensive guide. 

Keys to Reaching and Keeping Millennials for Your Organization

Download the pdf by clicking here.

Volunteering Sets Millennials Apart

“I ‘do’ citizenship by actually getting out and physically doing things. I do not have money to throw at public concerns and endeavors so I get involved personally. Most people my age (29) and younger think they are ‘doing’ things simply by being involved digitally. While a digital presence is important to any endeavor now, manpower (or womanpower) is what gets things done not sitting at home talking (read: bitching) about it.”

 -Anonymous Millennial Respondent

About a quarter of Americans volunteer in their communities. Marriage and religiosity often most strongly correlate to volunteerism, but Millennials are volunteering at high rates despite these trends (Flanagan and Levine, 2013). Many are volunteering in high school, as they are encouraged or required to do so, and even

more are volunteering in college. According to Deloitte’s Millennial survey (2014), 43% of respondents volunteered or were members of a community organization.

Once Millennials form relationships with the organizations they serve, they tend to become donors. According to Achieve’s Millennial Impact Report (2012), 70% of Millennials said they have raised money for a cause or organization. The highest priority for the Millennials surveyed was knowing their volunteer work would have a real impact. Forty-eight percent expressed that they wanted to use their education and skills, and 45% wanted to work with a group to develop a strategy for organizational growth. Finally, of those volunteering, 77% said they were either in or desired to be in a leadership position. Of those not in leadership, 40% had never been asked to service on a Board of Directors (Achieve, 2012). It is important for organizations to include Millennials at all levels of leadership, and implementing a millennial Director recruitment strategy is a good place to start.

Social capital is playing a role in the types of organizations Millennials chose to serve through volunteering, as 81% of volunteers wants to learn about opportunities from word of mouth. When Millennials volunteer to raise money for organizations, they are most likely to tap their network of family and friends first (Achieve, 2012).

My informal survey produced many insights into Millennial volunteering. The following is what some of my respondents had to say:

“I [have] volunteered weekly for over two years. I started to become more involved in my community; I continue because I feel responsible for creating the world I want to live in.” 

“Doing hands on work with my brothers and being able to physically see the impact our work was having. It's the most rewarding experience you can have." 

“[I was motivated to volunteer by] a blend of enjoyment of giving back, anger at the current state of things, and an urge to be more social and personally motivated.” 

“I knew that the people I was serving were unable to help themselves and needed assistance to utilize opportunities. I also know Christ called me to serve others and love on them, and I want to be a genuine representative of that.”

As these responses show, there are numerous reasons why people choose to volunteer. Organizations that can provide a sense of purpose to their volunteers, as well as encouraging them to flex their mental muscles, will likely enjoy great Millennial enthusiasm.