I've chosen to go further with the prompt on "How might solutions support young donors to radically engage in and reimagine the next generation of giving?" with a focus on donors in the group Gen Z. Starting off I had to do introspection on what donations actually are and in what kind of shapes and sizes they come.
I started me research in looking in to what type of different donation platforms there were and even google just they plain word "donations". A pattern of donations based on volunteering work, money donations and physical donations emerged. there are different ways of donating, but the most popular seemed to be: your time and expertise or money.
Secondly I started planning for the project: how do I access my user group Gen Z, how do get a good grasp on the broad spectrum of donations and what measures will I take to narrow it down to a focus area. I reached out to 4 Gen Z's in my friend zone. This will be noted as a bias, since I am aware that my closes Gen Z group are quite homogenous demographics.
I then prepared a discussion guide and questions that would be relevant for my interviews. I wanted to interviews to have a day or two ahead of time to reflect on how they have donated their time or money in the recent year - so I gave them a heads up on the topic one day before hand. I thought this was needed since I noticed that I myself had to sit down and think quite a lot until I realised in what ways and situation I have actually performed donations. Both in time, things and money.
I ran a test-interview with myself. Prepared a few different popular donations platforms to have at hand to show or describe it to the people I were about to interview - in case they did not have any examples at hand themselves.
The interviwes were summarized in bullet points that the then were transferred into digital "post-its" with observations. I used the tool Miro to create an affinity map with the observations.
somehow people start talking when the interview is done! That's when most of the interesting information starts to unfold.
1) I need to stop myself from asking leading questions or trying to put words in other peoples mouths. I often try to summarize what they say after a statement has been said- but at the same time clarify it. Then it is easy for them to agree, and important data might be lost. 2) People start talking when you say "Ok, great! Thank you so much for your time and intersting input on the topic...". It is like the interview is relaxed and have had the chance to reflect on the topic - they start to talk.
