Boomers Donate to Religious and Child Health Causes; Men Lead in Charitable Donations

This blog includes a small sample of the deep cultural intelligence available to our members. Contact us to learn how you can unlock full access to our cultural intelligence engine.

Two new Collage Group studies exam charitable giving across age and gender, revealing key cultural trends for organizations to act on to enhance charitable donations.

The first study takes a look at charity from the perspective of age – analyzing Gen Zers, millennials, Gen Xers, and boomers – assessing how each group donates its time and money.

Among other details, the findings reveal that boomers and Xers tend to center their contributions toward national or locally focused charity organizations. However, younger generations, especially those who make up the Gen Z segment, are more prone to donate to international aid orgs and causes.

“Our research shows that younger Americans may put forth less money in terms of their charitable efforts, but they emphasize volunteering and fundraising instead,” said Jack Mackinnon, Collage Group senior director of cultural insights. 

The study also finds that, generally, consumers rely on an organization’s website when looking to learn or obtain information about a given charity. In addition to online details, older Americans also rely on reviews. Conversely, those in the younger age groups prefer to ask friends and family when seeking charitable giving details.

When asked about which types of charities and nonprofits they have supported over the last year, 67% of Gen Xers and 67% of boomers said they donated to local or community focused causes.

Moreover, older generations stated that they most commonly support nonprofits through one-time donations. For younger, Americans however, they prefer to volunteer their time to charities and nonprofits. Forty-three percent of Gen Z answered that they volunteer time and 23% of millennials said they contribute to nonprofits and organizations by fundraising. 

The second report from Collage Group, while also maintaining a focus on charity, measures giving by gender.

The study finds that men lead the general population in charitable donations. Men are more receptive to solicitations from others, including those from friends, family, and influencers, as well as solicitations via the telephone and email marketers.

Women, the research shows, are more likely than men to say a lack of money prevents them from donating.

“Women are inclined to volunteer and make in-kind contributions in order to make a difference,” says Mackinnon.

He adds that women generally focus more on animal and children’s wellbeing, particularly if the cause or issue is local, or community-based.

When asked how they have or how they would support a charity or nonprofit organization, 56% of women said they have or would donate items such as food, clothing, or an old vehicle. Both women at 46%, and men also at a rate of 46%, said they would make a one-time donation. Thirty-one percent of men said they would lend support by volunteering their time, and 18% of men said they would participate in fundraising.

Over the past year, men were more likely than women to make a charitable donation. When seeking information on a charitable cause or nonprofit, women are more likely to learn about the cause via a website or word of mouth.

Contact us to learn how you can unlock full access to our cultural intelligence engine.

Women are influential in all aspects of social, cultural, and business leadership. Plus, they dominate consumer spending, making the bulk of all household purchasing decisions. 

To help you understand how to engage this dynamic segment, we’ve identified the top brands for Women based on their average B-CFQ score and then selected four brands that perform uniquely well with this consumer segment compared to Men: 

Visa, Dove, Crayola, and Dollar Tree.

At Collage Group, we measure cultural fluency by gauging consumer sentiment across six key dimensions: Relevance, Fit, Memories, Trust, Advocacy, and Values. These dimensions are weighed and combined to create the Brand Cultural Fluency Quotient (B-CFQ) score. The B-CFQ score gives our members crucial insights into their brand’s resonance across different consumer segments and strategies for improvement.

What Surprised Us

Based on B-CFQ score, Visa ranks 2nd out of 743 total brands for Women, the only financial services brand to break into the top 100 for this segment. Its sustained commitment to Women’s empowerment rivals that of even the most iconic CPG brands. Visa consistently challenges gendered stereotypes and showcases Women’s active engagement in financial matters.

The Big Picture

Top brands help Women balance their priorities and empower them to define success and happiness on their terms.

Why It Matters

Brands that offer Women practical solutions and position themselves as their trusted partners resonate deeply with Women. They also appeal more broadly to other consumer groups through Halo Effects.

Throughout the year, the world’s leading brands turn to Collage Group to build trust with this critical consumer segment. Contact us for additional studies on how to connect with Women consumers, and to learn how to make your brand a winner with all diverse Americans.

Women are influential in all aspects of social, cultural, and business leadership. Plus, they dominate consumer spending, making the bulk of all household purchasing decisions. But many advertisers are missing the mark in their portrayals of this powerful consumer segment – only about half of Women say they’re satisfied with portrayals of their gender in advertising.

Representation alone is not enough to make your campaigns and messages stick. Brands today must evolve to effectively engage modern American Women around the themes and issues that matter to them most.

This powerful study, updated for 2024, explores three key areas of our consumer fundamentals research: identity, cultural context, and Group Traits to help your brand authentically connect with Women. Read below for key insights and download the sample study to learn more.

What’s New in 2024:

Women’s inner drive overshadows their desire for harmony.

Women’s tendency to ensure Harmony and comfort for others at the expense of freely expressing their own values and thoughts dramatically dropped in priority this year. Its ranking among Collage Group’s 75 Cultural Statements decreased from #30 in 2022 to #41 in 2024. Meanwhile, the rise in Self-Assured, Competitive, and Disciplined attitudes among Women is a sign of momentum-building cultural shifts.

Why It Matters

While Women remain conscientious and care about how their actions affect the world around them, they are also increasingly focused on personal goals, wellbeing, and self-fulfillment. Brands must continually evolve to meet Women’s changing needs, validate their experiences, and celebrate their wins.

The Big Picture

1. Tension is building: Women’s priorities are at odds with society’s expectations. As more Women strive to prioritize personal goals, self-care, and self-improvement, they face the unrelenting societal expectation to put others’ needs first.
2. Women are defining success, happiness, and beauty on their own terms. Discerning and autonomous, Women shape their own unique paths and expressions of fulfillment in both professional and personal contexts.

Key Insight #1: Attuned Group Trait

Women consciously align their choices and actions with the needs of other people and the world around them. But this tendency coexists in constant tension with the other traits.

Do This:

1. Position your brand as a key to relieving the tension between the needs of others and Women’s own priorities.
2. Craft messaging that shows Women how your brand helps turn limited resources into maximal results.

Key Insight #2: Self Directed Group Trait

When making decisions and paving their path to happiness and success, Women rely on their intuition and sense of self-awareness.

Do This:

1. Defy the unrealistic standards that hinder Women’s ability to reach their full potential and optimal wellbeing.
2. Audit your messaging, visuals, and positioning to ensure critical alignment with Women’s self-empowered values.

Key Insight #3: Poised Group Trait

Women are primed to pursue their goals while staying true to their beliefs, values, and aspirations.

Do This:

1. Develop and promote tools and opportunities to equip Women’s pursuit of success on their own terms.
2. Feature Women’s stories on owned and paid media to celebrate their wins — however they may be defined.

Contact us for more research on how to connect with Women consumers and learn how to connect with the new, diverse American mainstream and make your ad a winner.

To that end, Collage Group recently had the pleasure of hosting a panel of women leaders to commemorate Women’s History Month. A wide range of vital topics were discussed with the intent of better supporting and amplifying the voices of American women and embarking on a path toward gender equity.

Before the panel discussion, Collage Group’s Katya Skogen, Director of Cultural Insights, shared some recent data. According to Collage research, only about half of all American women say they’re happy with the way brands represent them in their advertising. Also, women are the primary shopping decision makers and thusly have immense purchasing power. This gives women the ability to shape the direction of their household spending. So, brands need to closely pay attention to shifts in women’s shopping behaviors.

Recent data also shows that despite surpassing American men and educational attainment, women on average only make about 82 cents for every dollar that men earn. These wage gaps are even more significant for Hispanic and Black women. Obviously, some see the substantial gender income gap as something that is based on merit, but, it is ingrained in systemic inequity. Brands must take heed to these challenges women face and should do an overall better job in representing women.

Katya noted that Dove is one of the brands that has been a challenger to the “toxic beauty standards both in the industry and our society as a whole.” In fact, pushing back on these standards has become a core of Dove’s brand mission.

Collage Group’s Ashley Samay, Consumer Insights & Strategy Research Manager, moderated the discussion. She was joined by Reshma Dhati, Senior Director of Absolut Vodka and Co-Chair of the Womxn ERG, Pernod-Ricard; Liz Casals, VP Consumer and Marketing Analytics of Lincoln Financial Group; and Maria Twena, Chief Marketing Officer of Adsmovil.

Maria explained that woman are at the core of Adsmovil’s target and for years, have been helping brands better engage women. Having been in business for over ten years, she said Adsmovil has insights on Hispanic women, the Hispanic female, and the Hispanic head of household. Because of the longevity, her team has been able to help women better manage their finances, serve healthier meals, and help them become healthier overall.

Reshma pointed out that for Pernod-Ricard, women buy the most and are the leading consumption pool. She said the brand has gone deep in understanding the nuances of women and the diversity of their needs, as well as their desires both emotionally and functionally. Woman, she said, are all looking for something different, and therefore Pernod-Ricard has made strides to understand women down to level of their occasions, recognizing what women want, and what they are seeking.

Liz said Lincoln Financial Group is working to change the scene in what has historically been a male-dominate field. That consists of having five women on their corporate board, which is about 10% better than other investment firms. Moreover, the current CEO, Ellen Cooper, is the first woman to ever hold that position in Lincoln’s history. Add to that, presently women make up 64% of Lincoln’s Workforce and over half of all management positions. This is the true embodiment of authentic representation.

A common theme among the panelists was to stress that women are not a monolithic group. Maria reminded viewers that women come from different countries of origin, have different birth nativities, different political statuses, and so on. There are so many ways to divide the consumer cohort, and therefore it is vital that brands and researchers keep this top of mind.

During the course of the conversation, the panelists, at varying times, spoke on the genuine support that as employees, they have received from the mentioned brands, Pernod-Ricard, Lincoln Financial, and Adsmovil – whether it be empowering woman staffers, creating work groups for working parents, or championing alternative workplaces or hybrid working.

The panelists addressed several other relevant topics, including pay equity, a lack of women representation within financial advisors, and a need for brands to do better in terms of meeting individual consumer needs.

This blog includes a small sample of the deep cultural intelligence available to our members. Contact us to learn how you can unlock full access to our cultural intelligence engine.

Representation alone is not enough to prove that your brand cares about their identity. Brands today must evolve to effectively understand and engage the modern American woman.

This powerful study explores three key areas of our consumer fundamentals research: identity, cultural context, and Group Traits to help your brand authentically connect with women.

Key Insight #1: Most Women Feel Misunderstood and Misrepresented by Brands

Women’s intrinsic diversity and the complex sociopolitical conditions hinder brands’ ability to authentically address this influential segment’s needs, motivations, and experiences.

Do This

Reflect, validate, and empathize with women’s nuanced and complex experiences in brand messaging and positioning. Walk the talk by making deliberate talent management decisions and creating opportunities for women to direct the core business and the culture of your organization.

Key Insight #2: Women Expect Brands to Champion Communities and Issues They Care About

Brands that champion the issues important to women reap the rewards of consumer appreciation and loyalty.

Do This

Lean into social issues that are both salient to women and congruent with your brand values by investing in marketing, partnerships, and CSR initiatives.

Key Insight #3: Attuned Group Trait

Women approach life with a sense of mindfulness, a desire for harmony, and an awareness of potential ripple effects of their choices and actions. They’re compelled to consider the broader context and align their decisions with the needs of others and the greater good.

Do This

Tell women how your brand, product, or service helps turn limited resources into maximal results. Position your promotional campaigns to balance the needs of others with women’s own priorities.

This blog includes a small sample of the deep cultural intelligence available to our members. Contact us to learn how you can unlock full access to our cultural intelligence engine.

Collage Group’s LGBTQ+ & Gender research equips members with a “cultural toolbox” that provides deep insight into consumer segments, enabling brands to authentically engage and communicate with their audience.

The research below is from Passion Points, a study that focuses on the activities that Americans like doing and the interests and enthusiasms they have. If Cultural Traits are the drivers behind decision-making, Passion Points are what Consumers spend their time deciding on. Or as we say, Passion Points are “concrete expressions of culture.”

Movies

Nearly half of the LGBTQ+ segment consider themselves to be a “film buff.” That’s significantly higher than Non—LGBTQ+ by 14 percentage points.

This signifies a deep level of fandom and confidence in their knowledge base about films—focus on films as a serious hobby. This particular attitude may be driven by their passion for representation in storytelling.

When we asked people if they think of themselves as experts or movie buffs, women were significantly less likely to agree. Only one in three women consider themselves movie buffs, while four of ten men agree. This could have something to do with societal pressures on women to be less self-endorsing. They are less likely claim that they’re an expert, but this doesn’t mean that women are less passionate about movies and shows than men are.

Food

Since LGBTQ+ Americans are more likely to enjoy staying connected with celebrity news, they’re also more likely to receive their food inspiration from social media. 

In fact, 58% of LGBTQ+ say they get food inspiration from social media and follow food influencers like chefs or other people for recipes.

One interesting way that women’s interest in food differs from that of men is their interest in seasonal foods and drinks. Two thirds of women say their tastes changes throughout the seasons, significantly more than men. Whether this is looking for soups and hearty stews in the cold winter, or trying a special at a restaurant that features fresh summer vegetables, women are flexible and adventurous in their taste. This means that they’re often looking for new recipes, new foods and drinks to try. 

Keep your brand on the cusp of consumer intel with Collage Group’s LGBTQ+ & Gender research. Fill out the form below to start a conversation about the benefits of membership.

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Our new Women Cultural Traits research provides powerful new insights into this critically important demographic.

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Harness the power of cultural intelligence to win diverse America. Discover how you can turn insights into impact today!

The LGBTQ+ & Gender consumer research program is the latest offering from Collage Group. Watch a replay of the webinar and view the data from our most recent study on women consumers.

Beginning in 2021, we will be exploring consumer trends across the LGBTQ+ community and deepening our insight into gender with a dedicated focus on women consumers, while covering transgender, non-binary and other segments where applicable.   

As always, our research reflects a total market perspective, meaning that we will compare these segments to non-LGTBQ+ and men where applicable and relevant. In this special webinar presentation available to members and non-members alike, we reviewed our recent research on multicultural moms, as an indication of the content we will be generating on Women.

Women are largely responsible for purchasing consumer staples, drive over 80% of consumer purchasing in general, effectively amounting to $7 trillion in expenditure, according to some estimates.

We have already generated ~150 pages of content covering insights on women as consumers for nine major industries, as well as unique cuts of data on social and political change, the importance of identity for women, and their expectations of brands. We have generated a similar amount of content for the LGBTQ+ community. 

In this presentation we highlight one analysis from our recent analysis of moms. 

We highlighted the power of our cultural traits modeling to “double click” into demographics to get a deeper understanding of cultural drivers.  Consider first this overarching comparison between women and men, noting that women are notably different in a few areas: higher on anxiety, lower on Exceptionalism and lower on adventurousness.

But before concluding gender identity is the driver, lets double click into Millennial and Gen X, comparing Moms and Non-Moms. 

Immediately we see that age must be factor as Millennial and Gen X women are notably higher on Exceptionalism than all women in general, whether Moms or Non-Moms. 

And motherhood must also be a factor as Millennial and Gen X Non-Moms are much lower on Compliance than their peers who are moms, and also all women in general.

Finally, we note that Hispanicity has significant effect on the profile as well.

Hispanic Moms are notablely lower in Anxiety and higher in Rootedness than any of other segments shown, including Hispanic Non-Moms.  This sequence of insights enables marketer to transcend stereotyping to identifying the meaningful variations and what might be driving them.

These charts provide a clear example of the power of our methods for measuring cultural variation, providing marketers with insights into ways that build authentic connection through culture.

In the coming months we will be publishing new findings on the Passion Points and Cultural Traits of this community.

Members of Collage Group’s LGBTQ+ & Gender program gain access to:

• Ten or more NEW reports released throughout 2021 (1 – 2 times/month).

• Research and insights covered by our comprehensive Essentials of LGBTQ+ Consumers and Essentials of Women Consumers, comprising demographics and expenditure, cultural traits, passion points and media habits.

Our research will provide useful answers to brand questions, including:

Which ad themes and strategies resonate among these segments and why?

How do I engage the modern American woman?

What are the primary passion points for LGBTQ+ and women consumers?

How do LGBTQ+ and women consumers engage across consumer industries?

What are the latest socio-political trends among these segments?

How are Americans across gender and sexuality using social media and streaming platforms?

What are the latest health and wellness trends for women and LGBTQ+ consumers?

What has been the impact of COVID on consumer attitudes within these segments?

Learn more about Collage Group’s multicultural, generational and LGBTQ+ research by filling out the form below.

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