While it’s getting harder and harder to engage traditional audiences and donations are plateauing, younger people are the great untapped opportunity for the third sector.


The challenge

Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012 are a uniquely purpose-driven generation. They adapt all parts of their lives to reflect their values, from where they work, to what they buy, to what they eat.

Yet, there are plenty of myths that are preventing charities from reaching out to them; from a perception that they’re only ever going to support environmental causes, to an assumption that they’re happy to give their time but not their money.

We think it’s time to bust these myths and explore a powerful audience that’s been overlooked and underserved by the sector for too long. Millions of pounds are being left on the table, not to mention waves of energy and ideas that could shape the future of our sector.


The Solution

Introducing Good Conversations, a pioneering collaboration of 9 of the UK’s leading charities to spend dedicated time with Gen Z.

The programme has 3 core objectives, designed to offer participating charities:

  • The unique opportunity to access an ongoing conversation with Gen Z, and understand them and their lives first hand

  • A wide range of insight driven and action orientated tools (e.g. Personas, Design Principles, Innovation Opportunity Areas) that will be relevant across an organisation (e.g. Insight teams, Innovation teams, Brand/Comms teams)

  • The opportunity to get direct input and feedback from Gen Z in the final 2 week co-creation stage of the programme


The Impact

"We’re really excited be part of the Gen Z community that Good Innovation are running. It offers a unique opportunity to be part of a longitudinal study with an audience that many of us in the sector are grappling to understand. It’s the study we all need, but none of us could afford to commission individually. By bringing together insight leaders from across the sector we are collectively building a an understanding around the joint challenges we are facing, opening up the path to more sector wide responses. And the best bit, Good recognise how busy we all are, and allow us to be as hands on or hands off as we need to be, and provide us with bite size weekly analysis." Stefanie Tetenburg, Head of Support Insight, Children's Society

"For us, the community has challenged our existing perceptions of Gen Z by giving us an in-depth read on how this audience spend their time, fears & hopes for the future, how they consume media etc. Already by week 3, we're able to feed some insight into our Children & Young Person strategy, along with other areas of the business where Gen Z is a priority business." Lauren Barr, Innovation, Crisis

"It's so exciting to be a part of the Gen Z insight work. It's an audience with a lot of untapped potential and the fact we can do this insight in collaboration with other charities makes it even more interesting. Good Innovation are always amazing to work with, and in the years I've been working with them I've always been impressed on the quality of their work and how it impacts the organisation afterwards." Andy Connolly, Innovation, St John Ambulance