Earlier this year we shared with you some interesting stats on Australia’s Baby Boomers in our article What You May Not Know About Baby Boomers. However, now it’s time to give a shout out and a BIG pat on the back to the generous Aussie Gen Y’s (generational group born between 1980-1994) who are making it their mission to give back.
Optus RockCorps (a partnership that rewards volunteer work with tickets to exclusive, live concerts with some of the world’s biggest musical acts) has just announced a three year nationwide annual study to examine youth community initiatives in Australia.
The first stage looked into how generous are Gen Ys when it comes to charity and volunteer work. Optus RockCorps have shared with us an infographic below so you can see for yourself how generous young Aussies really are. Gen Ys donate more than 192 million hours to Australian charities every year which equates to $3.1 billion annually, making them the country’s most charitable generational group.
Those stats may surprise you given Gen Y’s often cop flack for being the generation that is quite self obsessed. Clair Madden (Next Gen’ expert and social researcher) reports that “Once derided as the ‘me’ generation, this research shows that Gen Y is actually very community minded and active volunteers.” Clair also states that Gen Y’s are “Far from being insular and self-focused, Australians in their 20s and early 30s are charitable with their time, have a strong social conscience and see volunteering as a way to create a better society.” and you can see the stats for yourself below in the infographic.
Please click on the infographic below for a larger version.
David Epstein, Vice President, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at Optus said, “We believe in the power of youth to make a difference. The Optus Generation We, Not Me report enables us to uncover the positive impact youth volunteering has on our communities, allowing us to support the volunteers of our future.”
Marketing.com.au will continue to follow this research over the next few years and share with our readers the results as they come to hand.
If you can’t remember the last time you gave back to your community, there is no time like the present to start getting involved – it’s not just for Gen Y’s! The Optus RockCorps Collective, celebrates all volunteering activity and Optus gives all volunteers who donate 4 hours of their time to charity a $70 Ticketmaster music voucher. Find out more and sign up here: www.optusrockcorps.com.au/collective/opportunities.
Calie is passionate about all things psychology, marketing, web, social and research. She is also the Managing Director and Co-founder of the Melbourne based digital agency Clickify.
