In 2016, Achieve, supported by the Case Foundation, seized upon a rare opportunity to examine how a national socio-political event might influence millennials’ attitudes toward cause engagement: the U.S. presidential campaign.
We hypothesized that the issues of interest to millennials would change during the political season based on where they aligned ideologically, and that their cause-related engagement would increase via both social media and traditional activism.
We reported our findings in three waves and a final report. Highlights included:
- Millennials identify as more conservative-leaning than liberal.
- The majority of millennials have little or no trust that the government will do what’s right.
- Millennials only somewhat believe that they are activists.
- Most millennials believe people like them can have an impact in the U.S.
Download 2016 MIR Wave 1
The 2016 Millennial Impact Report investigates how millennials’ cause engagement behaviors may change during an election year, and how these changes may be influenced by important demographics such as gender, age, geographic location and race/ethnicity. The Wave 1 Trends Report details the overview and methodology of the 2016 study as well as trends from Wave 1 (March-May).
- The percentage of millennials who believe they can make the country a better place to live dropped, most notably among females.
- Even when millennials stated their support of or opposition to an issue, they didn’t show a strong affinity for direct action.
- By the end of Wave 2, more than a quarter of millennials surveyed did not want to vote for either major party candidate in November.
- Facebook is still the most popular social media platform on which millennials post about issues they care for.
Download 2016 MIR Wave 2
The 2016 Millennial Impact Report Wave 2 reveals new trends related to millennial engagement with causes during the 2016 presidential election cycle and investigates how organizations can motivate this generation to donate their time, money or skills to their causes during election years.
The second wave of data surveyed millennials from June through August 2016.
- A third of millennials said they either wouldn’t vote at all or for a major party candidate just a month before the election.
- The percentage of millennials who held a neutral political ideology grew throughout the research period.
- Millennials didn't feel loyalty toward political parties, but instead voted based on which issues they cared about and which candidates they believed best spoke to those issues.
- Education remained the number-one cause issue throughout each wave of research before the election. Yet, post-election interviews revealed respondents moved away from this previously reported position, ranking employment, economy and health care before education.
Download 2016 MIR Wave 3
Wave 3 of the 2016 Millennial Impact Report examines millennials’ self-identified attitudes and voting intentions, especially during the last three months before Election Day, which may help researchers and reporters across the country explain why so many of us were caught off guard at the results of the nationwide vote.
- Millennials neither see themselves as activists nor exhibit much overt action in support of causes they say they care about.
- Through social media, Millennials educate themselves about causes that capture their interest and share what they learn.
- Millennials have a strong desire not to create tension or spark arguments within circles. Millennials share information, but they won’t usually try to change anyone’s mind.
- Millennials want government to become less divisive in order to accommodate what they see as society’s increasing open-mindedness toward many formerly contentious social issues.
Download 2016 MIR Final Report
The final report of the 2016 Millennial Impact Project is the culmination of a year-long study investigating the connection between millennials’ cause engagement and their political ideologies. After analyzing each wave of data and its trends, the final report concludes that millennial preferences will require nonprofits and causes (as well as the companies that support them) to adjust how they inspire this generation to become advocates and donors.