New Article Alert!: Taming MrBeast and Managing Clickbait Philanthropy
I’ve recently had an op-ed (co-written with a colleague) published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
It’s called, “MrBeast’s Buzzy, Clickbait Videos Are Warping Gen Z’s Expectations of Philanthropy” and you can read it here.
In case you don’t know him, MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) is a Gen Z YouTuber with a massive following and a penchant for shouting. Since 2017, he’s produced and posted loads of videos of people performing crazy things for large cash giveaways. In 2017 he recreated Netflix’s Squid Game.
In 2019, MrBeast launched Beast Philanthropy and took his brand of extreme challenge videos into the realm of fundraising and philanthropy. (See for yourself: “Saving the World From Your Sofa” and “We Recued Kids Living in a Garbage Dump” among other videos). The op-ed makes the case that MrBeast’s influence on Gen Z’s philanthropic expectations is something fundraisers will have to manage moving forward, and we offer a number of suggestions for fundraisers to consider.
I wrote it with my very thoughtful, smart colleague, Maureen.
Introductions are in order.
This is Maureen. And what she looked like when she was Gen Z’s age:
Let’s get to know Maureen:
Hometown: Silver Spring, MD
Volunteerism: Recently completed a six-year Board term on Columbia (MD) Housing Center Board. Volunteers with Leadership Howard County.
Years Maureen and Dan have been working together: About a year and a half?
Hobbies: Strength training, Peloton (handle is BeastMo), yoga, and golf.
Number of Gen Z children launched into the gaping maw of MrBeast: Two
Book recommendation: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Fun fact: Maureen is our workplace authority on 1980s and early 90s hip-hop, having once explained (unprompted!) the permutations of New Edition and Bell Biv Devoe to me and a colleague.
Unfun fact: Prone to fits of rage and flashes of unmitigated fury when she can’t find her car in a Baltimore parking garage.
Commonly overheard in the Harris household: “There are two votes in this household. Your mother gets both of them.” –Bill to both Gen Z members of the Harris household.
Our op-ed looks at MrBeast’s model of online philanthropy and its influence upon Gen Z.
We make the case that Gen Z’s parasocial relationship with MrBeast (in specific) and “influencer philanthropy” (in general) complicates how fundraisers engage with Gen Z donors. We’re trying to start a larger conversation about what MrBeast promises, what Gen Z says it wants, and what nonprofits are actually able to deliver.
Check it out here!
A fun part of working on this project was getting help from our Gen Z colleagues and children. It was actually the first time either of my children read/commented on anything I’ve written (outside of Substack). Child #1 took me to task in an insightful way:
And one of Maureen’s daughters dreamed up the banger phrase “clickbait philanthropy” when she reviewed the manuscript:
When Maureen and I committed ourselves to this project last November, we met for a quick working lunch in our office’s kitchen and started hashing out the concept. We must have been too hard on MrBeast because a Gen Z colleague (psst!... you met her here!) overheard us and set us straight. She said, “Yeah, MrBeast is annoying as hell, but he puts a lot of money where it wouldn’t have been before. Why is that a bad thing?”
She’s right. It’s not a bad thing. It was the instructive comment we needed to hear at an early phase of the project. And we kept it in mind as we wrote a measured and focused op-ed on what MrBeast does, how he impacts Gen Z expectations of philanthropy, and what fundraisers can do about it.
One more time!: check out the op-ed here and thanks for reading!
More feathered headbands in the workplace, please!
When this showed up in my inbox today, I was thrilled to see someone writing about Mr Beast. Our nonprofit has a somewhat similar approach to giving, in that we believe many good things can happen (and more quickly) when we remove a lot of process and barriers, however our similarities to his style likely end there. So much of his approach - like that of MD Motivator - have turned helping people in a spectator sport where the people in need are forced to endure an audience (& often judgement) they didn’t always ask for in exchange for getting the help they need. It worries me that this is showing the next generation of givers that people need to consent to their images and their stories being sold in order for them to get support. It also worries me greatly that the fast videos and captivating images take out all the nuance and challenge and hard work that goes on behind the scenes at nonprofits-selling “giving back” as an action-packed reality show rather than the important, detailed and often heartbreaking work it often is. Sorry to ramble, this is just a topic that really hits home for me as I try desperately to balance sharing our work with integrity and grace with the current desires of the public to see everything summed up as a Reel or TikTok.
Thanks for starting this conversation.