How Do You Reach Donors 30 Years Younger Than Your Current Base? | DX Sessions Washington DC

Nonprofit web traffic is down roughly 40% across the industry, and that's not the crisis it looks like. In this DX Sessions conversation, Rupert Schutz of Boys & Girls Clubs of America explains why fewer site visitors can coexist with stronger fundraising results — and what his team is doing to meet donors who now arrive already convinced. Rupert leads digital tools and optimization at BGCA's national headquarters, a federated organization with roughly 1,000 local nonprofits and more than 5,000 club sites across the U.S. and on military installations. He sits down with Bryan Funk of Fundraise Up to talk through the shifts reshaping digital fundraising right now: → Why AI is rewriting the top of the donor funnel. Search traffic is falling (a trend flagged in this year's M&R Benchmarks study), but the visitors who do arrive have already done their research. Rupert explains why "if you're seeing your web traffic down, do not panic" — and how BGCA is rebuilding its highest-intent pages for answer engine optimization instead of traditional SEO. → How to write for a donor instead of an internal audience. AI tools flagged BGCA's own programs page as reading like an internal pick list rather than something that tells a parent what the organization actually does. Rupert covers the rewrite: why you should donate, what the need is, what the service provides. → The generational gap hiding in your QR codes. BGCA's average donor is in their 70s. Their QR code activations — with partners like Planet Fitness and Cox Automotive — are reaching people decades younger, with completely different expectations about how giving should feel. → Why monthly donors really lapse. BGCA sees monthly giving fall off around the eight-month mark. Rupert's take: it isn't an eight-month problem, it's a day-one problem. "We did not water the seeds and let them know what fruit they bore." → Removing friction without losing data. Why BGCA made address optional, where it sits in the flow now, and how to think about what you actually need at the moment of the gift versus after it. → Doing more with a small team. How a nimble team moves budget mid-quarter when something is working, and why being a willing testing partner has opened doors a bigger budget wouldn't have. Rupert closes with the advice he'd give any fundraiser heading back to their org tomorrow: you don't have to do everything at once. Give yourself grace, and build a little more every year. Chapters 00:00 – Inside BGCA's federated model 01:15 – Moving digital revenue out of Q4 02:14 – Where the channel mix is working now 03:31 – Reducing friction on the donation experience 05:19 – AI, falling traffic, and the new donor funnel 06:38 – Answer engine optimization in practice 07:12 – Telling the story behind the statistic 10:32 – Why monthly donors lapse, and the day-one fix 12:26 – QR codes and a much younger donor 16:05 – Making address optional 17:16 – Audience Q&A: phone numbers and SMS 18:31 – One thing you can do tomorrow