Full disclosure: six months ago, I gave a fair amount of side-eye to the idea that our charity would be on TikTok. It seemed unserious, a bit performative, frankly, and more of a place for viral dance challenges than actual social change. Then I saw a 23-year-old with zero resources raise £47,000 for a homelessness charity in three days with her phone, a ring light, and an absolutely unvarnished sense of self. That’s when the penny dropped: the tectonic plates of charitable giving had shifted irrevocably, and if we didn’t move with them, we’d be irrelevant to an entire generation of potential supporters.
Welcome to the age of the TikTok charity. It’s already here, it’s growing exponentially, and it’s upending every rule we thought we knew about engaging donors, telling stories, and what it means to build a movement around a cause.
The Shift in Gen Z Giving
The first thing you need to understand is that Gen Z – born roughly between 1997 and 2012 – are
a) a big deal and b) not like us.
They’ve grown up in a world where everything from entertainment to advocacy happens at the speed of the internet, and they’ve got very little tolerance for anything that doesn’t feel authentic or immediate.
The way they engage with causes is radically different to Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers. In an age of infinite scroll and TikTok challenges, they want content that’s easily digestible, emotionally honest, and directly from the source. Hand-wringing about ‘slacktivism’ is beside the point; what we’re seeing is a fundamental shift in how charitable work is done, how giving happens, and what it means to support a cause.
The Rise of Micro-Activism
One of the things that really fascinates me is this idea of micro-activism – small, easily achievable actions that together create an enormous impact. This could be signing a petition in a video description, sharing a post to raise awareness, or making a £3 donation with a creator’s fundraising link.
The old model of charity was all about big asks – monthly direct debits, attending fancy galas, volunteering for a weekend. And whilst there’s still a place for that, Gen Z has popularised a different way of giving. It’s more likely to see frequent, smaller actions that feel less of a commitment but add up over time. According to the Charities Aid Foundation, 62% of Gen Z donors prefer to give smaller amounts more frequently rather than make larger one-off donations.
This changes everything from how we structure our asks to how we measure success. Old metrics like average donation size or annual donor retention rates don’t account for the ways young people engage with issues. Someone might give £5 three times in a year, share four of your videos, and convert two friends into supporters. In most charity CRM platforms, that person is barely a blip. In reality, they’re an engaged advocate whose lifetime value could be significant.
Influencers as Gatekeepers
Something that continues to baffle me: Gen Z will often trust a TikTok influencer they’ve never met more than a charity with decades of credibility. A creator with 100,000 followers talking about their experience with anxiety can raise more money for mental health charities than a celebrity-endorsed campaign budgeted in the six figures.
Why? Because they’ve built relationships with their audiences. They share their lives, their ups and downs, their unfiltered selves. When they talk about a cause, it’s not advertising – it’s a friend telling you about something that matters to them. The parasocial relationships that creators build with their followers are a form of social proof that’s hard to fake.
For charities, this is an incredible opportunity – and a huge challenge. The opportunity is obvious: partner with the right creators, and you can reach audiences you’d never access organically. The challenge is that it requires ceding some control over your messaging, trusting creators to tell your story their way.
I’ve seen charities bungle this badly. They want to sign off on every word, enforce brand guidelines, maintain a specific tone of voice. But that’s the opposite of what influencer advocacy is about. The most effective charity-influencer partnerships I’ve seen are ones where organisations provide resources, answer questions, and then step back and let creators do what they do best: make content that’s authentic to their voice and speaks to their audience.
Telling Stories for an Eight-Second Attention Span
“But we can’t possibly fit our whole mission into a 60-second video!” This is the cry I hear most when discussing TikTok with colleagues who are yet to see the light. And yes, it’s true. But the beauty of TikTok is that you don’t have to. You can tell your story across a series of videos, each one a piece of the puzzle.
The key is to think about each video as a moment rather than a standalone entity. Maybe one video is a day in the life of a programme beneficiary. Another explains a common misconception about your cause. A third celebrates a small win or milestone. This mosaic approach allows you to gradually build a picture of your work that’s as compelling as it is comprehensive.
Successful charity content on TikTok usually follows some patterns. The “myth-busting” video is popular, where creators address and debunk common misconceptions about an issue. The “behind-the-scenes” angle works well, giving a glimpse into the nitty-gritty of the organisation’s work. Personal stories from beneficiaries or staff are also powerful. And of course, there’s the direct “call-to-action” video, which straightforwardly asks viewers to take a specific step.
Emotional honesty and visual storytelling are critical here. Gen Z has been consuming video content since birth; they’re visual learners who can absorb complex information quickly when presented engagingly.
A well-crafted TikTok can convey more emotional truth in 45 seconds than a 2,000-word report could ever hope to.
The Tech Divide
The unfortunate truth is that most charity tech infrastructure is woefully unprepared for this new era. Traditional charity CRM and non-profit CRM platforms were built to track mailing addresses, record cheque donations, and manage annual giving. They’re fantastic for that, but when it comes to capturing the fluid, multi-channel engagement patterns of Gen Z supporters, they often fall short.
Take someone who discovers your charity through a TikTok video, clicks to donate £5 through a mobile-optimised landing page, shares your content, tags three friends, and then drifts away for two months before engaging again. How does your CRM capture that? Can it link that specific piece of content to their donation? Can it identify your most valuable advocates even if they’ve never donated more than £10? Can it segment your audience based on engagement patterns rather than just donation history?
For far too many charities, the answer is no. And that’s a problem, because you can’t optimise what you can’t measure. If you don’t know which content performs best, which creators bring the most engaged supporters, or how social engagement translates into long-term donor value, you’re flying blind.
The good news is that the technology is starting to catch up. There are now many specifically designed for the multi-channel, real-time analytics world of digital-first fundraising. But adopting these systems isn’t cheap or easy. A UK charity management system requires investment not just in financial terms but also in staff training, data migration, and organisational change management.
Maintaining Your Essence in a TikTok World
I want to be clear: adopting TikTok charity culture isn’t about discarding everything that makes your organisation great.
It doesn’t mean every charity needs to hire a 22-year-old to make dance videos (although if that’s genuinely you, more power to you). It doesn’t mean abandoning your existing donor base or the fundraising strategies that have served you well for years.
It does mean, however, acknowledging that the future of charitable giving is being written right now by a generation that sees and interacts with the world in profoundly different ways than their predecessors. It means being willing to experiment, to feel a bit uncomfortable, and to believe that authenticity and transparency will serve your mission far better than a veneer of perfection.
Some of the best charities on TikTok are those that have found ways to both honour their legacy and embrace these new platforms. They maintain rigorous standards for impact measurement and financial transparency while also sharing unfiltered glimpses into their work. They continue their traditional fundraising but also create space for micro-donations and peer-to-peer advocacy.
The Future
So, are you and your cause ready for the TikTok charity era? Here’s a few questions you should be able to answer:
– Do you have the tech and processes in place to track and engage with supporters that primarily interact with you through social media?
– Does your non-profit CRM reflect the non-linear and multi-channel nature of modern donor journeys?
– Are you prepared to share authentic, unpolished, behind-the-scenes content that doesn’t always ‘look great’?
– Do you know who your creator-aligned partners should be?
– Do you have mobile-optimised donation journeys that work for spontaneous giving?
– Are you tracking engagement and advocacy as well as donation value?
If you’ve answered no to more than a few of those questions, we’re not going to judge you (much). But we are going to ask you: when are you going to start taking this seriously? Because the TikTok charity isn’t coming – it’s already here. And the organisations that are going to do well in this new world are the ones that start adapting to it, now.
They’ll be willing to learn from experimentation, to build infrastructure that can accommodate both traditional and digital-first supporter engagement, and to think creatively about how to connect with the younger audiences that make up both TikTok and the future of giving. The high-schooler scrolling through TikTok right now is going to grow up to be your most passionate advocate, your most creative fundraiser or your most impactful volunteer. But only if you’re willing to meet them where they are, talk to them how they understand, and invite them into your mission in a way that makes sense to how they engage with the world.
The question isn’t whether the world of charitable giving has changed. It has. The only question that matters now is: what are you going to do about it?
