Going Mobile for Millennials

Data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement confirms that media of all types plays a significant role in developing high school students civic knowledge and engagement skills. This is merely an affirmation of what many civic engagement organizations already know: organizations will literally “miss the bus” if they are afraid to beta test new technologies and online organizing strategies to engage Millennials, who are the next generational cohort who need to be served and engaged.

Yet, strategies cannot just center around the “online,” especially in a state like California. The statistics may be somewhat alarming, but the Public Policy Institute of California’s study, California’s Digital Divide, confirms the fact that the largest segment of the state population, Latinos, has the least amount of access to computers and the Internet. Only 58% of Latinos have computers and only 48% use the Internet. While more Millennial Latinos are online than other Latino generational cohorts, these numbers are still troubling.

Communication has to integrate three separate mechanisms: Click, Call and Connect. Although many engagement opportunities happen through Millennials discovering something online and communities are sustained through online participation, demographics that do not have access or knowledge of social networks still need to be engaged through phone calls or one-on-one visceral connections with the staff and participants at engagement organizations.