"Yes, and ..." the Great American Wealth Transfer and the Club Sandwich Generation: Solutions for When Trends Collide
Updated: Sep 7
During lunch with a terrific board chair and donor, let’s call her “Diane,” I asked if her friends are increasing their donations as part of the Great American Wealth Transfer. Diane is on the tail end of the Boomer generation, has served multiple organizations, is a philanthropist herself, and is well connected to other donors in the area. In other words, she has a front-row view of one of the most anticipated periods in American philanthropy.
Since the 1990s, we’ve heard about the Great American Wealth Transfer – an anticipated enormous transfer of accumulated wealth from the Boomer to Gen X and Millennial generations. The amounts predicted have been so large, $105 trillion to heirs and $18 trillion to charity through 2048, that it hasn’t been that clear how to prepare, beyond “be great and be ready.” Be great at the service provide and be ready with the right work to earn as much of that $18 trillion as possible. 1
The Transfer began as a trickle in the late 1990s and has accelerated over the last couple of years. There’s no shortage of advice about how to stand out in a crowded field of worthy nonprofits. But there’s a “yes, and” to this story that needs our attention.
The Club Sandwich Generation
Diane’s answer to my question wasn’t what I expected. Are her Boomer peers giving more as anticipated? “Actually, not really,” she answered. “From what I see, for many Boomers wealth is no longer simply something to pass on. It is a resource used to support family across generations. For some this includes elderly parents who have outlived their financial resources, along with their adult children and grandchildren.” Many of her friends can’t seem to age out of the Sandwich Generation.
Dorothy Miller, a social work scholar, coined the phrase the “Sandwich Generation” in 1981.2 Miller’s catchy expression was meant to describe women in their 30s and 40s who faced caring for young children alongside the demands of employment and care for aging parents.
Today, though, the Sandwich Generation extends well past the 30s and 40s and is no longer only about women. With pressures from as many as two generations below and one above, caregiving writers have borrowed columnist Carol Abaya’s term the “Club Sandwich Generation” to describe this group.3
The data speaks to this shift:
75% of parents age 45+ are financially supporting at least one adult child 4
47% increase in Americans age 65+ projected by 2050 5
82% of parents are willing to make a major financial sacrifice for their adult children 6
45% of affluent households that didn’t give in 2024 cited family financial needs, nearly double the share (25%) that cited a lack of connection to an organization7
Jason Stern, CEO of GenBridge Partners, a firm specializing in family succession planning, shared, “My clients want to continue supporting the charitable causes they care about while also recognizing the growing financial pressures facing their extended families. College tuition continues to rise, vacations are more expensive, and in many communities, the prospect of young professionals purchasing a home on their own is increasingly out of reach. At the same time, charitable giving remains an important family value.”
Despite thoughtful cultivation and deep care for important causes, for a subset of our donors, their part in the Great American Wealth Transfer might not equal increased donations. I don’t want to overstate the reach of this trend. The K-shaped economy we’ve been in for many years means that significant wealth is being accumulated, and we are seeing some of the largest gifts in history (more about successful fundraising in a K-shaped economy here).
Even so, there’s an opportunity to fine-tune the way we identify, cultivate, and solicit some of our donors who are managing multigenerational financial commitments.
Success Strategies
It makes sense that experts point to planned giving to maximize the Great American Wealth Transfer, but planned giving is a catch-all describing many ways to give strategically. The dynamics facing the Club Sandwich Generation push us to focus on a particular type of planned giving and to deepen the way we engage multiple generations.
With guidance from a planned giving advisor, donors can use two-life charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts to benefit the Club Sandwich Generation, those they support, and the organizations they care about. These methods can provide donors an immediate tax deduction and an income stream for adult children and grandchildren. Later, the chosen nonprofit will receive funds to support its mission. If the organization recognizes the gift right away, the family strengthens its tradition of giving and inspires other donors to give.
This isn’t a hot take. It’s a reminder that life-income agreements can do more than substitute for a reverse mortgage or guarantee income for a single donor. For Club Sandwich Generation donors, these tools might be less about income for themselves and more about the ability to take care of their adult children while also securing support for an organization they care about. [1]
Playbook
All of this only matters if we really know our supporters. Too often we mistake a surface-level understanding of our donors for real, meaningful, earned awareness of the waxing and waning influences in their lives.
With lean staffing on most fundraising teams, how we spend time makes all the difference.
A surgical approach to data and processes built on accountable collaboration are our best approaches. If I were leading a frontline fundraising team, here’s the playbook I’d follow.
1. Query
Consistent annual giving donors 60-80 years old
A gift capacity (not net worth) rating of $500K-$5M
If possible, narrow the list to those with adult children
2. Strategy
With this list in hand, I’d gather the frontline fundraisers and anyone else with important donor intel and dig in. What giving trends do we see for each person? Have we put in the time and effort to know these donors beyond a surface level? Do we know what financial pressures they’re facing? Are we connected to their financial advisors and any board members who may know them?
3. Focused engagement and marketing
After collaborative and strategic discussions about each donor, I’d develop creative ways to pull planned giving vehicles out of the website netherworld and into messaging and conversations that makes their benefits unmistakable.
Beyond digital presence, Stern offers that after helping many high-net-worth families develop multigenerational plans, it’s vitally important to “involve the younger generations and to use philanthropy to reinforce family values while teaching the responsibilities that come with financial resources. When nonprofit organizations partner in this work, it can be a winning formula.”
4. Solicit
a) In person - Our solicitation conversations should always focus on addressing something important for both our organization and our donor. In this case, that’s even more essential. Make sure we’re earning the trust of our donors and asking questions that get below the surface.
A few options to consider:
“How are you thinking about philanthropy differently today than five years ago?”
“If money weren’t a barrier, what impact would you like to have at our organization?”
“Is your family talking about philanthropy or are other financial demands pulling your attention away from giving?”
b) Direct response mail and email - With the list ready, this group could make an interesting pilot for direct response. In an email outreach, we could include a scenario that makes it clear how a life-income agreement could help them support both their adult children and our organization. We’d then include an easy way for them to run the calculations themselves or to reach someone on our team for an illustration.
The complexity of the day means we can’t treat any generation of donors as a monolith. We also need to look at the Great American Wealth Transfer as an opportunity, not a panacea. The “yes, and” deserves our attention. The stakes are high and how we respond makes a real difference both to our donors and to those we serve.
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Disclaimer
This content is for informational or educational purposes only. It is not financial advice. Always do your own research, and encourage your donors to as well, in or speak with a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
References
1 Cerulli Associates (2024, December) “Cerulli Anticipates $124 Trillion in Wealth Will Transfer through 2048.” https://www.cerulli.com/press-releases/cerulli-anticipates-124-trillion-in-wealth-will-transfer-through-2048
2 Miller, Dorothy A. (1981, September) “The ‘Sandwich’ Generation: Adult Children of the Aging,” Social Work, Volume 26, issue 5, pages 419–423, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/26.5.4193
3 Kulsum, Nafisa & Suratman, Andriyastuti. (2026, April). “Job Hugging Phenomenon’s for Sandwich Generation and Its Strategic Coping” International Journal of Business and Applied Economics. 5. 667-686. 10.55927/ijbae.v5i2.9 [Note: Embedded reference to Carol Abaya; no direct citation found]
4 Perron, Rebecca, AARP Research (2025, November) “Parenting Adult Children Impacts Parents in Both Positive and Negative Ways.” https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/work-finances-retirement/financial-security-retirement/midlife-adults-supporting-adult-children/
5 Mather, Mark; Scommegna, Paola (2024, January) PRB “Fact Sheet: Aging in the United States” https://www.prb.org/resource/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/
6 Merrill Lynch/Age Wave, (2018) "The Financial Journey of Modern Parenting" https://mlaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ml/registration/ml_parentstudybrochure.pdf
7 Bank of America Private Bank, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (2025, September) “The 2025 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy: Charitable Giving by Affluent Households”
