The newspaper industry is not the only place where the impact of Digital Natives is being felt. Mary Merrill, of Merrill Associates, in her article Recruiting Digital Natives warns volunteer resource managers and non-profit leaders that they need to take another look at their recruiting techniques if they want to attract Digital Natives.

Prensky's article on Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants had a profound impact on Merrill and she began thinking about "how to recruit, train, work, and communicate with the growing number of volunteers under the age of 40 … and I believe the implications for those of us who are digital immigrants is staggering."⁴⁴

Merrill began to think about how Digital Natives use technology and, like Rupert Murdoch, realized that she had overlooked the power of the Internet and its impact on the lives of Digital Natives. She did some research and what she found on-line was astounding.

She typed "volunteering" into Google and found 80,000 matches. She discovered that if you searched the Moster.com job site there is a volunteer center. She went on to discover that if you were searching for real estate in the San Francisco area and used the Craiglist site that there were volunteer opportunities available there. Google offers access to volunteer vacations and volunteer animal rescue opportunities.

Merrill believes that her approach to recruiting volunteers is outmoded. She knows that she needs to start thinking like a Digital Native in order to be able to reach her under 40 volunteer-base. Digital Natives "don't wait to be invited"⁴⁵, according to Merrill. Instead "they are online looking for options and opportunities".⁴⁶ If traditional organizations want to start attracting Digital Natives, says Merrill, they need to rethink their recruiting tactics.

Read Marc Prensky's article on:

Capturing the Value of
Generation Tech