Harnessing the Power of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: A Guide

Peer-to-peer fundraising (P2P) allows people to advocate for a cause close to their hearts, whether a community organization or a family in need.

When you combine P2P campaigns with other types of fundraising strategies, you can help your non-profit achieve its financial goals. In fact, some organizations have found that peer-to-peer strategies raise significantly more money than traditional fundraising methods.

So, what exactly is peer-to-peer fundraising, and how can you put it to work for you? Read on to find out!

What Is Peer-To-Peer Fundraising?

At its essence, peer-to-peer fundraising raises money for a cause by encouraging people to spread awareness of a campaign within their social circles to increase donations.

In more traditional or centralized fundraising campaigns, organizations ask the community for financial assistance. P2P campaigns take this a step further by asking individual supporters to reach out to their peers to support a cause that resonates with them.

P2P fundraising can quickly spread the word to geographically and socially diverse groups of people that you may not otherwise reach. It also allows just about anyone to start fundraising, even if they are not well-known people or associated with a large national organization.

These campaigns can have all sorts of potential recipients and purposes: helping loved ones afford medical treatment, allowing amateur athletes to attend far-away competitions, or supporting the work of different types of charities.

Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

While all kinds of fundraising campaigns can help you raise money, P2P campaigns have specific benefits of their own:

• Maximize your resources: Peer-to-peer fundraising efforts put your supporters to work for you. By relying on the passions of your existing donor base, P2P campaigns are a cost-effective way to find new donors and spread the word about your organization.
• Build on trusted relationships: People tend to believe those they trust. A recommendation from a friend goes a lot further than a cold call from a stranger at an unknown organization. P2P campaigns capitalize on that trust, allowing your cause to benefit from the relationships of others.
• Boost supporter engagement: P2P campaigns allow your existing supporters to take the reins, which can create a stronger sense of engagement with your organization.

Types of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns come in several forms, some of which you can use together to help you achieve maximum exposure and participation.

Event-Based

Everyone loves an event! Whether you organize around a holiday, season, or other theme, you can capitalize on people’s sense of fun and anticipation to raise funds. You might hold a 5K race, a sports tournament, a summer BBQ, or even a gala-style celebration.

Whatever event you choose, use your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to spread the word. Encourage participants and other supporters to launch their own personal campaign pages before the event.

Time-Based

By creating a sense of urgency, time-based P2P events answer the question, “Why should I donate now?” This common type of campaign requires that you raise funds by a specific deadline. After setting a goal, your organization can provide a running countdown and donation thermometer to encourage people to donate before time runs out.

The famous “a-thon” fundraisers, such as walk-a-thons or read-a-thons, also fall into this category. In these time-based events, participants collect pledged donations for each book they read, mile they walk, hour they dance, or game they bowl in a set period. The longer they go, the more money they generate!

Virtual

Beyond simply spreading the word about your event via social media, you can host your event entirely online. This enables people who can’t come in person to participate. For example, you could make your 5K race virtual, allowing participants to run or walk in their own neighborhood or even on a treadmill at home.

Viral video challenges also fall into this category. Everyone remembers the extraordinarily popular ALS Ice-Bucket Challenge. Turning your campaign into a challenge can help it gain traction.

Find a fun (but safe!) challenge that aligns with your cause, and then ask your community to reach out to their network to promote it. Encourage them to create videos completing your challenge and keep the momentum going.

Team Fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a kind of team fundraising in itself, but you can take team spirit up a notch by organizing your supporters into smaller groups. You can even give each group a name, or allow them to name themselves, to up the fun quotient. Team fundraising events add a sense of camaraderie, strengthen relationships, and encourage friendly competition among supporters.

Rolling

Rolling fundraising efforts are ongoing. While rolling campaigns may have a specific fundraising goal, they don’t set a specific time frame to raise the money. For example, you may simply include a link to your P2P page on your website, hoping that visitors will see it and donate to your organization.

One advantage to rolling P2P campaigns is flexibility: participants can donate whenever it works for them. A major drawback, however, is that these campaigns can quickly lose momentum. While you can help sustain the push with social media updates, time-based and event-based campaigns create a natural sense of urgency.

Setting Up a Peer-to-Peer Campaign

Are you ready to give peer-to-peer fundraising a try? If so, these steps can help you get your P2P campaign off the ground.

Determine Campaign Goal

Even if you’re using a P2P campaign to help your organization pay for operating expenses, you always want to have a specific goal to work towards. Every campaign should have a revenue goal, but you can also set goals for individual participants. Just make sure to allow each person to adjust theirs based on personal needs and time constraints.

Also, remember that not all goals are financial. Your P2P fundraising initiatives may provide non-monetary rewards like expanding your social media presence or enhancing your brand awareness.

Develop Strategies

Just like conventional fundraising methods, P2P campaigns are stronger when backed by solid strategies. Consider the following elements when crafting your strategy:

• Audience: Who is likely to participate in your campaign? What are their interests? Tailor your messages to different segments of volunteers and donors to better earn their support.
• Timeline: Does your P2P campaign center around a specific event? If so, make sure you start recruiting volunteers and creating promotional pages in advance. If your initiative is time-based, should it run for a day, a week, or a month?
• Story: Thanks to a 24/7 barrage of media, it’s not always easy to get noticed. Storytelling strategies help you capture the audience’s attention and motivate them to get involved.

No matter what strategy you choose, don’t forget to take stock of your results at the end to improve future fundraising campaigns.

Recruit Fundraisers

When looking for your first group of peer-to-peer fundraisers, start with volunteers who have helped with previous efforts on your behalf. To pick a target number, try dividing your total campaign goal into achievable amounts per person. For example, if you hope to raise $25,000 and you believe $500 is a fair per-person goal, you will need to recruit 50 volunteers.

What makes an outstanding P2P volunteer? Fundraisers with the following qualities will likely carry your campaign the farthest:

• Passion and authenticity: The best advocates for you are those who truly believe in what you do. Passionate volunteers will put in their best effort for your organization and galvanize their social networks to donate to your cause.
• Strong social networks: Passion alone will only get you so far. You also need volunteers with robust social networks, either in person or online (and hopefully both). The more people your volunteers know, the more quickly they can spread the word. The stronger their relationships, the more influential the message.
• Effective storytelling: People connect with stories. A good story can help an abstract cause stick in people’s minds, tug at their heartstrings, and inspire them to act. Your best volunteers will practice effective storytelling in a variety of ways: personalizing their donation pages, using visuals to illustrate their message, and making emotional connections with the cause.

Set Up a Donation Page

While all kinds of marketing strategies can generate interest in your cause, the donation page is where the magic happens.

Make sure you have a site that accepts donations online and follows donation page best practices. These include pages that have donation thermometers, are mobile-optimized, send automated thank-you receipts, offer recurring donation options, and support digital wallet payment methods.

Selecting the Right Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software

Fortunately, launching a P2P campaign is relatively easy, thanks to the many peer fundraising platforms on the market. While GoFundMe is perhaps the most well-known online fundraising tool, others include Donorbox, OneCause, Mighty Cause, and Double the Donation.

While the ideal peer fundraising platform depends on your specific organization, the following factors can help you choose a fundraising software that meets your needs.

User-Friendly Interface

Software should make your life easier, not harder. Look for a program with a clean interface and intuitive navigation so that your peer-to-peer fundraisers can just get to work collecting donations. Ideally, P2P setup should take a minute or less, and donations should take less than 15 seconds.

Efficient Donation Data

The best peer-to-peer fundraising platforms keep track of all sorts of information, including your most generous donors, most popular donation amount, and most productive days of the week (or time of year). This information gives you powerful insights for future fundraising campaigns, whether you use it to fine-tune the timing of events or to set goals for peer-to-peer participants.

Automated Donation Receipt Tracking

Donation receipts let your donors know you received their contribution and also act as an immediate thank-you. In addition to saving you valuable time, software that automates and tracks this process can do the following:

• Reduce the chances of making an error
• Add donors and donation amounts to a database
• Provide customized templates for different donation types
• Create personalized donation receipts
• Provide information to help donors with end-of-year taxes

Mobile Accessibility

Your peer-to-peer fundraising partners should have access to the campaign whenever and wherever they want, so mobile-friendliness is a must. Look for fundraising platforms that offer mobile optimization, plus Apple Pay and Google Pay, to encourage donations and P2P donations from any device.

Fundraiser Personalization Marketing

Personalization is the key to any modern marketing initiative. A good peer-to-peer fundraising platform will help you tailor your communication to different segments of your database. This way, you can reach everyone on a personal level, whether you want to recruit new volunteers, thank your active donors, or offer a reward for your top P2P fundraisers.

P2P Fundraising Campaigns

To generate support for your P2P fundraising campaign, you can use the following platforms to reach potential donors.

Social

Social media is a powerhouse of photos, videos, and stories, so it’s a natural fit for storytelling. It’s also the perfect place to leverage the social networks that are the backbone of P2P marketing. Your supporters share the message with their followers, who share it with their followers, and so on. With a bit of luck, your campaign may even go viral.

Email

A favorite communication venue in the non-profit sector, email can complement your social media strategies and also enable you to reach people who don’t spend much time on social media. Make sure to tailor your messages to different audience segments.

Direct Mail

You can also send letters directly to your supporters (or potential supporters) via regular mail, asking them to donate or join your P2P fundraising efforts.

Word-of-Mouth

Word-of-mouth may not be a cutting-edge marketing strategy, but it certainly works — and it’s free. Use word of mouth to find new P2P fundraisers, generate excitement for your campaign, or just let others know about your organization.

Challenges of P2P Fundraising

While P2P fundraising has its benefits, you will also want to keep an eye on the following potential challenges:

Lack of Messaging and Control

P2P fundraising needs a strong marketing message, just like any other fundraiser. If you don’t tell a good story, your campaign can fall flat before even getting off the ground. What’s more, because P2P campaigns are decentralized, you run the risk of losing control of the message. Providing solid guidance and storytelling principles to your volunteers can help nip this problem in the bud.

Unclear or Unrealistic Goal

It can be tempting to jump on the P2P bandwagon, but make sure to know what you hope to achieve first. Unclear goals make it harder for people to understand your cause and for you to measure the campaign’s success. Unrealistic goals can actually have the opposite effect than you want: if people believe a goal is unattainable, they may not donate or spread the word.

Ineffective Donation Page

Avoid the common pitfalls of ineffective donation pages by following best practices. For example, a website that is not mobile-optimized may turn away potential donors who are on smartphones. A donation page without automated thank-you messages and receipts may leave donors confused or disappointed.

P2P Tips and Best Practices

If you implement these tips, you should be well on your way toward an effective peer-to-peer fundraising campaign:

• Tell a story: A good story attracts attention, makes emotional connections, and provides a reason to donate.
• Optimize your donation page: Ideal donation pages facilitate contributions by being easy to access and simple to use.
• Support your volunteers: You can help your cause and control your message by providing page templates and storytelling suggestions to your P2P fundraisers. Also consider supplying marketing materials like high-res logos and social media graphics.
• Promote your campaign: Integrate your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign into your marketing efforts by promoting it via email, social media, and your website.
• Recognize your participants: Whether you incentivize volunteers with merchandise or simply send out heartfelt thank-you letters, don’t forget to recognize your P2P participants.

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