Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Your Nonprofit’s Guide
Imagine that your closest friend has been talking about their favorite nonprofit and the amazing work they do. Your friend even started volunteering for this organization on the weekends. At a recent community event, you recognize the nonprofit’s logo and feel compelled to go talk to them. You can’t help but feel impressed by their mission—especially after hearing your friend rave about their work—so you make a donation.
Getting involved with an organization you admire can spark interest in your closest friends when they observe how much you enjoy supporting their mission. Peer-to-peer fundraising works the same way. When your nonprofit’s current donors share their involvement with their close friends and family, it can spark a chain reaction of network growth and increased support.
Don’t shy away from getting started with a peer-to-peer fundraiser. Trust in your dedicated supporters, and provide them with plenty of resources to speak authoritatively about your organization. Then you’ll be off and running with your fundraising!
In this guide, we’ll walk through the basics of peer-to-peer fundraising and how to implement the strategy into your campaigns.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising FAQs
What is peer-to-peer fundraising?
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a common strategy in which nonprofits empower their current supporters to reach out to their own online networks of friends, family, and colleagues for donations. Referred to as P2P by the nonprofit sector, this type of fundraising campaign is an effective way to involve your most engaged donors and expand your organization’s community.
Don’t mistake peer-to-peer fundraising with crowdfunding, in which the organization itself promotes a campaign to get many individuals to donate to their cause. Peer-to-peer fundraising is more personalized and involves fundraisers gathering donations from their personal networks.
Unlike other fundraisers, peer-to-peer fundraising has a decentralized structure, giving your fundraisers the freedom to individually reach out to their networks.
Is peer-to-peer fundraising right for you?
Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are customizable for every organization, but having a tight-knit supporter community can be helpful for launching this kind of campaign.
If you’re looking for a way to expand your community, spread awareness of your cause, and increase donations, look no further than your current community. Here are some characteristics that make for strong peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns:
Team-based organization
Highly-engaged supporters
Strong following on social media
Dedicated ambassadors for your organization
Peer–to-peer fundraising creates the perfect connection between your cause and your supporters. By opening the fundraising opportunity to your community, you’re inviting them to engage with your cause and increase their personal impact, which is sure to inspire their own networks to get involved.
Why is peer-to-peer fundraising effective?
Donors and volunteers are foundational to nonprofit success. Peer-to-peer fundraising leverages your dedicated supporters and their networks to expand your own community.
According to Neilsen’s annual Global Trust in Advertising survey, 89% of people trust recommendations made by their close friends or family. This is called “social proof,” and for nonprofits, it’s the reason why P2P campaigns can be so effective when planned and managed well.
Close personal networks are also more likely to hold similar values and interests—so your prospective donors can be brought to you instead of finding it through trial and error. Rather than starting fresh when acquiring donors, peer-to-peer fundraising enables you to utilize your already established network to make new connections.
Because of the personal connection between your peer-to-peer fundraisers and the donors they recruit, the new supporters are more likely to stay engaged once involved. If new supporters join through their own network, you can easily offer the opportunity to join local volunteer/membership groups, laying the foundation for long-term support, engagement, and retention.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Best Practices
Supporters may be eager to contribute to your organization's cause beyond donating and volunteering. Promoting your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign can be a great way to engage supporters who want a more hands-on approach to support your nonprofit. Let’s take a look at some best practices that can help you and your supporters start off on the right foot with a peer-to-peer campaign:
Recruit Engaged Donors
Look through your volunteer and donor databases to identify your most dedicated supporters. Logged volunteer hours, event work, or recurring donations are good indicators of how involved your supporters may want to be.
Let your current supporters know that you’re looking for volunteers to help out with a peer-to-peer campaign. Then, hold an in-person or virtual information session to teach your current supporters about peer-to-peer fundraising and what their responsibilities would be, like reaching out to their personal networks and engaging their friends and family with your organization’s cause. Laying out these responsibilities early ensures that you gather committed fundraisers right off the bat, so you’re not wasting anyone’s time or your nonprofit’s resources.
Equip volunteers with talking points about your organization such as:
Your mission
How donations are used in the organization
The goal of your campaign
Ongoing initiatives
Next steps after donating or becoming a volunteer
Where to direct people for more resources
Once your volunteers know how to represent your organization, they’ll be able to act as ambassadors speaking authoritatively on your behalf and sharing your content confidently.
Create Shareable Content
To leverage the exponential effect of peer-to-peer fundraising, be sure that the content your fundraisers share can be shared by their donors. Captivate potential donors by including eye-catching visuals. For example, you might incorporate the following:
Calls-to-action. A call-to-action is a word or phrase that gets people to do something. This might look like a creative tagline or request to film a video challenge after donating.
Images or videos of real people. Encourage donors by showing there are real people hard at work for your cause.
Eye-catching statistics. Teach people why you’re working for your cause. If you provide relevant and fresh information, it can be shared and used more widely.
Fundraising updates. Congratulate your fundraisers and donors regularly so they can see how their contributions are adding up, and inspire them to reach out to more of their networks.
Reaching a diverse array of demographics is one of the greatest advantages of peer-to-peer fundraising. Different audiences access information in different ways, so make your content easy to share on multiple communication channels. Consider using some of these communication methods:
Email marketing
Text
Social media
Direct mail
Equip your fundraisers with sets of visual assets for the campaign that can be shared on their platforms of choice. Creating these templates will make it easier to spread your message while maintaining your brand identity.
Create Campaign Pages
Staying organized with a large-scale peer-to-peer fundraiser doesn’t have to be difficult. Create campaign pages online so you and your volunteers can keep track of donations and your goal progress.
Specifically, you should create the following:
Central campaign fundraising page. Create a main page where fundraisers and participants can view the campaign’s progress. This is a great place to highlight fundraisers leading in contributions and to share information about your campaign’s grand finale event if you’re hosting one.
Individual fundraising pages. Have individuals or teams of fundraisers create their own page for the campaign. Fundraisers can share their pages with friends, track their progress, and show donors their impact. Peer-to-peer fundraising software comes in all shapes and sizes today and makes it easy for volunteers to create and customize their own pages.
You can also use a mixture of centralized web pages and individual pages to stimulate more involvement. It’s helpful to show how individual peer-to-peer fundraisers and their online networks contribute directly toward reaching your organization’s goal.
Get Your Staff Involved
Don’t hesitate to get your staff, board members, and leadership involved in the fundraising process! Use the same shareable content for your employees, so they can also spread awareness of your ongoing campaign. Everyone in the organization can act as fundraisers. The more people who are fundraising, the better the results!
Your leadership team can also serve as ambassadors to speak authoritatively about your organization. Use this opportunity to give supporters an inside look into the nonprofit and energize your fundraisers. Having your higher-ups get in on the fundraising can inspire donors and rally new enthusiasm.
Set Goals
By setting an ambitious yet reachable fundraising goal, you can capitalize on participants' natural competitive nature. By setting a goal for your fundraiser, you can provide donors with a tangible endpoint, making them feel like they participated in your mission. Be sure your goal is set for a definitive date, so donors are actively excited to donate and not delay their contribution.
Relate your goal to one of your current or new initiatives, and explain why that goal will help your cause. If your peer-to-peer fundraiser is awareness-based, challenge your fundraisers to get as many people as possible to learn about your cause.
Online campaign pages are a great place to keep an updated donation total that shows progress toward your goal. It is important to update fundraisers and donors on the campaign's progress toward the set goal, which can encourage them to continue their outreach efforts.
Whether your peer-to-peer fundraiser is a small, local campaign or a nationwide effort, you’re sure to grow your community and raise funds for your cause. Implement these best practices to make your campaign accessible and easier to engage with!
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Tips
It’s important for your nonprofit to stand out from the crowd, especially during an online campaign. Add some edge to your campaign and raise more by implementing some of these peer-to-peer fundraising tips.
Host Appreciation Events
Consider inviting your fundraisers and new supporters to a grand finale event. This is a great way to welcome new donors while congratulating your fundraisers for all their hard work. With both sides of your supporters at the event, this can help foster a sense of community. You might choose to host one of the following types of events:
Gala
Walk-a-thon
Casual luncheon
Sport tournament
You can present fundraiser teams or individuals with prizes at the event that showcase how much they’ve raised for the cause. This culmination event can also incentivize your fundraisers to raise more during the campaign.
Use Fun Merchandise
Branded merchandise can help you strengthen your brand identity and motivate potential donors to participate.
Trendy items like stickers or catchy taglines can add flair to your merchandise and help you attract more donors. Try to choose items that are related to your cause, such as handmade coffee mugs for art-focused nonprofits or dog bandanas for animal shelters. Consider branding products such as:
Water bottles
T-shirts
Stickers
Tote bags
Bracelets
Mugs
By selling merchandise for your peer-to-peer fundraiser, the donors who purchase items can easily spread awareness of the campaign simply by using your branded items.
Use a Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
Implement an online peer-to-peer fundraising platform for the easiest workflow. You can collect volunteer data and donor data, and easily track funds being raised to gain information along with donations during the fundraiser.
Look for features like donor management, payment processing, volunteer management, and report automation to enhance your campaign. There are many platforms that integrate directly with your CRM for a simple setup process.
Hire a Nonprofit Fundraising Consultant
If you’re new to peer-to-peer fundraising, but think it can be a great campaign for your nonprofit, speak with a nonprofit fundraising consultant for expert assistance.
With their experience and third-party perspective, consultants can help you create a game plan for your fundraising that best suits your donors, audience, and organization’s mission.
Not sure what to search for in a consultant? Look for a consultant who can serve as a true partner to your organization throughout the campaign planning and implementation process. The right consultant will be willing to workshop ideas and introduce new strategies to your game plan while also respecting your vision and expertise.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas
As you launch your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, invite your supporters to your upcoming events so they can learn about your cause and hopefully become donors themselves.
Here are some ideas to spice up your next P2P campaign!
Telefundraising
Kick off your peer-to-peer fundraiser with a telefundraiser and have supporters call their personal networks during the event. Prior to the event, the fundraisers can send out information about your cause and nonprofit so potential donors have more information going into the call.
This can pair well with a live video event where volunteers can update the funds being raised in real-time. You can also have your fundraisers set up their own live video of themselves encouraging people to donate.
Gift Matching
Encourage your team to reach out to their networks for donations and have potential donors check if they are matching gift eligible. Donors who are eligible can submit their donation information to their employers and have their donations matched at a 1:1 ratio or, sometimes, a 3:1 ratio! This can exponentially expand the campaign’s impact and encourage donors who think their contribution is not large enough.
A-Thon Events
Run-a-thons, walk-a-thons, or dance-a-thons are the perfect types of events to integrate into a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. Because these events usually gather a large audience of dedicated donors and new donors alike, it can help make the fundraising efforts feel more personal.
Have your fundraisers gather support and pledges during the campaign leading up to the event. Their personal networks can pledge to donate a certain amount of money for every hour they participate in the event or how many actions they complete (like miles walked).
You can also have your peer-to-peer fundraisers sell a certain number of tickets as their objective. This can increase your event participation and overall fundraising results by getting people involved in other activities throughout the event. For example, you might set up:
Information tables. Have volunteers for attendees to speak with about getting more involved in the organization.
Donation kiosks. Place automated donation stations around the event for people to donate throughout the day.
Concession stands. Raise more funds and satisfy attendees’ appetites with this tried-and-true fundraising event staple.
Creative Events
If your peer-to-peer fundraiser goal is based on raising awareness for your cause, creative events and challenges can make your campaign more memorable. Your fundraisers will still reach out to their personal networks, but their requests will be a little different than just asking for donations.
Create an activity for participants to complete to show their support for your cause like:
Wear merchandise in support: If your organization supports a cause that has a designated national day, week, or month, such as Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week, encourage people to buy a shirt to wear in support on a specific day. This can encourage supporters to engage with your educational materials on the day of purchase, when receiving the item, and during the awareness time period.
Video or photo challenges: Have participants submit a video or photo of themselves completing a challenge you created for the campaign. Try to embed your cause into the challenge so you’re spreading awareness and not just a viral trend. This could be a simple silly photo with a caption describing their experience learning about the cause or an actionable video like the legendary ALS ice bucket challenge.
The more unique your challenge, the more memorable it will be. It might even go viral!
Wrapping Up
Peer-to-peer fundraising can be customized to best fit your nonprofit’s needs. Depending on how much you want to rely on your volunteer fundraisers or what your goal is, you can vary how much of the campaign is online, how involved you want new donors to be, or if you’ll pair it with one or more events. The possibilities are endless!
Peer-to-peer fundraisers can be a lot to take on, so consider speaking with a fundraising consultant to help. Their expertise in the nonprofit sector can help tailor your next peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to help you earn more.
If you’re looking to start a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, here are some additional resources to get you started:
Step-by-Step Fundraising Plan Template for Nonprofits. The first step in a successful fundraiser is planning. Plan your next fundraiser with this customizable template.
Creating a Fundraising Strategy: 12 Steps for Your Nonprofit. Learn how to create a winning fundraising strategy with this step-by-step guide.
Nonprofit Consultants: 5 FAQs & Our Top Recommendations. Want to level up your nonprofit’s current strategies? Work with a fundraising consultant! Learn what to look for when hiring a consultant.
How to Start a Nonprofit Organization: A Step-by-Step Guide. Thinking of starting your very own nonprofit? The process can be a little daunting. Follow our step-by-step guide!
