Empower your peer-to-peer donors and fundraisers

Peer-to-peer fundraising is expected to rebound in 2021. This type of giving, supporting an organization via an individual, as opposed to a direct ask by the organization itself, faced challenges in 2020 due to in-person gathering limits and the canceling of events that partnered with peer-to-peer fundraising, like marathons.  

As organizations continue to embrace virtual fundraising, try out a hybrid events model, and in-person gatherings are commonplace once more – peer-to-peer fundraising is fully back on! What can you do to reengage your past supporters and donors to bring some energy back to this successful fundraising practice?  

(Over) Share 

You have to make it ridiculously easy to donate to your organization. Having a dependable fundraising management system is a good start, but you also need to offer and promote multiple giving options. Social media, emails, phone calls, and text messaging are some of the layers of communication pieces that should be a part of any peer-to-peer fundraising campaign strategy.  

And, the right peer-to-peer fundraising management system will allow supporters to customize his/her/their page and share a personalized link on social media.   

Connect 

Peer-to-peer fundraising is all about community. From the feel of an event day to the way donations come in, every aspect of a peer-to-peer fundraiser has community threaded through it.  

Celebrate that!  

Share training updates, top fundraisers, new registrants, and top corporate teams on your fundraising website and social media. Highlight supporters with an “in their own words” feature or video.  

Hopefully, you have technology that allows you to easily host these important impact stories in one place. As you direct people to your fundraising website, they can also register for the peer-to-peer campaign, donate to a participant, and participate in any raffles or auctions you have running.  

And, sometimes an aspect of community and peer-to-peer fundraising is competition. Highlight your top fundraisers and donors directly on your fundraising website. 

Foster the community connection, and your peer-to-peer fundraising will have success!   

Enable  

Back to normal shouldn’t be the goal. As organizations embraced virtual fundraising, they saw new supporters and donors because the limits of geography and time weren’t there. Even if you are doing a live race, walk, or other events – give people a virtual participation option – and host a hybrid event. Consider extending the timeline for participation to the whole week(end).  

This is especially a best practice for peer-to-peer fundraising, people are tapping into their own networks. If your reach outs encourage supporters to recruit friends and family from other states to participate virtually, directly ask for donations from other states and have custom registration options to serve a diverse group, you can make big strides for your mission.  

Sharing varied participation opportunities is one great way to strengthen your peer-to-peer campaigns.  

Embrace 

There is immense opportunity to integrate peer-to-peer fundraising into not traditionally peer-to-peer campaigns. Could your board of trustees have fundraising pages as a part of your gala? Can you encourage golf foursomes to fundraise on top of registering?   

And, let’s not forget voting competitions as a way to boost fundraising. Your supporters can donate to show favor for a recipe, pet, department, building wing, sports team, and more.  

Peer-to-peer fundraising is on the rise, and your supporters are once again ready to rally their communities to make an impact on your mission.