Peer-To-Peer Fundraising

What Is Peer-To-Peer Fundraising?

Peer-to-peer fundraising is when individuals organize personal campaigns to collect donations from their peers. These fundraisers can include asking for donations via crowdfunding, throwing occasion-specific fundraisers (like birthdays fundraisers), and participating in events like team fun runs. Peer-to-peer fundraising can also be referred to as social fundraising.

How Does Peer-To-Peer Fundraising Benefit Nonprofits?

Peer-to-peer fundraising benefits nonprofits by expanding their reach past their own contact lists and into the networks of others. Donors have direct access to friends, family members, coworkers, and other peers that may have never heard of your organization. By creating a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, nonprofits get exposure to people they may have otherwise never reached. Those advocating and soliciting donations for your cause do more than just raise money on behalf of your organization; their vocal, public support increases brand awareness for your mission.

Peer-To-Peer Fundraising Examples

Collecting donations through peer-to-peer fundraising requires engaging your audience (or in the case of peer-to-peer fundraising, the audiences of those leading campaigns). While online fundraising can be very effective, it is also worthwhile to explore all of your peer-to-peer fundraising options. Here are some examples of possible peer-to-peer fundraising ideas.

Athletic Events

Athletic events are a great way to get people actively involved in fundraising. Make the event more accessible by including kid and family-friendly events like a kid’s one-mile dash or a family fun walk.

Friendly Competitions

Making your fundraiser a competition is sure to get people excited and engaged. Polar plunges, chili cookoffs, fitness challenges, and beard growing contests are just a few examples of fun and friendly competitions.

Bake Sale

Bake sales have been a go-to fundraising event for as long as people have been raising money. However, you can make your event stand out by having attendees “vote” on their favorite treat by donating to the campaign of the baker who made it.

Holiday Parties

People running peer-to-peer campaigns can easily turn their annual holiday party into a fundraising event. Hosts can include the campaign information on the invite and send out further communication as the event approaches. They can also acknowledge outstanding donors at the party.

Peer-To-Peer Fundraising Strategies

Set your fundraisers up for success.

Fundraisers will be eager to get to work on your behalf, but they may need some tools and support along the way. Set your fundraisers up for success by providing them with materials like pre-written copy, images, and videos they can push out to their peers, and fundraising letter templates.

Choose the right peer-to-peer fundraising platform.

Successful peer-to-peer campaigns require an effective peer-to-peer fundraising platform. Here are some of the features to look for in the peer-to-peer fundraising platform that’s best for you.

  • Individual fundraising pages – Fundraisers will use individual fundraising pages to make updates, upload pictures and videos, and post content to their social media platforms.
  • A central campaign page – The central campaign page will be used to keep track of the progress of the campaign overall. This can be used to post a leaderboard of top fundraisers, track overall donations, and communicate with fundraisers as a group.
  • Communication features – In addition to the central campaign page, you will also need ways to communicate with individual participants. You should be able to send direct messages and share documents, and fundraisers should be able to easily communicate back.

Host an event for your fundraisers.

Hosting kick-off and wrap-up events for your supporters is a great way to keep them motivated and engaged. You can use kick-off events to build excitement, communicate important information, and equip fundraisers with useful materials. Wrap events can be a celebration of the success of the campaign that will hopefully encourage fundraisers to participate again in the future.

Bottom Line

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a way to raise money with the help of friends and family. Peer-to-peer fundraising offers organizations increased exposure, and in turn, more donations.

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