Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful method where your most passionate supporters fundraise on behalf of your nonprofit. While top peer-to-peer programs have seen significant revenue growth, recently reaching $922 million, garnering attention requires more than just a good cause. To succeed and turn donors into active fundraisers, nonprofits must provide a compelling message, effortless campaign setup, and seamless social sharing options.
As rapid-growing technology advancements continue to transform our digital fundraising environment and provide donors with more and better ways to give, one thing that remains constant is the commitment of peer-to-peer fundraisers to their favorite charitable organizations. Peer-to-peer fundraising has been coined as the method for which people fundraise on behalf of their most-loved nonprofit organizations. Your biggest supporters can engage in this type of fundraising by creating their own online peer-to-peer fundraisers, collecting donations from friends and family members in person, or raising funds at a peer-to-peer fundraising event.
For years, peer-to-peer fundraising has proven to be an effective way for nonprofits to raise funds — with $1.76 billion raised at its peak from the 30 top peer-to-peer fundraising programs in 2008. Since then, the top peer-to-peer programs have become stagnant, especially during the pandemic when in-person events were at a standstill. However, in this year’s “2021 Peer-to-Peer Top 30,” revenue from the top 30 peer-to-peer programs reached $922 million, a 3.5% increase from the previous year — the first time since 2008.
With peer-to-peer fundraising yet again on the rise, don’t miss the opportunity to encourage your biggest supporters to help you raise more for your cause. Remember that peer-to-peer fundraising doesn’t have to be complicated — it can be easy for a supporter to take a few minutes out of their day to create a fundraising campaign and share it on their social networks.
10 tips on how to galvanize your peer-to-peer community to donate
- Provide a clear mission statement: Ensure your messaging clearly explains your mission and how it serves the community to emotionally connect with potential fundraisers.
- Drive urgency: Incorporate messaging that highlights exactly how much support is needed and creates an urgent need for immediate action.
- Equip them with assets: Automatically populate eye-catching photos and pre-written messages so supporters can launch their campaigns without guesswork.
- Remove friction in setup: Ensure your peer-to-peer fundraising option is easy to find on your website, utilizing clear "Get Involved" and "Fundraise" call-to-action buttons.
- Leverage AI for giving: Utilize modern donation experiences that feature AI-powered suggested giving amounts tailored to each individual donor.
- Encourage social sharing: Prompt fundraisers to share their personalized campaign links directly to their social media channels immediately after setup.
- Highlight impact stories: Share feel-good stories and financial transparency to show potential donors the tangible, life-changing impact their contributions will make.
- Offer a personalized Donor Portal: Give fundraisers a dedicated space to manage their personalized links, recurring plans, and tax receipts easily.
- Differentiate your cause: Clearly communicate what makes your specific mission unique compared to other similar charitable organizations.
- A/B test the user journey: Regularly evaluate your website's donation flow to ensure supporters are not abandoning the setup process due to hidden roadblocks.
Below we will share three additional things you need to turn your donors into supporters:
- A compelling message that drives fundraising
- A platform that enables simple peer-to-peer campaign setup
- Social sharing options that promote immediate action
1. Message that emotionally connects with peer-to-peer fundraisers
Your peer-to-peer fundraisers are your most loyal and passionate supporters. Your mission resonates with them, they deeply believe in the work that you’re doing, and they want to be a part of the change you’re creating by offering their fundraising support. This network of supporters can create such a considerable impact on your organization and how it is able to carry out its mission. Not only does peer-to-peer fundraising generate additional revenue, it’s also a strategy to boost donor acquisition and retention efforts.
Think about it: Peer-to-peer fundraisers offer their support on an ongoing basis because they feel compassion and empathy for those you are serving or someone they know has been affected by whatever problem you’re trying to solve.
Understanding what drives people to fundraise on behalf of your organization is the key to your peer-to-peer success. But with the growing number of nonprofits, you’ll need more than a good cause to garner the attention your mission deserves.
Take some time to evaluate your current messaging. Does it:
- Clearly explain what your mission is and how it is serving the community?
- Differentiate your mission from other similar charitable organizations?
- Drive urgency for immediate action?
- Highlight how much support is needed to solve your problem?
To share an example, Greater Good Charities does an exceptional job of making its case for support. An organization with a mission of amplifying good by helping those in need of support — people, animals, and the environment — Greater Good Charities shares a full overview of its mission and goals on its “About Us” page.
Using Fundraise Up’s embeddable website Elements, the organization placed a clear and inviting donate button — accompanied by a pulsing heart — under its mission statement. Greater Good Charities also includes additional information on the page about its impact and financial statements. Providing this type of messaging not only gives potential donors full transparency into the organization, it also tells a feel-good story about how the organization’s community of supporters has helped it create life-changing impact, encouraging others to be a part of that change, too.
2. Simple peer-to-peer fundraiser setup
Once your donors are feeling empowered by your work through your effective messaging, they’re ready to start a peer-to-peer fundraiser to further support your organization. But feeling ready to fundraise and actually creating a fundraiser is often set back by a lack of direction. Perhaps there is no information on your website about peer-to-peer fundraising or your designated page is too difficult to find. Whatever the case, it’s best to do some A/B testing to ensure that your supporters aren’t leaving your website at any point during the process due to a roadblock.
The peer-to-peer fundraising option should be easy to find on your nonprofit’s website, like the way Greater Good Charities has done. On the top-right-hand corner of its website, there’s a clear “Get Involved” button. Once a supporter clicks that call-to-action button, all they have to do is navigate down and select the “Fundraise” button.
With Fundraise Up, your most valued supporters can set up their unique peer-to-peer fundraising campaign in minutes — a modern donation experience that includes AI-powered suggested giving amounts that will be tailored to each individual donor.
To make it even easier for your supporters, as the nonprofit, you can automatically populate an eye-catching and attention-grabbing photo and message, like this peer-to-peer fundraiser for people and pets affected by the Ukraine crisis:
Plus, we’ll even give them their own personalized link to share with their friends and family, which they can manage in the Donor Portal — along with any recurring plans and tax receipts they have.
3. Effortless social sharing options
Once your peer-to-peer fundraisers have successfully launched their campaigns, encourage them to share their fundraising efforts on their social media channels. This will help bring more awareness and donations to your mission — it might even inspire their friends and family to start their own peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns with your organization.
Fundraise Up makes it really simple for your supporters by including social sharing options in the final step of the campaign setup:
Are you ready to provide your supporters with a community-driven fundraising platform that is easy to set up and is equipped with AI-powered suggested amounts for customized giving? Schedule a call with one of our team members today.
3 common questions on how to turn your community audience into donors as part of a peer-to-peer strategy
- How do we convince our loyal supporters to start a campaign? Focus on emotional connection. Your supporters already believe deeply in your work; you need to provide them with messaging that transparently shows the impact they can create by taking that next step into fundraising.
- What is the biggest barrier to entry for community fundraisers? A lack of direction and complicated technology. If your website does not clearly direct users to a simple, fast setup process, they will abandon the effort. The setup should take minutes and include pre-populated text and images as part of getting your audience into your peer to peer fundraising platform.
- How can we maximize the reach of a community-led campaign? Make social sharing an effortless part of the final campaign setup step. By integrating social media sharing options directly into the launch process, you inspire their friends and family to donate and potentially start their own campaigns.