Do you ever get caught along with your occasion planning? Is your group firmly hooked up to solely “tried-and-true” occasions? If you wish to get unstuck, think about increasing your peer-to-peer fundraising technique past the normal run, stroll, or bike occasion.
That can assist you discover alternate options to been-there-done-that occasions, this publish will spotlight some really inventive and barely quirky P2P experiences. The enjoyable issue is excessive, and so is the sum of money raised. However I wish to do extra than simply encourage you. I’ll additionally present helpful suggestions for launching and selling your distinctive P2P problem, every little thing from enabling solo DIY fundraisers to realize their generally zany private targets to creating positive your app makes donating straightforward for his or her supporters.
And most essential, we’ll cowl the real-world outcomes of next-gen P2P occasions—really spectacular outcomes. Let’s get to it!
Not That There’s Something Fallacious with Run-Stroll-Bike Occasions
Conventional run-walk-bike occasions stay well-liked with nonprofits as a result of they’re nonetheless highly regarded with fundraisers and the communities that donate to their causes. Actually, walks have grown in reputation since 2020, in accordance with the Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report, and nonetheless produce essentially the most income of any occasion sort.
So, there’s nothing flawed with run-walk-bike occasions. Nevertheless, we do know that donor demographics and fundraising strategies are all the time altering. To maintain tempo with the occasions and to make sure future engagement and outcomes, strategy-focused nonprofits are now not concentrating their sources solely on legacy P2P occasions; they’re additionally seeing success in 4 fast-growing classes:
- DIY campaigns: Self-driven fundraising with out direct organizational involvement
- Social fundraising: Campaigns that exist solely on social media, unconnected to a bigger occasion
- Streaming/gaming: Fundraising occasions offered on streaming platforms with no connection to a separate marketing campaign
- Competitions/challenges: P2P occasions with leaderboards and incentives for high performers, with “ambassador” fundraisers competing to boost essentially the most cash, generally tied to social occasions and galas, however usually they’re stand-alones.
Various P2P Occasions
Even when your run or journey is a slam-dunk occasion yearly, increasing your engagement alternatives to incorporate non-traditional P2P events can construct new social networks and enhance your group’s visibility with untapped supporters. That may be a sensible strategic transfer in your mission. Let’s check out some ingenious new occasions that might clean up your P2P technique.
As an alternative of a Stroll, Strive Gaming
Streaming companies that showcase players are enormous proper now. Creating live-stream fundraising occasions may help you join with youthful audiences, offering a useful alternative to get the subsequent era of supporters concerned in your mission. Hit pause, although, when you’re pondering gaming is only for youngsters:
- 35 years outdated is the common age of a gamer
- 83% of parents play video video games with their youngsters, with 51% taking part in with their youngsters at the very least weekly
Like gaming contributors, gaming occasions run the gamut. Generally, they’re a one-off, DIY fundraiser, like a widely known Canadian gamer, Jonny Warren, turning his avid followers into donors for Parkinson’s Canada. He stored their curiosity with challenges and gimmicks, comparable to shaving his head. He raised hundreds for the group.
Need to construct relationships with reside streamers? Listen to our podcast.
Gaming occasions additionally will be deliberate and managed by the group itself, comparable to Sinai Live, a 13-hour gaming occasion that includes NHL gamers and different celebrities, who raised greater than $64,000 for the Mount Sinai Basis in Canada.
Make-A-Want is aware of that youngsters with important sicknesses usually really feel remoted. Gaming may help them keep related to their buddies. The group is so dedicated to gaming, they’ve a fundraising part of their web site dedicated to streaming and encourage the gaming neighborhood to make a critically unwell little one’s want come true by internet hosting their very own fundraisers for the group.
Make-A-Want makes use of strategies that might work for any nonprofit: They supply P2P sources—a toolkit with model logos, messaging, overlays, and suggestions—plus a number of inspiration, with movies and graphics telling the story of how a particular reward quantity might convey delight to a Make-A-Want child who loves gaming.
- Outcomes: Make-A-Want focuses on gaming in two methods: Gaming as a want (it has granted 300 gaming-related needs this 12 months) and gaming as fundraising automobile. An instance of an org-sponsored P2P gaming occasion: the esports manufacturing firm Blue Mammoth Video games organized the Brawlhalla World Championship live-stream broadcast. Incentives all through the match rewarded gamers with in-game objects like avatars once they made a donation to Make-A-Want. In 2023, the live-streamed occasion raised greater than $8,200 for Make-A-Want Georgia.
In case you’re occupied with producing (or encouraging) gaming occasions in your nonprofit, JustGiving® from Blackbaud provides free software program that permits P2P fundraisers to spotlight fundraising pages on their Twitch channel, plus how-to steering to launch a gaming occasion.
As an alternative of a Trip, Strive an Icecycle
Trip occasions stay well-liked as a result of they’re such a vibe. Bike fans are there for the fellowship of the street (or the spin studio) and the grind of the bodily problem. The cash raised in your trigger is a bonus. However conventional rides will not be the one method to roll. Try how one New York group is reinventing the wheeled occasion.
Roswell Park’s Alliance Basis Icecycle to End Cancer shifts gears on the bike expertise by making it tougher—a spinning occasion within the snow in upstate New York—and by making it an actual neighborhood expertise, interesting not solely to bikers but additionally to most cancers survivors and those that love them.
- Outcomes: In 2024, 1,300 Icecyle contributors raised $685,000 for analysis, scientific trials, and quality-of-life applications for most cancers sufferers and their households.
As an alternative of a Run, Strive a DIY (Fill-in-the-Clean) Occasion
Self-motivated supporters don’t wish to wait round in your run occasion. They’ve concepts! Like Jamie Campbell, working the London Marathon wearing a shrimp costume to learn BASICS Essex emergency care. Sure, it’s nonetheless a run, however it’s one thing else, too, one thing distinctly his personal.
DIY might be virtually something: skydiving in your trigger or donating the proceeds of a bake sale. DIYers wish to give their power and character to their fundraising expertise, in order that they create their very own little motion. Mobilizing assist on-line and on social media, they get behind your trigger in their very own method—generally with out you even figuring out they’re doing it.
“Every of them clearly has a strong motivation to do good,” stated Jamie Parkins, Senior Product Supervisor for JustGiving. “And that motivation began with them. It didn’t begin essentially with an affiliation to the trigger. These motivations can’t merely be engineered by a corporation.”
How can your group take part in such a private effort? You may amplify the message of people blazing their very own fundraising path by responding enthusiastically to their social media posts and reaching out to congratulate them when their problem has been accomplished.
Ed Pratt’s Supply to Sea Problem: To boost consciousness in regards to the well being of rivers within the UK, this adventurer accomplished a solo challenge to paddle the length of the River Thames. He recorded his 19-day journey and uploaded movies to YouTube. Alongside the way in which, he set social media challenges for his followers, comparable to naming his watercraft (Thamesy McThamesFace gained).
Pratt was a very good wager for a unusual DIY distance problem: He turned a little bit of a sensation in 2015 by unicycling 22,000 miles around the world, elevating greater than £300,000 for charity.
- Outcomes: By wading, swimming, and paddling the busiest river in Britain, Pratt raised about £22,000 for The Rivers Trust.
Tricks to Make the Most of Non-Conventional P2P Occasions
Now that you simply’re impressed by the creativity and superb outcomes of outside-the-norm P2P occasions, let’s have a look at three strategies that can assist your supporters develop into profitable fundraisers in your trigger.
1. Go Cell
Individuals test their telephones 60 occasions a day. Present a cell app in your P2P occasions. It’s the place and the way you’ll drive essentially the most consciousness and engagement. An app makes it straightforward for P2P fundraisers to replace their private pages and tales. They’ll ship messages and thank-you notes and connect with their social media posts within the app.
JustGiving discovered that fundraisers partaking with a cell app elevate 89% greater than fundraisers who don’t use an app to fundraise for his or her occasion or DIY problem.
2. Gamify the Expertise
Everyone loves a problem, so add activity tracking or leaderboards for fundraisers to trace their progress. Exercise monitoring is a good way for fundraisers to problem themselves or compete with others. Fundraisers who have interaction in activity-tracking and gamification elevate 10% greater than those that don’t.
3. Add Push Notifications
This content material supply mechanism sends communications with a way of urgency, comparable to a reminder or a problem. Push notifications preserve your P2P fundraisers targeted on their targets and motivated to attach with donors. And so they’re more likely to get learn. Roughly 2% of emails are opened vs. 20% of push notifications.
Begin Diversifying Your P2P Occasions
Rigidity and inflexibility is not going to be rewarded in right now’s fundraising atmosphere. That is the time to embrace new concepts, nevertheless massive or small. Take a look at out methods for non-traditional P2P occasions. Your prices and dangers are small relative to internet hosting a run, stroll, or bike. Accomplished effectively, your P2P fundraising event can ship huge year-over-year returns and domesticate lasting reminiscences for contributors.
Need to study extra methods for dynamic P2P occasions? Try our webinar: Level Up Your Participant Engagement—It’s More Than Just a Run/Ride/Walk.