Think about harnessing the ability of your donors to lift cash in your behalf, whereas strengthening your nonprofit’s relationship with these donors on the identical time. Peer-to-peer fundraising makes it doable to do exactly that!

With peer-to-peer fundraising, you’ll be able to elevate cash, multiply your viewers, and strengthen connections with present supporters in a single fell swoop.

In case your nonprofit is contemplating launching its first peer-to-peer fundraiser, or should you’re in search of a refresher on greatest practices, you’re in the proper place. Whether or not you’re a first-time marketing campaign supervisor or a seasoned skilled, we’ll reply any questions that you just may need, together with:

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a strong method to maximize donations and supporter relationships. Let’s dive in so you can begin getting ready to your subsequent marketing campaign.s, however provided that you’re outfitted with the data and motivation to take action. Let’s dive in so you can begin getting ready to your subsequent marketing campaign.

What’s Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a social fundraising technique the place people accumulate donations from their pals, households, and different friends on behalf of a nonprofit group. 

Volunteer fundraisers create particular person on-line marketing campaign pages, set objectives for a way a lot they need to elevate, and leverage their present social networks to ask for donations. When the fundraiser ends, the cash raised by these devoted volunteers goes straight to the nonprofit group.

What’s the Distinction Between Crowdfunding and Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

As its title suggests, crowdfunding refers to securing funding from the gang. The group’s fundraising staff organizes a marketing campaign web page after which asks many people to donate — usually smaller donations like $5, $10, or $50 — to fund a selected venture or trigger.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a multi-tiered method to crowdfunding. You recruit individuals who then create private fundraising pages that their family and friends donate to — therefore the time period “peer-to-peer.” Fairly than requesting donations from one viewers, you will have a big group sourcing donations from quite a lot of completely different networks.

Rolling peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns go on indefinitely and are normally meant for common fundraising functions. Market these campaigns utilizing your social media posts, monthly newsletters, and web site so customers can simply donate or launch their very own campaigns. 

This kind of marketing campaign matches into your supporters’ life occasions, making it straightforward for them to launch a marketing campaign close to their birthday, vacation, or simply as a result of they need to help their favourite nonprofit!

Time-Primarily based Campaigns

Time-based peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns happen inside a selected timeframe (generally round 6 to eight weeks) and are normally tied to a theme or fundraising occasion. A few of the most typical occasions for time-based campaigns embody walk-a-thons, 5Ks or 10Ks, bowl-a-thons, and golf outings. 

This kind of peer-to-peer fundraiser takes extra forethought in the case of scheduling and proactively advertising and marketing the marketing campaign to drive donations.

Giving Days

Peer-to-peer giving days problem donors to succeed in a set aim — or elevate as a lot cash as they will — inside 24 hours. An incredible instance of that is Giving Tuesday, an annual international generosity motion that happens on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to offset the impacts of Black Friday and Cyber Monday consumerism. Problem your donors to lift as a lot cash as doable by means of peer-to-peer fundraising throughout one of the vital charitable days of the 12 months. 

Alternatively, schedule a giving day on another day. Many nonprofits select a day associated to their trigger. For instance, the World Wildlife Fund would possibly arrange a peer-to-peer giving day fundraiser on Earth Day. These campaigns create urgency to your supporters and donors, driving them that will help you attain your aim on this quick time frame. 

How Does Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Work?

Peer-to-peer fundraising is an easy course of that you just’ll want to grasp earlier than you’ll be able to efficiently arrange your marketing campaign. Let’s break it down into steps.

1. Set a Fundraising Objective

Earlier than forming a staff and securing donations, your nonprofit must set a aim for the marketing campaign. This aim shall be a serious driving pressure to your peer-to-peer fundraiser. It provides everybody an overarching goal to work towards and gives individuals with a reference level when creating their private objectives. 

There are two forms of objectives to think about:

1. Monetary objectives. That is merely how a lot cash your nonprofit needs to lift. Bear in mind to think about elements exterior of particular person contributions, similar to sponsorships and registrations in case your marketing campaign will finish with an occasion.
2. Non-financial objectives. These objectives are extra ambiguous and usually pertain to how your group can develop its viewers and influence. For instance, one in all your non-financial objectives could possibly be recruiting a sure variety of new donors to your group. 

As a rule of thumb, your nonprofit ought to set achievable but aspirational objectives inside each of those classes, utilizing previous marketing campaign outcomes as a reference level for what you’re able to reaching. Keep in mind that your objectives must also be achievable inside the timeframe you take into consideration.

2. Select a Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform

Like another online fundraiser, your nonprofit wants the proper expertise to get the job finished. A devoted peer-to-peer fundraising platform empowers your donors to create their very own marketing campaign pages and accumulate donations from their pals and households. They gained’t have to fret about doing something aside from customizing their campaign page to emphasise their connection to your trigger and sharing that web page on-line.

Select a platform that:

• Makes it straightforward to rise up and operating. Your nonprofit ought to be capable to customise its profile, and peer-to-peer individuals ought to be capable to add textual content, photographs, and movies to their campaigns inside a couple of minutes.
• Limits upfront prices to your group. That method, all the cash your supporters elevate will go on to your nonprofit, quite than to pay the platform’s charges.
• Offers donors’ contact data. One of many advantages of peer-to-peer fundraising is reaching new donors. Be sure you can entry every supporter’s full title, contact data, and donation quantity so you’ll be able to observe up after the marketing campaign.

If you wish to get artistic along with your marketing campaign, check out our t-shirt peer-to-peer fundraising platform. 

Bonfire empowers your supporters to launch their very own t-shirt campaigns to help your nonprofit. All they should do is choose your nonprofit because the beneficiary, encourage their pals to purchase a t-shirt, and your group will obtain the funds as soon as the marketing campaign is over. Bonfire will even course of orders and ship the t-shirts on to consumers so that you don’t should.

Providing t-shirts alongside your marketing campaign is a improbable method to drive extra donations. Donors get a tangible merchandise that represents your nonprofit’s function which helps to solidify their alternative in supporting the trigger.

3. Recruit Members and Have Them Create A Private Giving Web page

Upon getting the expertise to create your marketing campaign, begin reaching out to potential volunteer fundraisers. Most nonprofits attain out to their present networks, specializing in those that have already supported their group. This could embody:

• Workers members
• Volunteers
• Donors
• Board members
• Companions
• Previous occasion attendees

Take to completely different platforms (e.g., social media, email, SMS, and so on.) to share the chance and maximize your pool of potential individuals. Some supporters could also be conscious of emails, whereas others could also be extra seemingly to enroll should you name or textual content them. Leveraging a number of platforms successfully expands your attain and makes it extra seemingly you’ll join with completely different supporters.

Irrespective of the way you attain them, share clear, actionable steps supporters can take to create their marketing campaign web page.

Be taught extra: Explore 5 Effective Ways to Get Your Supporters More Involved with Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser

4. Promote the Marketing campaign

Peer-to-peer fundraising is the epitome of teamwork. Between your nonprofit and the marketing campaign’s individuals, everybody ought to work collectively to promote the campaign and drive donations from their networks.

Supporters ought to leverage social media to unfold the phrase to as many individuals as doable directly. Contemplate creating compelling advertising and marketing supplies to your volunteer fundraisers to make selling the marketing campaign on-line as straightforward as doable. Moreover, let individuals know that they’re free to textual content, e-mail, and name their family and friends to solicit donations. All they should do is share the hyperlink to their marketing campaign web page.

Past initially sharing their marketing campaign web page and fundraising function, supporters ought to: 

• Give their networks common marketing campaign updates to encourage them to proceed giving.
• Shout out high donors and problem others to take the lead.
• Share reminiscences, photos, and movies of their interactions with the group, whether or not it’s of them volunteering or attending an occasion.
• Leverage storytelling methods to emphasise why the trigger is so essential to them. 

Equally, your nonprofit can share milestone updates, shine the highlight on standout individuals, and proceed recruiting new individuals all through the marketing campaign. Your fundraising individuals alongside along with your marketing campaign staff are all liable for the success of your peer-to-peer marketing campaign, so be sure that everyone seems to be conscious of how they will do their half.

5. Observe Up with Fundraisers and Donors

Should you don’t continue to engage your peer-to-peer fundraisers, it’ll be straightforward for them to place their campaigns on the again burner after the joy wears off from the preliminary launch. Hold them from dropping steam by constantly reaching out with updates and phrases of encouragement. You would possibly ship a weekly e-mail or create a Fb group to allow them to know the way the marketing campaign goes and suggest methods to step up their efforts.

When your peer-to-peer fundraiser finally involves a detailed, your staff ought to:

• Thank everybody for his or her beneficiant contributions. Ship tailor-made thank-you notes to donors for giving their hard-earned cash to help your trigger. Attempt to greet them by title, reference their particular contribution, and be aware the way it will influence your nonprofit. Do the identical for the individuals who took the time to make your marketing campaign profitable. As soon as the marketing campaign wraps up, let everybody know the way a lot you raised.
• Ensure that everybody receives their t-shirts. Should you offered t-shirts alongside your marketing campaign, attain out to double-check that consumers acquired theirs.

Bear in mind, one of many foremost advantages of internet hosting peer-to-peer fundraisers is to develop your attain and supporter base. Following up proper after your marketing campaign allows you to kick new relationships off on the proper foot and solidify present relationships with those that already help your trigger.

In your group’s foremost fundraising web page, give an summary of who you’re and your nonprofit’s mission. Purpose to transcend simply textual content! Add pictures or videos of your staff members and tasks to your peer-to-peer fundraising web page to point out the faces behind the entire laborious work you do. 

Encourage volunteer fundraisers to take be aware and emulate storytelling strategies in their very own outreach. Present them how you can share their very own connections to the trigger and add private photographs that showcase their involvement, similar to an image from after they completed your annual 5K or helped at a volunteer occasion. It will assist attract new donors and get them extra invested in your trigger. 

Give Your Members the Sources They Must Be Profitable

Make it as straightforward as doable to your donors to launch a peer-to-peer fundraising marketing campaign in your behalf. Present them with a fundraising toolkit that comprises every part they’ll must be profitable. This might embody components like:

• Your group’s official mission assertion
• Model pointers and logos
• Candid pictures they will use to boost their fundraising marketing campaign web page (in the event that they don’t have a personalised one accessible)
• Hyperlinks to your social media profiles
• Social media and e-mail templates they will copy and paste

The better it’s for individuals to rise up and operating, the extra seemingly they’re to take part. Bear in mind, your fundraising and advertising and marketing groups are professionals who know what makes for a standout social media publish or e-mail. Share a few of their experience and provides everybody the instruments they should succeed — and they’ll!

Determine Your Key Supporters to Create Some Preliminary Momentum

As a result of a lot of your success depends in your donors beginning their very own fundraisers in your behalf after which reaching out to their networks, it’s essential that your peer-to-peer marketing campaign begins off on the proper foot. 

You would possibly begin with a smooth launch by asking a number of individuals to start out fundraising first. Determine and attain out to a few of your key donors who’ve demonstrated a robust ardour to your trigger and have a big attain on-line and offline. It will create some preliminary momentum to your peer-to-peer fundraiser, utilizing it as a method to get extra individuals to enroll to fundraise while you do an official launch.

Set Particular person Targets

Because the very first step in your marketing campaign, you must’ve set an general marketing campaign aim to your peer-to-peer fundraiser. That can assist you attain this aim, you must break it down into smaller objectives for each volunteer to attempt towards of their particular person campaigns so that everybody is aware of how a lot they should elevate.

You may give everybody a really useful aim after they signal as much as take part, however encourage them to extend it in the event that they suppose they’re up for the problem.

Monitor and Evaluation Success Metrics

Your work isn’t finished when your marketing campaign wraps up. You’ll have to take the time to overview your marketing campaign’s efficiency to find out whether or not you met your objectives. 

The metrics you monitor ought to relate to your distinctive objectives. These frequent metrics might help you perceive the marketing campaign’s influence:

• Whole funds raised
• Variety of individuals
• Variety of donors
• Common donation quantity
• Variety of new donors

There could also be extra particular metrics it’s good to analyze relying on the fundraising thought you select. For instance, should you sell products like t-shirts through the marketing campaign, be sure that to document the full variety of shirts offered. 

Analyzing this knowledge means that you can measure your marketing campaign’s success and pinpoint your successes and weaknesses. From there, you can also make enhancements that can profit future peer-to-peer fundraisers.

With the fundamental constructing blocks down, you’ll be able to experiment with growing methods that make your peer-to-peer fundraiser stand out. Let’s check out three peer-to-peer fundraising ideas that fundraisers can use to spice up participation and donations.

Supply T-Shirts Alongside The Marketing campaign

Promoting custom t-shirts that characterize your trigger helps your nonprofit unfold model consciousness and maximize donations. Donors usually tend to give after they obtain one thing tangible in return. 

Peer-to-peer fundraising multiplies that influence because you’ll have an enormous staff of volunteer fundraisers promoting the attire. Lengthy after your marketing campaign ends, supporters will consider your nonprofit as a result of they’ll have a customized t-shirt that reminds them of your trigger every time they put on it. Once they put on it in public, they might assist spark curiosity in your trigger for individuals who see the shirt.

Bonfire’s peer-to-peer apparel fundraising platform makes it extremely straightforward for individuals to supply branded t-shirts alongside their campaigns. Right here’s the way it works: 

1. Create your group’s official profile, the place you’ll be able to inform your story, add your emblem, add a canopy photograph, and share hyperlinks to your social profiles and web site. 
2. Select which design choices can be found to your supporters to make use of. Work with our design team to create a customizable design template that supporters can personalize, or you’ll be able to let your supporters create their very own designs.
3. Promote your marketing campaign to your group. Recruit volunteers to arrange their marketing campaign pages, which you’ll be able to show in your group’s profile. The simple-to-use content material editor permits them so as to add textual content, photographs, and movies with out coding.
4. Encourage individuals to share their marketing campaign pages with their pals and households, asking them to purchase a t-shirt to help your trigger. When the marketing campaign ends, the t-shirts shall be shipped to everybody who purchased them.
5. Keep linked with donors after your marketing campaign. You may simply obtain an inventory of everybody who contributed to your marketing campaign out of your Bonfire Dashboard. You’ll additionally get their names, contact data, and donation/buy quantities, making it straightforward to customise your messages. You may instantly import this data into your CRM.
6. Bonus: Use our Bonfire + Stylish Integration. Should you’re already utilizing Stylish for peer-to-peer fundraising, allow the Bonfire + Classy Integration to empower your supporters to simply promote attire alongside their campaigns on Stylish. On the finish of every Bonfire marketing campaign, donor knowledge is routinely synced with Stylish, and the supporters get their shirts.

It’s that easy! All the cash your supporters elevate shall be despatched on to your nonprofit. We be sure that payouts are frustration-free, alerting you when a brand new payout is obtainable and sending it on to you by way of PayPal, verify, or ACH. We additionally supply diminished cost processing charges and free entry to our fundraising platform for all verified 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

Gamify The Expertise

Motivation will naturally be excessive at the beginning of your marketing campaign. Nevertheless, participation might dwindle in case your marketing campaign takes place over a number of weeks. It’s as much as you to maintain everybody’s spirits excessive, and a method to try this is to gamify the expertise. 

In different phrases, you need to make it enjoyable to take part by incorporating aggressive elements like:

• Fundraising thermometers. Holding a operating tally of donations within the type of a thermometer reveals your fundraising staff and donors your marketing campaign’s progress. Members will know to step up their efforts if vital to succeed in the aim, and donors would possibly give a bigger contribution to see how a lot they will make the thermometer transfer.
• Leaderboards. Showcase your high fundraisers or donors to thank them, and encourage others to step up their efforts to get a shoutout. In case your software program doesn’t routinely generate a operating tally of who’s raised probably the most cash, simply showcase the highest performers or contributors in your nonprofit’s social media profile.
• Incentives for reaching milestones. Break up your participant’s objectives into bite-sized items by giving them milestones to work towards. You may pair every main milestone with some kind of reward, like a marketing campaign t-shirt, custom water bottle, or one thing else to encourage them.

Some pleasant competitors goes a good distance in retaining the momentum going all through your nonprofit’s fundraising marketing campaign. Including components like this can encourage everybody to do their greatest, instantly impacting how a lot cash they find yourself elevating to your trigger.

Pair It With An Occasion

Many nonprofits pair their peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns with an enormous celebratory fundraising event to present everybody one thing to stay up for. This helps construct hype round your marketing campaign, improve attendance charges should you had been already planning on internet hosting an occasion, and gives a pure alternative to share fundraising outcomes along with your whole group.

Most frequently, peer-to-peer fundraisers are paired with occasions similar to:

• 5K races
• “A-Thon” fashion occasions
• Galas
• Avenue festivals

Not capable of carry everybody collectively? Strive internet hosting a digital celebratory occasion, like a web-based gala. You may even present hybrid alternatives to interact each your in-person crowd and your at-home supporters. Whether or not you’re assembly in particular person or staying residence, a well-planned occasion is a surefire method to hold everybody invested till the very finish of your marketing campaign.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is an effective way to your nonprofit to raise money, strengthen its relationship with supporters, and attain new audiences. Should you haven’t already, begin outlining your nonprofit’s peer-to-peer marketing campaign technique to take your group’s fundraising efforts to the following degree. From there, construct a fundraising staff of devoted supporters who will go the gap to see your nonprofit succeed.

For extra suggestions that can make your fundraiser a hit, discover these further assets: