What is peer-to-peer fundraising?
This style of fundraising, also known as P2P fundraising, puts the ‘ask’ in your supporters’ hands. Each individual fundraiser (peer) asks their community—friends, neighbors, family members (peers)—to donate to your cause by way of an individual fundraising page or online donation form.
Why does peer-to-peer fundraising matter?
Most of us trust our networks—our family and friends. We are likely more apt to give to someone we know over an organization we don’t know. When you have your supporters ask for donations, they come into the situation with that trust already established. This increases the credibility of your appeal and can lead to more donations.
It’s been found that 1 in 4 solicitation emails from P2P fundraisers (sent by peers) result in a donation. On the contrary, when emails are sent directly by the fundraising organization, the result is an average of just 1 donation for every 1,250 emails.
A peer-to-peer fundraising campaign also expands your nonprofit’s reach; you can get your message in front of donors that you may otherwise not had the chance to reach. Engagement increases and you can build true champions of your organization.
Many times, your supporters can tell personal stories and have direct emotional connections to your cause. An example of this is Katherine Backman’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s fundraising page. Her direct experience of caring for a husband with this disease is a story she shares and why she is passionate about raising funds for this cause. What a powerful story to share for the Alzheimer’s Association.
How to recruit P2P ambassadors
Successful peer-to-peer giving campaigns are done so with great supporters and fundraisers. These can include:
- Board members
- Volunteers
- Social media champions
- Event participants
- Long-time donors
- Beneficiaries
- Alumni or members
These are your core supporters who do much of the heavy lifting on your behalf. They know you the best, have healthy social media networks and the ability to reach more donors.
1. Review your donor database or CRM
Pull a list of the top 20 people you will personally invite to join the campaign. Assign this task to everyone in your fundraising or development department so that these asks are personal and inviting.
2. Make it exclusive
While you don’t want to exclude anyone who wants to be a supporter, think about how you can invite these individual to be champions, captains, in the inner circle or key volunteers of the campaign. These individuals will appreciate the extra time and effort you take in acknowledging the time and efforts they’ll be putting into the campaign.
3. Schedule weekly or biweekly calls
Your key supporters can come from all over with the beauty of video conferencing. Schedule recurring video calls using Zoom, Google Meet, etc., to check in, see how everyone is doing with the campaign, provide support and ideas for reaching their goals.
4. Provide incentives
Send small gift packages or swag from your organization to celebrate milestones—triple-digits raised, the first to get their ‘team’ together, who has the best social media posts in a week, etc. Small incentives and competition make fundraising fun and engaging.
5. Make it easy
Provide your supporters with copy/paste social media content, easy-to-follow directions for setting up their fundraising pages or teams, access to branding elements from your organization to include with their asks, etc. The easier you make it on your supporters, the more likely they are to continue fundraising on your behalf.
Dedicate someone on your team to be the P2P ambassadors’ leader or liaison. This person should check in periodically whether via phone or email to ensure these supporters are feeling good about what they’re doing, that they have all the tools and resources they need, and to gather any feedback throughout the process.
P2P fundraising is a great way to lean on supporters and engage with new donors that are more likely to give. If you’re looking for additional peer-to-peer fundraising ideas, we have a few great resources on our site.
You can read the Feeding the Carolinas P2P case study on our blog. We also have a free Secrets to Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Success webinar available on-demand with an accompanying Peer-to-Peer Giving Campaign Digital Content Cheat Sheet with sample solicitation email, social media and campaign thank you content.
