Peer-to-peer fundraising has grown in popularity among nonprofits of all shapes and sizes. Not only is it a great way to raise revenue, but this fundraising style empowers your supporters to fundraise on your behalf. As a result, your participants feel more connected to your organization, energized to fundraise, and equipped to spread awareness for your mission.
However, before your supporters can launch into peer-to-peer fundraising, they’ll need your guidance. A participant toolkit can give supporters the knowledge, resources, and confidence they need to ask their networks for donations and generate fundraising success.
While there’s no single right way to create a fundraising toolkit, there are several best practices to keep in mind to set your nonprofit up for success. This article will walk you through the basics of peer-to-peer fundraising and how to prepare your volunteer fundraisers.
With a strong peer-to-peer fundraising team, your nonprofit can grow your reach, boost revenue, and make existing supporters more passionate about your cause. Let’s begin.
What is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a fundraising technique in which supporters raise funds on your organization’s behalf. These fundraisers create personalized fundraising campaign pages and share them widely with friends, family members, and co-workers. This opens your nonprofit (and fundraising efforts) up to new audiences, growing your reach and increasing the effectiveness of your fundraising campaigns.
There are many different ways to incorporate peer-to-peer fundraising into your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy. Your team can create a standalone peer-to-peer online fundraising campaign, or you can pair peer-to-peer fundraising with an exciting event like a run, walk, or ride. The OneCause guide to peer-to-peer fundraising lays out the popular peer-to-peer campaign styles that are guaranteed to engage supporters:
- Awareness and giving campaigns. Create strategic campaigns aimed at creating visibility for your cause and giving people opportunities to donate and get involved.
- DIY-style campaigns. Empower your supporters to host events, create challenges, or lead their own campaigns for occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.
- Ambassador campaigns. Give your most connected supporters the reins on fundraising so your nonprofit can reach as many people as possible.
- On-the-ground events, like runs, walks and rides. Bring everyone together and take your fundraising to the next level with an event. Add fun gamification elements to increase engagement, like most laps completed or most funds raised.
- Virtual peer-to-peer campaigns. Develop time-bound or year-round campaigns that enable anyone to join in and create their own fundraising page.
With any one of these inspiring peer-to-peer fundraising ideas, your nonprofit can increase participation and give your supporters a fun way to feel like they’re making a difference truly. The best part—peer-to-peer campaigns are highly adaptable and can fit any organization’s size and needs.
Training Your Volunteer Fundraisers
Now that you have a good understanding of peer-to-peer fundraising and the different ways you can incorporate it into your fundraising strategy let’s explore how to get your volunteers ready to fundraise on your behalf. Your nonprofit will need to set aside ample time to create and build a productive training program and fundraising toolkit for your fundraisers.
Why It Matters
Your peer-to-peer fundraisers represent your organization and need to make a compelling, informed case for your mission. By giving them context about your campaign goals and explaining how the funds will be used, your participants can pass accurate and impactful information forward to their personal networks to elicit support. Plus, volunteers feel more motivated to spread the fundraising word far and wide when they understand the mission, feel connected to the cause, and are armed with a vision of what the money raised will go towards.
Along with understanding the significance of your campaign, volunteers should know how to:
- Create their own fundraising pages
- Share pre-populated or templated posts on social media
- Communicate campaign progress and fundraising milestones
- Send messages and blasts to their networks from their fundraising page
- Convey impact statements and campaign goals
Equipped with this information in your toolkit, your volunteer fundraisers have everything they need to take charge and confidently spread the word about your fundraising campaign.
Best Practices
To put your fundraisers in the best position for successful peer-to-peer fundraising, incorporate the following best practices.
Develop comprehensive training and toolkits.
Design a training process that covers the entire peer-to-peer campaign process, from technical tips like setting up a campaign page to making an effective case for your organization. If you’ve led a peer-to-peer fundraiser in the past, consider reaching out to past fundraisers that participated and asking for their advice. After all, the best way to make a strong strategy for the future is by reflecting on previous strategies and identifying places for improvement.
Decide on logistical details such as a meeting process with volunteers. It can be helpful to offer meetings, so fundraisers have an opportunity to ask questions. If your nonprofit is large, offering an introductory session open to many individuals would be best. Determine when you’ll meet with volunteer fundraisers and whether you’ll plan to have in-person meetings or virtual calls.
Develop an easily-accessible resources library.
Supporters will need to be knowledgeable about your nonprofit and the peer-to-peer fundraising process. To build their skillset, create educational packets or even videos outlining the process and what supporters can expect. Compile these resources into one hub where supporters can easily access and refer to them at any time, such as on your website.
Host welcome sessions (or pre-record them).
Welcome sessions can help current and prospective peer-to-peer fundraisers get fired up to support your cause. Use this opportunity to provide basic information about peer-to-peer fundraising and offer best practices for making the most out of a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, such as marketing fundraising pages on social media.
To cater to your volunteers’ differing schedules, host several welcome sessions so everyone has an opportunity to attend. You can also offer a mix of in-person and virtual events so there are plenty of opportunities to participate. If supporters can’t attend your welcome sessions, you can record them to include in your resource library.
Offer regular check-ins with volunteers.
Once your volunteers start peer-to-peer fundraising, they may run into questions or need advice. Your nonprofit should offer support whenever needed so your supporters can stay on track to hit their fundraising goals and continue their momentum. For example, you can offer volunteers the opportunity to meet with someone on your nonprofit’s team at the beginning, halfway point, and towards the end of their campaign.
Incentivize volunteers and explain their impact.
It’s important that your fundraisers work diligently to maximize support throughout their campaign. Incentivize your fundraisers to hit or surpass goals by creating healthy competition. Examples can include:
- Swag for hitting personal fundraising goals
- Daily or weekly fundraising competitions with prizes
- Cumulative grand prize at the end for the top fundraiser and top team
- Matching donation days to drive group fundraising
Remember to express appreciation for your participants’ time and dedication to your cause. According to Fundraising Letters, writing volunteer thank you letters is a great way to illustrate the impact of your volunteers’ work and how it will help your nonprofit advance its mission. Ensure that your letters are personalized to the recipient and heartfelt.
volunteer fundraisers have everything they need to lead a successful campaign or event. Set up an informative and engaging training program so volunteers can equip themselves with the knowledge and techniques they’ll need to garner support. Be sure to follow up with your fundraisers and express gratitude to boost participation. Good luck!
