If you haven’t yet tried peer-to-peer fundraising, now is the time. This powerful tool brings a whole new set of supporters into the fold and increases your donations. In fact, The Digital-First Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study found that peer-to-peer increased revenue by 30% in 2021 vs. 2020, which was almost 9x the increase in revenue generated by in-person and hybrid fundraising efforts!

Below, we’ll explore why peer-to-peer (p2p) is so effective, how to use it, and provide campaign ideas to inspire your efforts. So, put on your fundraising cap and get ready for a peer-to-peer primer—let’s get started!

5 Reasons to Add Peer-to-Peer to Your Nonprofit’s Fundraising Strategy:

1. Peer-to-peer enables your nonprofit to connect with Gen Z, who are accustomed (and expect) to be able to engage online.
2. P2P fundraising boosts the donations of almost any campaign. According to The State of Modern Philanthropy 2021, “The median amount raised by events in which attendees raise money on behalf of an organisation through peer-to-peer fundraising pages typically is 4.5 times greater than ticketed events.”
3. Peer-to-peer fundraising creates a personal, meaningful introduction of your cause and nonprofit to new donors. Existing supporters are the ones spreading the word to friends and colleagues.
4. Peer-to-peer fundraising nurtures a sense of community around your nonprofit organisation and cause.
5. Peer-to-peer fundraising helps you build a tailored approach to your donor relationships by providing another way donors can choose to participate in fundraising.

What is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

If you’re not 100% sure what the heck peer-to-peer fundraising (aka p2p fundraising) is, you’re in good company. This study found that over 40% of nonprofit organisations don’t, either. Using their personal and social media networks, supporters raise money on behalf of your cause. A good example is almost any kind of “walk for a cure” event, which is essentially an “a-thon” fundraising campaign with a peer-to-peer component. Participants promote their involvement (and ask for donations) through social media.

What makes p2p fundraising uniquely effective?

• Think of each peer-to-peer participant as a mini-influencer, out there telling the story of your cause and galvanising everyone in their personal networks to donate and participate. There’s a whole constellation of potential new donors out there, and this is how you connect!
• Team fundraising is a unique aspect of peer-to-peer fundraising. It introduces gamification, which is a fancy word for an online marketing technique intended to inspire engagement and friendly competition. In short, people or teams compete to see who can raise the most money and are often incentivised by a prize (which could be branded swag!).
• The donation ask comes entirely from peer-to-peer participants.

How to create a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign

Since p2p fundraising is conducted online using social media, you’ll need a peer-to-peer fundraising platform. Using one will also help you and your staff be more efficient! This Nonprofit Pro study found that “just over 74 percent of participants said that peer-to-peer fundraising software has made keeping track of information on participants, volunteers and fundraisers easier.”
Using the Eventgroove peer-to-peer platform, you can create a fundraising page and enable participants to create individual fundraising pages. You can also manage volunteers, fundraising teams, and participants. You can level up engagement with things like a leaderboard showing your campaign’s progress, fundraising thermometers, and top-performing teams or people. That’s a lot of words, so we’ve created the below video that explains how to create and run peer-to-peer campaigns.

This p2p fundraising how-to video will:

• Provide an overview of how to build your own peer-to-peer campaign
• Show how using team fundraising boosts donations and engagement
• Demonstrate built-in gamification and sharing tools

Peer-to-peer fundraising ideas

Any kind of “a-thon,” from running to biking to reading, is a fit. But you can also get creative. The beauty of peer-to-peer campaigns is that participants don’t have to do the activity together at in-person events. Plus, they can be added to any fundraising event. For example:

• Every November, men all over stop shaving and grow out their beards and mustaches for Movember to raise awareness of men’s issues.
• Golf fundraisers are a great way to raise money, especially when you add p2p into the mix. While playing rounds, teams can compete to raise money, and you can even create special higher-value donations for holes-in-one (or two or three!).
• A push-up, plank, yoga, pilates, or CrossFit (you get the picture) challenge. For instance, the Prostate Cancer Foundation hosted a great push-up challenge in which participants had to “commit to doing 10 push-ups for every $20 donation received. All challengers are encouraged to capture the fun with photos and/or videos and post it to their social media platforms using #PCFPushUp to help share a message of hope and solidarity for anyone affected by this disease.” (via the Prostate Cancer Foundation)
• In a “give it up” challenge, participants are invited to choose a favorite food or beverage (like a latte), and for each day they don’t purchase it, they donate the equivalent amount. Participants’ friends and family can get in on the action, too, by pledging support for different lengths of time the participant will last!

Get Started!

Inspire supporters and develop new donors by giving peer-to-peer fundraising a whirl! It’s a low-investment, high-ROI way to freshen up existing fundraisers, introduce new options to your donor base, and reach (or exceed) fundraising goals.