Thread Director Andrew Edwards offer five tips for how to be successful with a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy

Peer-to-peer fundraising, also known as P2P, harnesses the collective power of people to drive fundraising efforts. The result is more funds raised as well as heightened engagement and awareness for the nonprofit’s mission. P2P is an amazingly powerful tool when you think about it. Money coming in the door, AND marketing efforts to bring in new supporters and raise awareness?! SIGN. ME. UP.

I started my career in peer-to-peer fundraising. First with the University of North Carolina Dance Marathon in college and later at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) with the Team-in-Training program. It’s incredible to see how people from all walks of life can come together to inspire and raise awareness through their different perspectives but with one goal in mind.

Let me take you back to March 2020. I was overseeing a national non-profit’s P2P walk campaign, which engaged over 25,000 constituents nationwide and raised over $5M annually. The pandemic kept me up at night and I was stressed as I constantly wondered: how do we pivot 65+ events? How do we ensure that P2P is helping sustain our revenue since many other donations were falling through? How do we ensure our participants feel appreciated and empowered, despite the fear that each day brought? Just like every organization, we were thrown constant curve balls for more than a year, which our team navigated head-on.

As I reflect on those experiences, I can’t help but appreciate what I learned. Here are some of my takeaways:

1. Empower and engage your community. Use your nonprofit’s network to amplify your voice and raise awareness! Your community is power, and what would you be without the community? Who would you serve?

There is potential and energy in the individuals who are involved with your mission, have donated to you, and are a part of your network. Each individual can become a fundraiser, exponentially expanding the reach of your community.

2. Keep it simple! Don’t make P2P difficult. You have to start small to grow. If you are just getting started, think about how you can structure a campaign with your mission. What are you organizing your people to do? Does a walk, bike ride, or swim-a-thon make sense for your community?

Keep communication simple and clear; if you can’t explain the campaign in a quick two sentences, it’s probably too complicated. You want simple assets to drive understanding publicly – for example, the “Walk to END ALZ” – you know that this walk’s goal is just by reading the event’s name: to put a stop to Alzheimer’s disease. As you decide on these pieces, then focus on relationship building – more on that with #3.

3. Build relationships and provide ongoing support. I can’t emphasize this enough! You should treat every fundraiser like a major donor. You never know what will inspire each participant to activate. It could be one emailed story to inspire or one interaction with your team – make sure you are focused on relationship building and touch base personally with your fundraisers as often as you can.

As you focus on fundraisers, your customer service team (a.k.a., your fundraising team) should be patient, overly communicative, and helpful as they work with each participant. Staying ready to answer every phone call and email will ensure your fundraisers never lose momentum. As you think about support, you should also think about the technology you are using and how “user-friendly” it is for your population.

4. Express gratitude. Thank your fundraisers and participants often. Throughout the campaign, how can you show the participants that their efforts are noticed and appreciated? Can a board member call to say thanks and connect with them? Can you feature a team captain on social media to share their story? In your fundraising update emails, can you call out the successes of your fundraisers? Moving past the campaign, think about your annual stewardship plan for these participants. Make sure to have regular check-ins throughout the “off-season.”

5. Analyze your data. In P2P, there are some key stats that each organization should pay attention to as they organize their fundraising campaigns. Each data point listed below will help you focus your communications to participants and make adjustments to your P2P strategy if necessary:

Participants

• Total number of participants

• Number of participants who fundraised

• Number of participants who did not fundraise

• Self-donation rate for fundraisers

• Average and median raised by first-time participants

• Average and median raised by returning participants

• % of participants who use social media to fundraise

• % of participants who use the tech platform to directly reach out to their network

Teams

• Total number of teams

• New teams

• Returning teams and team retention rate

• Total raised by team

• Average and median amount raised by teams

• Average and median amount raised by team captains

• Average and median amount raised by team members

Peer-to-peer is simple when you think about it. It’s a lot of straightforward pieces (relationship building, stewardship, and execution) that come together to form an incredible campaign. Be creative, have fun, and inspire passion for your mission as you engage your community for greater impact!

Want to talk more about P2P fundraising at your organization? Let’s chat! Email us at hello@threadstrategies.com, we can’t wait to hear from you!