Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas & Strategies

The end of the year giving season is the time to go all-out in fundraising.  With a strong year-end fundraising strategy, your nonprofit can end the year on a positive note and start the new year with ample funding to power your mission. 

But it can be tricky to pick the right fundraising strategies, given that there’re so many options available—from direct mail, digital appeals, and social media to virtual events like painting and even cooking classes from home. 

Regardless of what kind of fundraising strategies you choose, you should consider incorporating peer-to-peer fundraising. 

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a creative option that can add an extra boost to your year-end fundraising. giving. Not only does it help you strengthen relationships with your existing supporters, but it also can help your nonprofit reach brand new donors and convert them into loyal supporters.

This is how you can take advantage of the peer-to-peer fundraising phenomenon:  Just imagine – Hundreds or even thousands of supporters have created their own fundraising campaign pages. They’re sharing it far and wide on social media, through text, and word of mouth, and they’re eagerly racing to raise the most for your organization. 

You can make your year-end giving campaign a success with peer-to-peer giving strategies. But first, you need to pick an engaging fundraising event or format. 

4 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas to Maximize Support

While any event or idea can be converted into a peer-to-peer fundraiser with a little tweaking, there are some formats that are more suited to galvanize your supporters to take the fundraising reins. Consider incorporating the following ideas into your year-end giving strategy to attract as much interest and enthusiasm as possible.

1. Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday, which takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is the ultimate year-end fundraising opportunity for nonprofits.

As you know, this international day of giving encourages millions of people to support the causes they’re passionate about and help nonprofits get closer to reaching their goals.

In fact, 360MatchPro reported that Giving Tuesday continues to grow each year and raised almost $2 billion last year. We hope you are already planning for your Giving Tuesday fundraising program right now! 

Giving Tuesday is perfectly suited for peer-to-peer fundraising strategies. In fact, this is really a wonderful vehicle for asking your volunteers to share the message on social media. 

According to Donately’s guide to the best fundraiser websites, it’s easy to set up a site for this type of campaign with the help of fundraising software. Look for platforms that offer Giving Tuesday peer-to-peer tools like responsive donation forms, easy social sharing, and customizable campaign pages. 

Clearly, you’ll need to plan well in advance, because you want to equip supporters with everything they need to make their peer-to-peer outreach successful. 

When everyone is engaged in sharing your messages with their personal networks on #GivingTuesday, you could see your nonprofit’s community quickly grow and you could raise more funds than ever before. 

2. Social Media Challenge

Leveraging social media’s virality can literally expand your nonprofit’s reach to people all over the world. 

A well-executed social media campaign can make a serious impact on your online fundraising. Just consider – some nonprofits, like the ALS Association and their ice bucket challenge, have reached millions of people with creative challenges that bring awareness to their mission and encourage people to give. 

To get started on crafting the perfect social media challenge, use these tips:

• Consider your audience. If the majority of your audience isn’t receptive to your challenge or doesn’t even know that it’s happening, your fundraising campaign will lose momentum. Think about your target demographic and the type of challenge (and social media platform) they’re most likely to engage with. 

• Choose your platform. There are several popular platforms, all of which attract different audiences and are better suited for different types of content. TikTok, for instance, is popular among younger demographic groups and is great for creating viral video challenges. On the other hand, Facebook attracts older demographics and is fairly flexible with the type of content you can post, whether that’s text, visuals like graphic design and videos, or a combination of the two. The type of challenge you pick can help guide this decision. 

• Create a challenge. Your challenge should be relevant to your nonprofit’s mission and engaging for your supporters. For instance, you can have your supporters post a minute-long video about why they’re supporting your campaign. This is a fairly straightforward approach that strengthens your relationship with donors and helps people unfamiliar with your organization learn more. 

Make sure your supporters include a link on their personal profiles that takes people to their campaign pages. This way, they can easily donate right after seeing a post on the social media platform, making the entire donation process convenient.

3. Holiday Party

Here’s another terrific peer-to-peer fundraising idea: Get your most loyal supporters, like major donors and frequent volunteers, together for a holiday party! 

This could be hosted in-person or online to cater to your donors’ convenience, especially since many people travel during the holidays. 

Before the party, have your supporters create personal fundraising pages and compete to raise the most by the end of the party. This friendly competition will motivate your supporters to spread the word about your end-of-year fundraising as much as possible. 

You can even offer incentives to the supporters who raise the most or get the most donors to give. For instance, consider offering the winners branded nonprofit merchandise, a spotlight on your social media, or a feature in your monthly newsletter. 

Another great fundraising strategy is to add gamification elements like a leaderboard on your website. This way, your supporters can see how much money they need to raise to see their names on the board. 

You can also project a fundraising thermometer at the holiday party so people can see in real-time how close you are to reaching your goal and then send out donation requests to people in their network or give themselves.

4. Themed Walk-a-Thon

A walk-a-thon is a popular fundraiser that gets your supporters up and moving for a great cause. 

Don’t be afraid to get creative! Get your supporters in the holiday spirit (and giving mood!) with a holiday-themed walk. 

For example, you might have your supporters dress up in their best ugly holiday sweater or even in costume as their favorite holiday movie character. The more fun you inject into your event, the better! 

Before the big event, make sure your nonprofit provides supporters with all the tools and resources they need to kickstart their personal campaign pages. 

Provide supporters with detailed instructions on how to customize their fundraising page by including photos and a message about why they’re supporting your organization. You’ll also need to make sure they know how to share their page link with their personal network. 

Once your supporters have their campaign pages ready to go, they can reach out to their networks for donations before the event. Or, they could even collect pledged donations from their friends and family members that will correlate to their participation in your event. For example, these pledges can correspond with how many laps they walk or the amount of time they spent walking. 

Bottom Line: Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Creates Enthusiasm, Spreads the Word, Engages New Donors, and Raises More Money! 

End your year with a peer-to-peer fundraiser that will excite supporters, attract new donors, and get people talking about your cause. While there are endless peer-to-peer ideas, these are a few that can end your year on a high note. 

With the right peer-to-peer tools, your nonprofit can easily take its fundraising strategy to the next level. 

Be creative, be prepared, and be eager to help your supporters along the way so their fundraising campaigns run smoothly! 

As always, it is a pleasure to share our weekly insights with you as we cover important fundraising strategies.  If your organization is planning a capital campaign or expanding your major gifts program – we can help. Send an email to coaching@gailperry.com if you’d like to schedule a free strategy call with us.