Reinventing Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Restrictions on in-person events are starting to relax and peer-to-peer fundraising events are back on the rise. With so many different event types – in-person, virtual and hybrid - it’s important to find your niche and stand out among the crowd. By defining your fundraising tactics and event types, you can set expectations for your supporters and maximize your fundraising. 

Here are some tips on how to master peer-to-peer fundraising: 

Storytelling: Reaffirming Your Mission and Values: 

The first step to improving your fundraising efforts is reaffirming your organization's mission and values. This means understanding what events your nonprofit is going to host and deciding on a platform that can highlight your organization's brand and message.  

Over the last two years, different organizations have taken the time to enrich the design of their fundraising page and draw attention to their mission. They have used features such as image galleries to display heartwarming photos and/or embedded videos to talk about their cause and mission and drive home the reason behind their fundraising.  

By telling your organization's story, mission, and values across a wide variety of channels, supporters can resonate, and you can attract new or even existing supporters who will want to donate to your cause. 

Rethinking Your Event Activity: 

The focus of peer-to-peer events is the same, to build strong relationships with your supporters and share your organization's story. With the changes that came with COVID, it has given nonprofits the opportunity to produce some creative and fun peer-to-peer event ideas that helped reduce costs.  

• Host Unique Events: Beyond traditional walks of runs, you can host events that match your organization's mission. You can recreate your existing events and do new activities. And even drop some event tasks that were not working or did not have a great cost-benefit. This is a wonderful time to really reevaluate your fundraising efforts.  For example, The Leukemia Foundation Australia hosts an annual event, “World’s Greatest Shave”.  The fundraiser allows participants to participate from anywhere.  This made it easier for the organization to run the event during the pandemic and lockdown. 
   
• Hybrid or In-Person Events: FrontStream surveyed 85 nonprofit organizations, and over 67% of the respondents stated that they were hosting an in-person event this year! Coming out of lockdown, this is a fantastic opportunity to change things with your setup and your activities. Focus on your supporters and community and figure out what type of event donors will be the most comfortable attending.   

• Encourage and Support Your Supporters: Take the time to support, listen and understand your supporters. By engaging with them, you will build a stronger connection with your donors. 

Using The Right Tools to Maximize Your Reach: 

• Social Media: Using social media platforms to promote your event allows supporters to easily share donation and registration pages. Social media can help expand your network and donor reach.
    
• Scheduling Emails Communications: Organizations use email communications to solicit donors from past events, communicate important event day information, drive fundraising initiatives, or encourage a little friendly competition between their top fundraisers. Over 63% of nonprofits surveyed use email marketing tools to schedule their communications and track their open and click rates. Studies have shown that email communications help raise 19% of online donations.  

• Livestream: By livestreaming your fundraising event, you can embed links from Facebook, YouTube, or any other provider right onto your peer-to-peer event home page. You can set up a line of speakers or even entertainers. This is a terrific way for participants and donors to share their comments and donate in real-time. You can learn more about the benefits of livestream here.  

Get Smarter with Reporting: 

Reporting is a fantastic way to learn about participants' fundraising habits and tactics. You can also learn what elements of your peer-to-peer fundraisers are working, or what needs to be improved. Here are some great ways to track and manage your event data:  

• Google Analytics: You could use Google Analytics to analyze website traffic. See where your users and donors are coming from, see what they are doing on their site and so much more.  

• Event Reporting: Learn how to better understand your participants. You can track your fundraising progress and compare it to last year. You can also see which participant is behind based on your fundraising timeline. This way, your executive director or someone on your team can reach out, provide a little extra motivation, or find out what you as an organization can do to help support them.  

Your data is important and just a little bit of effort with focusing on it can do so many things to help build your most important relationships. 

With Panorama and its Peer-to-Peer fundraising platform, you will be able to highlight your organization's mission, improve your event activity, maximize your reach, use powerful reporting tools and so much more!  

To learn more about reinventing your peer-to-peer fundraising and events,