Empowering loyal donors to fundraise on your behalf is a powerful way to bring in new supporters. But peer-to-peer fundraisers can be difficult to manage. Success means coordinating many people, messages, and technology. 

The success of your campaign depends on how well you create and communicate the value of participating. You need to make donors feel like they are an important part of making a difference. 

To help you create the best peer-to-peer fundraiser, here are our favorite tips: 

Set specific goals 

Campaigns with stated goals do better. Why? Goals give donors and potential donors clarity about their impact. 

Think about it this way: a fundraising message of “If we raise $50,000 we can do A, B, and C” is more powerful than “We need your help.”

Check out this article from Classy with questions to help you set goals: What are you trying to fund? Are you funding one specific program or do you need general funds? What are launching costs + one year of operations?

Make clear asks

Know what you want from donor segments. 

If you want past donors to take part as fundraisers, ask them. If you want social media followers to donate to someone else’s fundraising page, ask them. 

Don’t make your calls to action too complicated or have too many choices. 

Pick the right platform

Technology can make or break a campaign. Think about making it easy for volunteers to use and easy for you to pre-load messages for all to use. We liked this article from Philanthropy News Digest about picking the right peer-to-peer platform.  

If adding new technology is not possible for your organization, thoroughly check out the features and limitations of your current platform so you can anticipate questions and workarounds. 

Recruit with a personal touch

Just like everything in online fundraising, there is no easy, automatic, high-tech way to get people involved. So do not skimp on participant recruitment for your peer-to-peer campaign. 

Start early with your most involved groups. Get them excited to build their fundraising pages. Take the time for personal outreach to frequent donors and superstar volunteers. Remember that one-to-one communication will be more effective than the most perfect email or social media post. 

Encourage your participants to use email

Sometimes participants in peer-to-peer fundraisers think the best way to get donations is to post on social media. And while that might be a good way to make sure your friends are aware you’re raising funds for a good cause, direct emails are still the best way to actually get those donations. 

Peer to Peer Forum reports that very few participants use email to solicit donations, but those that do, raise more money. 

So encourage your participants to use email, coaching them to start slowly with 5-10 close friends and family and reaching out to more people as the campaign grows.

Make it easy to take part

You’ll raise more if it’s easy to participate. That means “reducing friction” for every step in the campaign. Making it easy to say yes, easy to get started, and easy to fundraise. 

This article from Causevox has some great tips about creating a toolkit. They suggest including a campaign overview, images and logos, email templates, sample social media posts, recognition tools, and fundraising tips.

Encourage fundraisers to get personal

The best thing you can do for your volunteer fundraisers is to help them be successful. So encourage them to use email (see tip #5) and to share their own personal stories in their outreach. 

One of the reasons peer-to-peer campaigns are so successful is because the asks are coming from friends and family – and not someone that works at the organization. Including personal stories makes these appeals even more effective. 

We love tip #2 in this article about encouraging your participants to talk about their why in their appeals (from Donor Drive). 

Show gratitude during the campaign

Your job during the campaign is to keep the momentum going for your volunteer fundraisers. You can keep things rolling by cheering them on along the way. Personal emails, social media shout-outs, or even a text to let them know you’re grateful are enough to make people feel proud. (And – ahem – remind them to send those outreach emails). 

This article from Donately suggests ways to recognize volunteers to keep them motivated.

These tips from Good United remind us that Facebook Groups are a wonderful tool to create community and efficiently answer questions. (A definite win-win).