One of the best fundraising methods for sports and team-oriented organizations is through peer-to-peer fundraisers. The reason why is simple: people will support their friends and people. Meaning, it’s much easier to support a cause of a friend than one from a group donors don’t know.
In fundraising, there’s an adage that people give to people. And it’s especially true when it’s people they know making the request. As a result, organizations, teams, and clubs that have done peer-to-peer fundraising understand this well. And they know how to leverage the power and influence of peers raising funds from those in their sphere of influence.
According to MobileCause, peer to peer fundraising statistics are as follows:
- The average gift from a peer-to-peer fundraiser is $66.
- When asked by someone they know, 8 people on average will donate to a fundraiser.
- Typically, 62 percent of donors are new to the organization where they are contributing when asked in a crowdfunding campaign.
How Can You Leverage a Successful Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser?
Selecting the right platform.
The first thing to do for fundraising success is to look for the best platform on the market to promote and process donations. Fortunately, many excellent platforms are easy for your champions to use so they can easily create fundraising pages, upload contact information for their prospects and make asks. Some of these platforms include Salsa and OneCause. A few others are CrowdRise, Indiegogo, and FirstGiving. Aside from ease of use, when you’re evaluating tools, consider the fees each of the platforms charges for processing donations.
Create an achievable goal for people.
Every fundraising campaign needs to have a goal, and when you’re doing a peer-to-peer fundraiser, you’ll have to break your goal down into smaller parts so you can designate a financial target to each of your volunteer fundraisers. For instance, you may want to raise $10,000 for new sports equipment. If you have a database of 300, and you assume that 1/3 of the people will become volunteer fundraisers, then each of the 100 who will participate need to raise $1,000 from the people they know so you can achieve your goal.
Provide relevant and engaging content.
Don’t assume that your supporters who will be fundraising for your group or organization know all of the details as to why you need to raise funds. Remember that your volunteer fundraisers are not professionals. You must make it as easy for them as possible so they can raise money from their friends. Develop content such as copy for their individual fundraising pages, social media posts, emails, and e-cards they will be sending. Give them photographic images and fun clip art to use. If you want to get super creative, which is always a good strategy, develop videos or GIFs so that your fundraisers can quickly capture the interest of people in their circle of influence.
Finally, support your volunteer fundraisers by promoting your cause aggressively during the peer-to-peer fundraiser period. Make it a point to develop an internal communications plan that you will activate once your fundraiser gets started that will serve to encourage the fundraising volunteers, as well as to help the community understand what you’re doing. It’s vital for your group to also promote peer-to-peer fundraisers in coordination with your fundraisers because the more the broader community sees the messages from different sources, the likelier they are to support your efforts.
© 2018 Sneakers4Good. All Rights Reserved.