3 pillars of successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns

Many nonprofit organizations make diversifying their revenue streams a key goal to insulate their organization from potential economic or global crises. Peer-to-peer fundraising, a fundraising method that allows your supporters to fundraise independently on your organization’s behalf, is a great strategy for reaching that goal. 

Chris Hammond, CEO of Corporate Giving Connection, offered his expert opinion on the hallmarks of a great peer-to-peer campaign in a recent interview, explaining that “the very first things we think about as pillars for a successful peer-to-peer campaign are your campaign hook, your recruitment plan, and clear processes for your fundraisers.” These three pillars can help your organization create an effective peer-to-peer campaign.

1. Your peer-to-peer fundraising angle

First, identify the “hook” for your peer-to-peer campaign.

When you’re figuring out your nonprofit’s campaign angle, ask yourself: 

• Is there a campaign theme? 
• What programs will your campaign benefit? 
• Is it based on an event or an anniversary? 

By identifying an overarching campaign theme, you can build your content and messaging to ensure that it all works together. From there, create supporting messaging and content that will guide you through the duration of your campaign.

2. Successful fundraiser recruitment

The second pillar revolves around a question nonprofits should consider before kicking off their next peer-to-peer campaign: is there a recruitment plan in place for fundraisers? Often, organizations get excited about using this next strategy to fundraise and forget to strategize how they will recruit new volunteers, donors, or staff.

Rather than simply asking your organization’s board members to recruit new supporters or staff members, it’s best to create a detailed plan. As a general rule, this plan should:

• Take into account your nonprofit’s needs
• Create realistic goals based on those needs
• Assign specific responsibilities
• Establish a follow-up procedure 

If you combine a strong campaign hook with a well-planned fundraiser recruitment strategy, this empowers you to build the campaign infrastructure you need to seamlessly execute your campaign.

3. Clear processes for your peer-to-peer fundraisers

The third and final pillar of peer-to-peer fundraising involves establishing clear communication across your organization. As you progress through the different levels of peer-to-peer campaign planning, you’ll need to communicate to your fundraisers that you have clear processes for them to follow and that they will have your support along the way. 

Let’s say you started off by creating a strong campaign theme and crafting your messaging. Next, you want to start the process of recruiting. As you recruit fundraisers, it’s essential to make it clear to them that you will be providing them with the tools they need to be successful. Specifically, let them know you’ll keep in touch with them and give them the materials they need to fundraise on behalf of your organization. Because your supporters know they will get the help they need, it will become much easier to recruit.

Revamp your peer-to-peer strategy today

Once these steps are complete, you can press play on your campaign because everyone is on the same page about their responsibilities, the campaign’s theme, and how they can be successful in their role.

Want to learn even more about successful peer-to-peer fundraising? View the full 45-minute expert interview on demand now, and talk to us to learn about how your platform can support you as you expand your fundraising into new channels like peer-to-peer.