TechTalk: Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

 

Peer to Peer Fundraising & Useful Tech Tools

If you’re reading this, you or someone in your organization is likely managing a Peer to Peer campaign. And while the PeerToPeer Forum has reported that the top 30 P2P campaigns that they track annually has seen a 6.7% dip in revenue from 2016 to 2017, it doesn’t mean that the channel has lost its appeal. Peer to Peer fundraising is continuing to see growing adoption, and increased sophistication of strategies and campaign types, as organizations gain experience and access to new technology.

Furthermore, in a joint study led by NonProfit Pro, they found that on average organizations using P2P as a fundraising channel gained 13% more annual revenue than those that didn’t. A major reason more organizations are employing peer to peer campaigns, is due to the access of cost-effective software that helps smaller organizations run campaigns, as well as the increased comfort supporters across all age bands (it’s not just a millennial thing!) have in giving through them.

With all of these great options available to you let’s take a look at a few to consider for your first or next P2P campaign.

 

Campaign Management Options

If you’d like to give your fundraisers a great experience as well as make creative design and tracking easy for your staff, there are a number of great cost-effective options out there. Here’s just a few:

 

Salsa Labs

For those using Salsa CRM you’re likely aware that they offer the Salsa Engage module which offers all of the tools needed to create and manage peer to peer campaigns.

With Salsa Engage, organizations are given a fair amount of customization for event creation as well as how you want to track and monitor registrations, attendees and gift sources. For the fundraisers they’re also able to create custom layouts for individual fundraising pages, share on social and track their own performance, too. Also, with so many people transacting and engaging on mobile these days, campaigns are mobile optimized for both organizations and fundraisers.

And lastly, Salsa has always been known for their strong support team, which extends to the automated and manual coaching messages that can be sent to fundraisers. This is a great addition to make sure your individual fundraisers are given guidance and encouragement to help them reach their goals for your mission.

 

Frontstream

As part of Frontstream’s Panorama fundraising platform, Artez offers a lot to like in its peer to peer functionality. Some of the things that stood out for me were the ability to create pre-loaded segmented emails for the various types of individuals (fundraisers, registrants, donors) involved, built in coaching for your fundraisers based on their actions and where they are in their support of your campaign, integrated corporate gift matching as well as their Dynamic Donation Amounts™ feature that will optimize your ask levels to help maximize giving based on previous behaviors. And as a user of Frontstream’s Panorama, all of your fundraising efforts flow back in to a main dashboard, so you have a holistic view of all your donors’ giving.

 

Classy

Classy is great for small and midsize nonprofits and one of the widest used platforms for peer to peer fundraising. Along with the common campaign/donor management functionality of other platforms, Classy also lets individuals set up campaigns on behalf of your organization and direct funds to you.

Another strong feature to keep in mind is their partnership/integration with many leading CRM and Email Delivery Systems. This can allow you to easily transfer the data you need from one platform to another and gives you a complete picture of all your fundraising efforts.

 

Crowdrise

With over 20,000 nonprofits having used CrowdRise, their wide-spread adoption can be attributed to the simplicity it takes to use their platform. In addition to the campaign and donor management tools you would expect, Crowdrise also lets you upload your logo and colors, making it easy for any supporter to start a DIY campaign on your behalf.

Crowdrise has also built in gamification with their Challenge fundraisers. Fundraisers and donors can earn points for raising money or giving to a cause. Top point earners are eligible for prizes — like gift cards, matching gifts for their cause and other unique opportunities.

 

Facebook

This is a nice option for both organizations unable to invest in any of the above solutions as well as those who are already using a P2P platform. As long as your organization is in Facebook’s database of nonprofits, you can create your own fundraising events within your account, accept donations, share the event through email and other social media and allow your FB followers to create their own fundraising pages tying back to an event. Additionally, your supporters can create their own events on behalf of your organization and raise money too (you may have noticed people creating birthday fundraisers in recent months). This is a nice no-cost P2P option, and with roughly 2 billion monthly users, you can reach a lot of potential donors.

The only drawback to creating events and raising funds directly through Facebook is the lack of data received on the donors. You do however get their email address tied to their FB accounts, so you can thank them and continue engagement through that channel and look to ask for additional contact information if you’d like.

 

Post Campaign Analysis

Ok, you had a great campaign and brought in a bunch of new donors. Obviously, you are going to want to thank them and welcome them to your organization. When doing this, be mindful of how they made their gift. Were they directed to the fundraising page from email? Social? Was it made via mobile? This is going to help inform you on how they prefer to be thanked and communicated with in the future.

In addition to thanking all of these new donors, it’s also important to best understand who gave, because of their relationship to the fundraiser and those that are philanthropic and have an affinity towards your mission.

I know of many organizations that won’t even add P2P donors to their CRM and other channels of communications, because the costs associated with adding people to a CRM, and not knowing who they are and why they gave. You could be missing out on a big opportunity if that’s the approach you take. Next time you run a campaign and obtain many new donors, consider doing some research on them as part of the campaign strategy. While many may have only given to support a friend or family member, there are certainly going to be individuals that care about your mission and want to further engage with and support you again, as well as help by becoming fundraisers of their own in future P2P campaigns.

Good luck with your first or next P2P campaign and let me know of any other platforms out there that have been helpful to you!

 

At Causemo, our Insights platform allows users to quickly understand who their constituents are, what they care about and the channels they prefer to give through, to efficiently and effectively raise more money for their mission.

Get in touch with Ryan: rcarpenter@causemo.com

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