AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR S GUIDE TO PEER-TO-PEER FUNDRAISING

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1 AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR S GUIDE TO PEER-TO-PEER FUNDRAISING DONATE NOW!

2 1. INTRODUCTION In today s technology-connected world, personal fundraising is no longer about pledge sheets and coin jars. Our online networks allow us to reach friends and family through , social media, mobile devices, and more and that means nonprofits can grow their bases exponentially depending on how much they focus on their digital efforts. The rise of online person-to-person (or peer-to-peer) fundraising has completely transformed how charities and nonprofits are reaching new donors and supporters. Where organizations like yours used to rely on letters, face-to-face visits, and telephone calls, they are now using cost-effective digital platforms to raise money for good causes. Peer-to-peer fundraising grows your mission by engaging your network s network, empowering one time donors to become lifelong fundraisers. 2. WHAT IS A PEER-TO-PEER CAMPAIGN? A peer-to-peer fundraising campaign allows an individual, team or company to ask their networks, families, and friends for donations on your behalf! Campaign participants are usually raising money towards a set goal amount, often while participating in an event or completing a challenge. Just a few years ago, your charity or nonprofit organization s supporters were probably collecting cash and coins in envelopes for events like these. Independent supporters, called grassroots fundraisers, may also fundraise even though they may not be directly affiliated with the organization. Coldest Night of the Year 2016 cnoy.org 2 2

3 3. HOW PEER-TO-PEER FUNDRAISING WORKS 1. A nonprofit asks their most passionate supporters to fundraise on their behalf. 2. Fundraisers reach out to their network of friends and family. 3. Friends and family give to a nonprofit through a peer s personalized fundraising page online. With the growth of digital and social technology, peer-to-peer events have broadened their reach. Your fundraisers aren t limited to asking neighbors and coworkers for support they can now raise money from friends around the world! Take the reach of Facebook, for example. A little over 1 billion people log on to Facebook every day, and five new profiles are created daily i. This means that your organization has an unprecedented opportunity to reach new donors when your supporters reach out to their online connections on your behalf. Peer-to-peer fundraising online has made it possible to access a wide audience for your cause, so be sure to take advantage of it! 4. WHAT TYPES OF CAMPAIGNS ARE OUT THERE? There are two general campaign types that involve peer-to-peer fundraising: A defined campaign has a specific ask or action and may be framed around a sport, group activity, season, holiday, or a significant date. For instance: A 5K charity run, a Thanksgiving food drive, or a Halloween bowl-a-thon. These types of events are definitely popular with the public. You only have to look at the recent explosion of challenge events such as Tough Mudder, Color Run or Warrior Dash for evidence of that! Many of these events are produced annually, so participants are familiar with the experience of asking for pledges or donating to a friend s campaign. i 3 3

4 An open campaign has no specific ask or action, and is not necessarily framed around set dates. In this type of campaign, your organization asks your supporters to fundraise your way! For instance: Birthday parties, tribute or memorial events. Some of your supporters might be fundraising for a special project they ve individually identified as important. These campaigns generally offer more freedom for your supporters. They require far less management by your organization as each person or group is fundraising independently. Some of the most creative and media-friendly fundraising events can be found in this campaign type. 5. WHO WANTS TO FUNDRAISE FOR YOU? A volunteer who is willing to raise money for you is an incredibly powerful resource for your organization. Many of the people who fundraise online for a charitable cause fall into one of these three categories: Sociable Millennials Motivated by their peer relationships, Gen Y digital natives are enthusiastic adopters of new trends in charitable giving. This Millennial group may choose a creative or independent way to fundraise for your cause rather than join an existing campaign. After all, this is the generation behind unique events like Movember and the Ice Bucket Challenge! Social networks are important to Millennials, so make sure you provide social fundraising tools and a mobile-optimized experience for these participants and their donors. Active Athletes From dog walks to cycle-a-thons, there are as many sporty types of fundraising events as there are enthusiastic participants willing to fundraise for you. When you design and produce a signature event for your cause, you can gain new donors, volunteers, and fans from the Active Athletes group. Even if you don t manage an a-thon, members of this group may choose to participate on your behalf in an outside marathon or challenge event. Write online content to encourage your supporters to create fundraising pages on your website to pair with non-affiliated events elsewhere. Community Organizers Whether it s a workplace picnic, a gala, a tea party or a birthday, your community is filled with generous leaders who are first to say: Let s take this opportunity to raise money for a good cause! Even the most traditional third-party or community event isn t complete without a secure way for participants to give online. When a 4

5 representative from the community wants to hold a fundraiser on your behalf, encourage them to create fundraising pages to collect and track donations when you provide them with an events kit, your logo or other event support WAYS TO BUILD PEER-TO-PEER SUCCESS! Now that you re familiar with the types of peer-to-peer campaigns and who might be interested in them, let s take a look at how you can create campaign success in 10 vital ways: 1. CREATE A FUNDRAISE NOW OPTION Make sure you don t miss an opportunity to reach people who want to do more for you than make a one-time donation. In a Fundraise Now section on your website, get the ball rolling with creative ideas from your community. Suggest your supporters turn their next birthday party, workplace event, or other special milestone into a fundraiser for your organization. Share stories from those groups or individuals who have successfully fundraised for you online. 2. PLAN OUT YOUR SOCIAL SUPPORT Your organization s website, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts are powerful and cost-effective marketing tools that can help your fundraising events succeed and grow. Use free services like Google Docs to create a shared social media editorial calendar for your staff, team captains and volunteers. Schedule regular social posts to encourage registration and fundraising activities for different stages of your campaign. Make sure that everyone on your communications team knows your event hashtags and dates. Don t forget to use Twitter s free widgets to embed tweets in real-time on your organization s website or your event microsite! 3. PROVIDE SOCIAL COACHING Not everyone who wants to fundraise for you is comfortable using popular social networks like Facebook or Twitter. It s important to recognize that your fundraisers may be new to online tools but willing to learn! Many supporters will need your help and encouragement during the campaign. Create a Social Fundraising Toolkit to help your participants get started. Your toolkit could be a document, a page on your website, or even a series of videos. In your toolkit, explain what the hashtags and handles are for your event and organization, and also provide some suggested 5 5

6 wording for supporters to post on social networks. Your enthusiasm can really help highlight the marketing capabilities of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Some organizations even create images for participants to share on specific social networks to spread the word about your cause and event! 4. SEGMENT AND TARGET YOUR COMMUNICATIONS Don t treat every registrant in your campaign the same way! Be sure to divide your participants into different groups and develop a specific communications plan for each segment. For example, as people join your event, you may segment them as: Team or workplace leaders, VIPs (board members, major donors, local celebs, etc.), top fundraisers and general fundraisers. Of course, any segments you create should be specific to your own event or campaign! Develop a communication plan to deliver targeted messages that are relevant to each group s needs. 5. ACTIVATE INACTIVE FUNDRAISERS It s a frustrating reality in many fundraising campaigns: Some folks will register, create a fundraising page, but fail to bring in any donations. Inactive fundraisers often find the idea of raising money overwhelming. Activate these participants by giving them some extra love! Build simple fundraising tips into specialized communications to this group. Remind your inactive supporters that while they haven t yet received a donation, research shows 1 in 4 friends will likely donate if asked by ! Try sharing stories of others who have been successful raising money at an early stage in your event. When your participants feel the positive lift of getting that first donation, they will be encouraged to send more solicitations to friends and family members. 6. REWARD ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS Encourage your top fundraisers to do more in your campaign by acknowledging them when they achieve their goals or reach a significant milestone. Incentives and rewards can help participants stay motivated. Some campaigns choose to set dollar amounts as incentive levels, but your campaign s reward system can be up to you. Be creative! For instance, reward participants when they recruit 20 team members, upload 5 new pictures, or earn 10 individual donations (no matter how big or small). Many organizations reward participants with items like t-shirts or other branded merchandise when they reach certain levels. Others use digital incentives like badges or virtual stickers to encourage fundraisers to excel online. 6 6

7 7. USE SOCIAL ADS FOR RECRUITING Social platforms are already helping you reach targeted audiences online, but are you using these networks specifically to recruit people to join your event? That s where social advertising comes in! Many nonprofits and charities are already running advertisements on Facebook, Google or Twitter with a call-to-action to sign-up and fundraise for an event. Twitter allows you to target promoted tweets by user interest, timeline keywords, geography and more. Google and Facebook ads can be similarly targeted to location, gender, interest, and in Facebook s case, even relationship status! Due to the low cost of running Pay-Per-Click social ads, charities can see a significant return on investment when recruiting new supporters that are then converted to fundraisers. 8. BUILD TEAMS INTO YOUR EVENT Experience shows that individuals who fundraise in teams often raise more money than those that go it alone. Give your participants the option to group together to raise money in your next event or campaign. Your registrants could create teams around workplaces, families, sports groups or locations Even shared interests can make for a great reason to join or create a team! Be sure to segment Team Captains as a special group for targeted communications. Plan regular check-ins with team leaders to find out the number of members that have been recruited, the number of active fundraisers on the team and the total amounts raised so far. Touching base helps team leaders remain focused, enthusiastic, and accountable for the team s success. 9. INTEGRATE CORPORATE GIFT MATCHING Don t leave money on the table make sure that the digital platform you choose to organize your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign also includes a corporate gift matching option on the donation form. If your event participants are employed by a workplace that agrees to match their donations, you could end up seeing a 20% increase in money raised! On top of that, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that just seeing the option for a corporate gift match on donation forms results in a 71% increase in response and a 51% increase in the average donation amount. Amazing! 10. CONSIDER YOUR MOBILE AUDIENCE Here s a huge stat from our platform: Over 50% of visitors to charity donation and fundraising pages are browsing on smartphones and tablets! And, over half of all s are now opened on mobile devices. 7 7

8 When your campaign participants are asking their friends for donations, those friends are likely reading those solicitations on a mobile device. Make sure that your fundraising pages and donation forms are compatible with smartphone and tablet browsers. It s also crucial to recognize that a mobile-optimized experience isn t just for donors! Our benchmarking research proved that when your fundraisers use mobile websites or mobile apps to ask for donations, they can raise up to 2.9x more than those who only use laptops and PCs. Now that you know: Try scheduling some of your campaign s social media updates, mobileoptimized s or e-newsletters for early evening instead of early morning. 7. HELP YOUR FUNDRAISERS HELP YOU It s your job to help your fundraisers be as effective as possible. This means arming them with all the necessary tools and information they will need. Be sure to share: high resolution logo images donation request templates fundraising best practices event day detail cause and mission updates any other important information they will need A designated contact person from your nonprofit to act as a fundraiser liaison will make sure your fundraisers are being heard. Remember, they are your cause ambassadors and nonprofit advocates. They are marketing your mission, so make sure they sound and look their best. 8. GET OUT THERE AND RAISE MONEY! Take it from us - the future of fundraising is online peer-to-peer campaigns. Not only are they interactive, engaging, and just plain fun, but these events represent a new shift in fundraising for nonprofits. And if you re prepared with software and solutions to help you to campaign success, you ll be building a base of lifelong donors as well as growing your nonprofit. Good luck - and have fun! 8 8

9 FrontStream s peer-to-peer solutions are proven to help you raise more! The features you need to build your most successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign yet. Branded Individual & Team Pages Share your story with text, videos, and pictures. Flexible Leaderboards & Trackers Show fundraising progress throughout your campaign. Suggested Donation Amounts Automatically increase pledge sizes by an average 20%. Donor Pay The Fee Allow donors to cover your processing fees. FREE Corporate Gift Matching Don t leave money on the table! Predictive Coaching Tips Customizable and segmented messages to registrants and donors. Which peer-to-peer solution is right for you? Whether you want to get started right away, or manage a national campaign next year, one of our two powerful fundraising platforms is right for you. Start fundraising in 30 minutes Perfect for small-to-medium size organizations Let volunteers or third-parties create events for you Easy set-up and administration tools Add a custom donate now button to your website Fully control your content, images, and s Manage a national event with multiple locations Run an event with hundreds of participants or teams Launch more than one event or donation form a year Add monthly giving or in honor/memory options Are you ready to develop online campaigns that truly engage your supporters and donors? Talk to us to learn how FrontStream s peer-to-peer solutions can reduce your administration headaches and boost your overall fundraising (option 1) sales@frontstream.com 9 9