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Peer-to-peer fundraising is an incredible opportunity to leverage your supporters’ personal networks and increase the reach of your campaign. This strategy involves recruiting supporters to fundraise on your behalf, and you might be surprised to find out just how many of them are willing to fundraise for your organization! However, even the most seasoned fundraisers can’t pull off a successful peer-to-peer fundraiser without a little help. That’s why many organizations invest in peer-to-peer fundraising platforms to help them facilitate their fundraising campaigns!
What is the difference between peer-to-peer fundraising and crowdfunding?
Both peer-to-peer fundraising and crowdfunding leverage the power of networking and personal connections, but there are some vital differences between these two fundraising methods that make them distinct from each other!
Crowdfunding is a fundraising method aimed at collecting many donations from a donor base and those donations tend to be smaller. This fundraising method relies on word-of-mouth and social sharing from your donor base to find donors and collect donations. A crowdfunding campaign is also set up by an organization or even individuals to help fund things like medical expenses and all donations are made to a centralized donation page.
While peer-to-peer fundraising is also focused on collecting many donations from donors, you’ll recruit dedicated peer-to-peer participants who volunteer to fundraise on your organization’s behalf. Your fundraisers are actively involved in spreading the word for your organization and collecting donations from their networks of family and friends. They’ll usually collect donations via a personal fundraising page or can team up to fundraise together. Peer-to-peer campaigns are also sometimes paired with some sort of event like a fun run, 5K, or a-thon event like a bowl-a-thon or dance-a-thon.
It might take some research to figure out which fundraising method is best for your organization, but both methods are great for spreading the word about your organization’s work and getting your supporters involved in fundraising!
Why use peer-to-peer fundraising?
A peer-to-peer fundraiser might feel daunting to plan if you’ve never done it before, but it can have many benefits for your organization. One of the factors you might want to consider when hosting a peer-to-peer fundraiser is the demographic make-up of your supporters. While baby boomers are less interested in peer-to-peer fundraising, other generations love the idea. In fact, 84% of Generation Z is open to becoming a fundraiser on behalf of your organization!
When volunteer fundraisers reach out to their friends and family members, they’re building on established relationships. Donors are more likely to give when they know the person who’s doing the asking. The social aspect of peer-to-peer fundraisers makes it a powerful way to boost visibility in your community and raise money for your programs!
What to look for in a peer-to-peer fundraising platform?
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great way to raise money and build your donor base, but the type of platform you use also has a major impact on your campaign’s performance, and your ability to retain new donors and fundraisers from year to year.
When running a peer-to-peer fundraiser, choosing the right platform is essential. Here are a few features to look for in your peer-to-peer fundraising software.
- Branded event pages. Creating a dynamic website for your peer-to-peer campaign is integral to your fundraiser’s success! Your website will serve as the hub of your campaign—it’s where all of your participants will head first when they have questions or need information about your fundraiser. Your website should accurately reflect your organization’s brand and mission, so being able to personalize your website is important!
- Individual and team fundraising pages. Your peer-to-peer participants should be able to collect and keep track of donations from their friends and family on their own individual fundraising pages. On their own pages, they can share why they’re fundraising for your organization and provide vital information about your organization with their networks. The ability to create team fundraising pages adds an extra element of engagement and fun to your peer-to-peer fundraiser. Participants can create and join teams to compete against other fundraisers to see who can raise the most money. Any donations made to individual fundraising pages will also go towards the team goal!
- Gamification tools. Gamifying your peer-to-peer fundraiser is a great way to make your fundraiser more engaging for your participants. Offer badges as rewards for your participants to display on their individual fundraising pages when they reach certain milestones on their way to fundraising towards their goal. Leaderboards are also a great tool that adds a bit of friendly competitive spirit to your fundraiser. They allow your participants to keep track of how much everyone has raised and how much they’ll need to raise to reach the top!
- Fundraising thermometers. Adding thermometers to your peer-to-peer website and individual fundraising pages provides participants and donors with a visual representation of your fundraising progress throughout your campaign. When donors can see how close you or your participants are to reaching their fundraising goals, they’ll be more likely to donate to help fill the thermometer up!
- Social sharing tools. It’s not always easy for peer-to-peer participants to make donation asks to their networks. That’s why social sharing tools are such an important part of any peer-to-peer platform. With just a couple of clicks, your fundraisers should be able to share your campaign and their personal fundraising pages with their friends and family on social media platforms and via email. You should be able to create customized email and social media templates to make it that much easier for your participants to spread the word about their fundraising efforts and your organization’s mission.
The best peer-to-peer fundraising platforms should make fundraising easier for both your organization and your peer-to-peer participants! To help you get more out of your peer-to-peer fundraising efforts, we’ve compiled a list of our top software picks for nonprofits:
- Qgiv | Best Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
- Bloomerang | Constituent Relationship Manager
- DonorPerfect | Constituent Relationship Manager
- Neon One | Constituent Relationship Manager
- Double the Donation | Matching Gift Software
- MailChimp | Email Marketing Software
- Constant Contact | Email Marketing Software
Let’s break down each platform!
Qgiv | Best Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
Platform Overview
Built entirely with you and your participants in mind, Qgiv’s comprehensive peer-to-peer platform empowers nonprofit, faith-based, and political organizations to raise more with custom donation pages.
Peer-to-peer pages can be customized to your nonprofit, as well as to each of your volunteers. Participants can customize their pages, share their stories, and upload photos and videos to their page. This way, each individual’s network of family and friends can see exactly why your campaign matters to the volunteer.
Let’s take a look at some of Qgiv’s unique benefits:
- Game elements keep the participants engaged. We’ve created fun features to gamify the fundraising experience. This encourages active engagement because it facilitates a friendly, competitive environment. These features include leaderboards, fundraising thermometers, and fundraising badges.
- Social integrations to spread awareness. Qgiv offers an Facebook integration that allows you to raise funds right on Facebook, all while collecting the donor data you need to thank you donors and evaluate your fundraising strategy. You’ll also get access to written templates for social posts, schedule posts in advance, and let supporters easily share pages.
- Selling merchandise is easy. Qgiv’s platform offers a storefront feature that can track your inventory. This is a handy way to raise more money and give your participants and donors a way to show off their enthusiasm for your cause.
- Event management tools to keep you on track. Keep track of your fundraising event in a centralized, convenient location. In fact, you can manage your fundraising participants and their teams, track progress, monitor fundraising activities, and send emails to targeted groups of participants.
- Text fundraising options. Qgiv built their peer-to-peer pages to be mobile friendly and offers a text fundraising feature for their peer-to-peer platform.
- Custom emails. Keep donors engaged and excited with automated custom emails! Before your event, build encouraging emails targeted at different supporter segments.
Qgiv knows exactly what your nonprofit might need to maximize your peer-to-peer fundraising efforts.
When to Consider This Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
Qgiv’s platform is perfect for nonprofits of all sizes hosting a peer-to-peer event or campaign.
Qgiv’s custom walkthroughs train supporters to create a unique, beautiful page that tells their personal story. This user-friendly service includes drag-and-drop design tools, which means it eliminates the need for knowledge of CSS or HTML.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Qgiv’s peer-to-peer platform includes peer-to-peer events, the online storefront, and access to all their year-round fundraising tools.
We have multiple packages and payment plans, so check out our pricing here to learn more.
Then, you can find the plan that best fits your nonprofit.
Bloomerang | Constituent Relationship Manager
Platform Overview
With Bloomerang, a powerful CRM system, you can start to get to know your donors more and communicate more effectively.
Using an interactive dashboard, review your donor retention rate and suggestions from Bloomerang to improvement it. You can also use this dashboard to track your current campaign’s success and easily build a to-do list to better manage your project and various tasks.
Bloomerang has an integration with Qgiv that automatically updates your CRM with your peer-to-peer supporters’ activity.
When to Consider This Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
If your nonprofit is conducting multiple fundraising campaigns or has a significant variety of donation streams, using Bloomerang can help differentiate donations and other transactions based on date, amount, campaign, fund, and more.
Additionally, if you want to further engage donors past your peer-to-peer campaign, track your campaign transactions in Bloomerang to gain a comprehensive view of your donors’ engagements. This way, you can analyze, segment, and communicate with constituents to turn them into lifelong supporters.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Bloomerang’s platform is priced based on how many donors you currently engage with. To find out where your nonprofit falls on its pricing plans, check out their pricing page.
DonorPerfect | Constituent Relationship Manager
Platform Overview
All nonprofits should have a dependable donor database or constituent relationship management (CRM) system. DonorPerfect can keep track of all your donors and constituents easily, giving you a comprehensive view of donor engagements and automated email acknowledgments.
DonorPerfect is an effective CRM system that your nonprofit can use alongside your peer-to-peer efforts. DonorPerfect seamlessly integrates with Qgiv to automatically store and organize donors’ gift information from your peer-to-peer campaigns.
When to Consider This Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
DonorPerfect doesn’t just effectively collect and centralize your donor fundraising data, it can also produce effective reports. As your peer-to-peer campaign progresses, use DonorPerfect to determine how successful your campaign is.
Additionally, if your peer-to-peer campaign is in conjunction with a live event, you can collect in-person donations with a donation app.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
DonorPerfect’s platform depends on your nonprofit’s size and needs, so if you’re interested in utilizing this CRM for your peer-to-peer campaign, get a price quote from their website.
Neon One | Constituent Relationship Management
Platform Overview
Neon One’s primary focus is donor management, but it can be used alongside your peer-to-peer solution. With Neon One, your nonprofit can take advantage of a capable cloud-based solution.
After investing in Neon One, your nonprofit organization can maximize fundraising by effectively tracking donor data and using that data to build donor relationships. And with its connection to Qgiv, you can easily track and nurture your volunteer fundraisers and host a successful peer-to-peer campaign.
When to Consider This Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
When you need a capable CRM system to serve as the foundation for your campaign, Neon One can help. Create profiles for each of your volunteer fundraisers to get a better sense of your network of supporters and gain a comprehensive view of every one of your fundraising efforts.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Neon offers packages to suit nonprofits no matter how developed their solutions are. Learn more about the various pricing plans here.
Double the Donation | Matching Gift Software
Platform Overview
Double the Donation is a tool to use side-by-side with your peer-to-peer fundraising platform.
Double the Donation’s matching gift software helps organizations find money they never even knew was available to them.
Using their matching gifts database, donors can search their company’s name to find out if they offer any corporate giving programs. If the program exists, Double the Donation provides the parameters for the corporate giving program.
When to Consider This Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
This platform can be used in conjunction with your peer-to-peer fundraising efforts to increase the donation amounts given by your supporters. Even if just one of your donors is eligible for a gift match, your fundraising revenue will still increase considerably!
Have your volunteers embed the searchable database directly into their peer-to-peer fundraising page or ask volunteers to advertise it themselves. This way, donors can conveniently search for their employer without much effort.
If your nonprofit is on the larger side, a matching gift automation tool like Double the Donation’s 360MatchPro might be more helpful. Market matching gifts on your peer-to-peer fundraising pages and automatically reach out specifically to those who qualify! Once someone donates to your cause, 360MatchPro will automatically determine if they’re using a corporate email address from a matching gift-eligible company.
Additionally, Double the Donation has an integration with Qgiv that can help streamline the entire peer-to-peer campaign process.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Double the Donation’s software has a basic plan as well as 360MatchPro for larger organizations. Learn more about their pricing here.
MailChimp | Email Marketing Software
Platform Overview
MailChimp is a comprehensive marketing platform that can help you with everything from website builds to email marketing. Their focus on data helps you turn audience insights into personalized marketing that resonates.
MailChimp helps you:
- Collect and analyze audience data into one place so you can create the content your supporters will love.
- Organize assets in a central location so you can show off your business in the best light across different channels.
- Created integrated campaigns across all channels using segmentation so you can ensure you’re sending the right message to the right recipients at the right time.
- Analyze engagement so you can be more successful at reaching supporters with each campaign
When to Consider This Email Marketing Software
When you need to be able to turn data about your contacts in action. Learn what your audience likes and create a conversation with them from an all-in-one platform. Promote your auction across email, social media, landing pages, postcards, and more.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Mailchimp’s tools are designed to grow with you, so they offer a free starter tier and a variety of packages for different growth stages.
Constant Contact | Email Marketing Software
Platform Overview
Constant Contact is a more email-focused solution (though they do have other offerings) with hundreds of mobile-optimized and customizable email templates to help your nonprofit stand out from the crowd. You can easily edit and customize each one and use it for whatever you want, whenever you want
Constant Contact’s top features include:
- Email marketing
- Email templates
- Marketing automation
- ECommerce
- Website builder
- Google ads
- Facebook and Instagram ads
When to Consider This Email Marketing Software
If you’re looking for a tool to help your organize your marketing efforts in one place, Constant Contact might be just the tool for you.
How Much Does This Platform Cost?
Constant Contact offers a variety of pricing plans suited for nonprofits of all sizes.
Additional Resources
- Ultimate Guide to Peer-to-Peer Fundraising. Before you pick your platform, make sure you know everything about peer-to-peer fundraising and how it works. Check out this link to our ultimate guide.
- eBook: Find & Engage Your P2Peeps. Whether you’re just getting started with peer-to-peer fundraising or you’ve been doing it for 20 years, this free eBook will help you find new peer-to-peer fundraisers to support your mission!
- 10 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Tips To Help You Raise More. Use these tips to get the most out of your peer-to-peer campaign and motivate your volunteers to fundraise harder.
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