How Activity Tracking Supports Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

People use activity trackers every day in a variety of ways, from counting steps to optimizing their exercise regimens to evaluating their heart rate and other health metrics. Since the first Fitbit came on the scene in 2009, activity trackers have exploded in popularity with numerous iterations and competitors joining the market. Now, about 1 in 5 U.S. adults wear some form of an activity tracker—wearable tech was named the No. 1 fitness trend for 2022. 

Activity tracking is also making a tremendous impact on peer-to-peer fundraising. Whether the event is a run, walk or ride, or conducted in person, virtual or hybrid, activity tracking offers nonprofits numerous ways to encourage and engage their participants in their event training and fundraising. It also offers participants the more engaging experiences and digital tools that they have come to expect in their fundraising efforts.

From tracking progress to connecting with others, those fundraising efforts are conducted primarily in the mobile sphere and in mobile apps in particular. This makes sense given that Americans spend an average of 4.1 hours per day on their mobile devices, according to the 2022 App Annie Intelligence State of Mobile report.

Accordingly, nonprofit organizations are increasingly reaching their peer-to-peer fundraisers exactly where they are—on their mobile devices. So we’ve seen that integrating activity tracking into the mobile fundraising mix to increase engagement opportunities has been a natural progression, albeit a fairly recent one.

Activity Tracking Is a Solution to Engage Donors

In 2020 as nonprofits turned to virtual events due to the coronavirus pandemic, Classy partner Charity Dynamics, which provides digital marketing and fundraising solutions to nonprofits, recognized the need for organizations to help keep their participants engaged and connected with their event community. 

Activity tracking was a natural part of this solution. Training for a run, walk or ride event can be a tough ask for a lot of fundraisers, particularly if they’ve never done a race (competitive or otherwise) before.

Tracking their physical activity—steps taken, miles walked or run or ridden, and so on—can help them stay on target to reach their training goals. In fact, recent research from the University of South Australia shows that people who use activity trackers walk up to 40 minutes more per day than those who don’t (and stay motivated to continue exercising more). 

Charity Dynamics developed the activity tracker Boundless Motion™ as part of its Boundless Fundraising® mobile app solution and launched it in May 2020. Boundless Motion integrates seamlessly with Classy’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform, allowing organizations to implement the tracking features that best work for their audiences.

Features That Empower Fundraising

Through Boundless Motion, event participants engage with a number of features that are designed to empower their training and fundraising, such as:

• Gamification
• Corporate Sponsorships
• Leaderboards
• Participant Challenges
• Fitness Tracker Integration

Peer-to-Peer Engagement

Event participants can track their progress on the event and team leaderboards and challenge other participants or team members to hit certain fundraising or activity goal. They can also cheer each other on within the app or share their progress on their social channels for even greater encouragement. 

Team captains can rally team members through personal messages within the app and provide coaching and fundraising tips as participants train up to an event.

Activity Tracking Helps Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers Raise More

By increasing participant engagement, activity tracking is already having an immediate impact on fundraising revenue as well, ensuring that it will remain part of the peer-to-peer fundraising fabric. Last year, of active fundraisers in a national walk/run program who used Boundless Motion, the average dollar amount raised totaled $1,130 per fundraiser (versus $270 per active fundraiser without the Boundless app). 

With event participants increasingly turning to mobile fundraising and virtual communities (even as events themselves return to in person), the relationship between activity tracking and peer-to-peer fundraising can only grow stronger. Organizations can create the perfect virtual fundraising and training center right on their participants’ phones.