How to Easily Elevate Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Strategy to the Next Level

Many nonprofits offer a variety of resources to fuel the success of their peer-to-peer fundraisers, like tip sheets, design assets for personal fundraising pages, and email and social media templates.

However, when it comes to equipping and educating supporters for fundraising success, one of the best resources at your disposal is your current fundraisers. These topnotch, seasoned fundraisers have firsthand experience running a personal campaign, and their know-how can help motivate newer fundraisers to get off the ground.

With that in mind, we’ve laid a few ideas for how you can leverage their insight as a fundraising resource, as well as some tips on how to approach and recruit these fundraisers.

1. Pitch a Q&A Blog Post

Many nonprofits choose to showcase individual fundraisers on their blog and website. This can be a good way to give a public shout out to your dedicated, powerhouse fundraisers while also making their involvement tangible to your entire community of supporters.

If you want to highlight one of your own top fundraisers, make sure the conversation is a two-way road by having them share tactical advice for things like:

• How they hit, or exceeded, their personal fundraising goal
• What they did to engage their networks
• Any special tips or tricks they used to drum up support

Conduct an interview with them, post their answers on your blog, and share the article with other fundraisers in your community.

The Approach

While you can reach out to a fundraiser via email, try picking up the phone instead. It can be much more powerful and special for your supporters to receive a personal phone call from the organization they love. This can go a long way toward building a personal connection and demonstrating how much you value their involvement.

Once you get a hold of your fundraiser, use these guidelines to help steer the conversation:

• Congratulate them on their success
• Thank them for all of their support and hard work
• Remind them of their impact on your work and mission
• Express your interest in featuring them in a blog post that shares fundraising tips with your community
• Ask if they would participate in an interview to share their firsthand fundraising experience

People are more willing to help when they believe they have something valuable to offer, so let your fundraisers know just how big of a role they have played, and continue to play, in your organization’s mission. Make sure to shed light on the impact of their support in your blog post too.

For instance, Women’s Alzheimers Movement highlights how members of their fundraising community made an impact along with tips for other fundraisers:

2. Pitch a Q&A Video

Instead of turning your interview into a blog post on your website, you can also capture it on camera. Since video is such a dynamic medium, a filmed Q&A session can engage viewers, create a tangible experience, and bring people up close and personal with your featured supporter.

You can post the video on your blog, publish on your website, include in email updates to fundraisers, or send in your monthly e-newsletter. Not only can video content encourage prospective fundraisers to sign up, it can also motivate your existing supporters to start fundraising as well.

The Approach

The cool thing about filming an interview is that it allows you to interface directly with your supporters. It’s a great opportunity for you to meet, thank, and encourage your fundraiser in person, which makes the experience ultra meaningful for your interviewee as well.

While some nonprofits might be able to meet with fundraisers face-to-face, this option may not be feasible for all. Fortunately, with technology like Skype and Google Hangouts, you can invite your fundraiser to a live video call online and record the session.

Before inviting your fundraiser to the interview, make sure to send them a resource about how to prepare for the call. You can remind them to:

• Use a high-bandwidth, wired connection for the best video and audio quality
• Set up in a well-lit environment
• Answer the call in a quiet environment
• Make sure nothing is blocking their microphone

3. Conduct a Survey

If you’re looking to engage with several fundraising superstars, you can create a survey. They’re an inroad to gain insight into your supporters’ thoughts, and you can quickly collect responses from large groups of people.

Build a custom survey for your top fundraisers that asks pointed questions around they achieved success. Then, you can send the link to your audience and compile answers as they roll in.

Download Now: 100 Free Questions to Survey Your Donors

To make this even more actionable, consider putting their thoughts into a testimonial packet for future supporters as “insider tips from our powerhouse fundraisers.” Pair it with a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy tips sheet to enhance the feeling of a larger, deeply involved community to any new supporters.

The Approach

Keep your survey short and clear, and make every question count. Surveys of up to 15 questions are less likely to be completed with each additional question. To prevent people from abandoning your survey, follow these guidelines:

• Limit your survey to 3-12 questions
• Make sure your survey takes no longer than 5 to 10 minutes to complete
• Set expectations by telling your audience the number of questions and estimated time required upfront

As for what to ask, consider including questions like:

• How do you get the word out about your campaign?
• How do you encourage people to donate to your campaign?
• What are some creative ways you’ve gotten people to donate to your page?
• What advice would you give to people who hit a donation lull in their campaign?

Free tools

While there are many survey platforms out there, most offer different features based on free or paid subscription plans. As for services that provide a free option,

For example, SurveyMonkey’s free plan allows 10 questions and 100 responses per survey. Typeform is another great option, which lets you create dynamic surveys that can integrate visual elements into your questions. You can choose the images, color scheme, and font to create a unique survey experience for your reader.

4. Host a Fundraising Strategy Workshop

Instead of sending Q&A content to your new fundraisers, you could instead allow them to interact directly with top fundraisers on their own. Host a workshop where your longstanding fundraisers speak about things like:

• How they got involved with your organization
• Their fundraising experiences
• What they did to propel their campaign
• How they felt when they achieved their fundraising goals
• What first-time fundraisers can expect during their campaign

The Approach

Gathering all your fundraisers in one place is no easy task. However, you can bring everyone together by either hosting an in-person event, or a digital get-together.

The In-Person Event

This approach is probably best for organizations that have local chapters, which enables supporters to get together easier. Reach out to a chapter representative and help them organize the fundraising strategy meet up by providing resources, topic suggestions and advice for inviting potential speakers.

The Digital Get-Together

A Tweet Chat is a great alternative to an in-person event if you have a health social following. A real-time, scheduled conversation that takes place on Twitter, a Tweet Chat allows anyone to join simply by using the corresponding hashtag.

Personally invite your seasoned fundraisers to participate in the Tweet Chat and share their experiences. Then, create a hashtag that enables people to track the conversation. Make sure to publicize this event the week leading up to it, and the day of the event. Last, invite new fundraisers to the event so they can join in and feel like part of the community.

Whether you ask them to join your onsite workshop or Tweet Chat, you can offer experienced fundraisers different incentives to participate. Consider offering perks related to your campaigns and programs, like free registration to your next fundraising event.

Your fundraisers drive your organization’s work, and now they can power your mission even further. With experience comes wisdom, and longtime fundraisers can offer potent insight to new supporters. Whether you broadcast a one-on-one interview or host a large meet and greet, leverage their experience to help first-time fundraisers power through their individual campaigns.