How Social Media Can Enhance Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

When it comes to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) campaigns and events, there is no doubt that social media has revolutionized the fundraising space.

Before we dive into how social media can take your campaign to the next level, let’s first define P2P fundraising. Peer-to-peer fundraising, also called social or team fundraising, is an online fundraising technique in which individual supporters or ambassadors fundraise on behalf of a larger cause or organization. Peer-to-peer campaigns typically fall into a few general categories, including:

  • Awareness and giving days
  • DIY-style campaigns
  • Ambassador fundraising
  • Challenges
  • On-the-ground events, like runs, walks, and rides
  • Virtual campaigns

Once your organization chooses what type of P2P campaign you want to execute, it’s time to unleash your participants to spread the word and begin fundraising!

Participants can use social media to help promote their campaign to their own networks of friends and family online. By leveraging Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram for their P2P fundraising, they can create a giving experience that is social, mobile, and fun!

Let’s dive into what you need to know about social media and innovative ways to leverage your social channels to enhance your next P2P campaign or event:

Find and Engage New & Existing Donors with Social Media

With millions of new donors waiting to be engaged online, social media is a perfect channel to reach new and existing donors!

As seen in the OneCause Giving Experience Study, social media has dominated the past 2 years as the number one channel donors learn about a giving opportunity.

Chart from OneCause Giving Experience Study showing where donors heard about a giving opportunity.

With your P2P supporters posting updates and mission highlights on your behalf, they’re showcasing the value and charitable backbone of your team. Their efforts help:

  • Bring in new donations
  • Attract new supporters
  • Spread your mission to a wider audience

It’s a win-win for everyone involved!

Design Your P2P Campaign With Social in Mind

How you decide to integrate social fundraising into your P2P campaign planning stages is up to you. Sure, you can do the minimum and add a few social sharing buttons or let participants sign into a donation portal with their social account information. But there are so many other ways to help integrate social fundraising into your P2P campaign and help strengthen your mission.

Social engagement tools are critical to reaching broader audiences, yet social engagement functionality is often lacking in many P2P solutions. Be sure to look at your participant experience from a supporter lens to evaluate how easy social sharing is from your P2P solution.

Other ways to include social media during your planning stages include:

HASHTAGS:

  • Create a unique hashtag to connect your online community to your mission and allow supporters to instantly see other posts and people who are involved.
  • Hashtags are used across all social media channels, so be sure to make your hashtag unique to your campaign.
    • Helpful Tip: Search www.hashtagify.me to see if someone is already using the hashtag you have in mind.
  • Make sure your hashtag shares something about your mission or charitable goals. #AugustCampaign, for example, doesn’t spike as much interest as #CleanDrinkingWaterChallenge.

SHAREABLE CONTENT WITH CLEAR CALLS TO ACTION:

  • Although it’s tempting to give your P2P participants huge swaths of content that highlight every single thing about your charity and mission, this just isn’t scalable.
    • Helpful Tip: Narrow down your content offerings into short posts that people can easily use (and easily share).
  • Create a compelling reason or hook that gets people to share and spread the word.
    • Helpful Tip: Photos, videos, trivia, and personal stories are great examples of sharable posts.
  • Ensure you have a clear call to action (CTA) like ‘Click Here’ or ‘Donate Now’ that will help facilitate engagement.

TAP IN SOCIAL MEDIA AMBASSADORS:

  • Tapping your supporters and turning them into active fundraisers with the right tools provides an instant way to grow your networks and drive increased revenue.
  • When choosing your ambassadors, think about tapping:
    • Board members
    • Volunteers
    • People with serious clout on social media
    • Sponsor connections and networks
    • Event committee members

Launch Your Social Campaign From the Start

Events like run, walks, and bikeathons might take place on a single day or weekend, but planning them can take weeks or months.

Kicking off your P2P campaign with a social focus increases the likelihood that you can reach new donors and create lasting momentum to reach your goals. Here are your quick steps to success:

  • Don’t be afraid to reach out to supporters with large social followings to promote your P2P campaign.
  • Post on your organization’s social channels with any relevant links and hashtags.
  • Keep up with inbound messages, posts, and online engagements.
  • Engage with social posts by sharing, retweeting, or liking as many posts as you can.
    • Helpful Tip: If the demand is overwhelming, then just focus on your core ambassadors.

Interacting and engaging with social posts shows that your team is aware of the commitment your participants are making and that you’re thankful to everyone who donated and took time to engage.

Make it Easy for Participants to Get Involved

Let’s face it, social media can amplify your fundraising efforts, but only if your well-rounded social strategy is supported by easy-to-use technology:

When creating your P2P campaign, choose a platform that:

  • Offers a seamless giving and fundraising experience for participants
  • Can be customized to match your nonprofit’s brand
  • Allows participants to easily connect their social media accounts
  • Provides supporting content such as ‘suggested social connections’ or ‘recent social posts’

Social donors are spending more time than ever before on their mobile devices. Make sure your donation process is mobile optimized, that all social links work, and that your mobile payment process is secure!

Create a Fun and Engaging Donation Experience for All Involved

Peer-to-peer campaigns should be personal, casual, and deliver a fun experience for all involved. As you’re building your P2P campaign’s social media strategy, don’t lose sight of the personal touch.

Send your P2P campaign participants personalized thank you’s and let them know how you’re using the funds that were raised. If your P2P campaign is a success, turn to social media to start amping supporters up for next year.

Enhancing your P2P social strategy is so much more than social sharing buttons or social accounts. A strong social media strategy ensures your audience is helping you spread the word to get the most out of your efforts!

Get Started with OneCause

Ready to get started? Empower your supporters to help you reach more people and raise more money than ever before with OneCause Peer-to-Peer technology. Here’s what makes OneCause different:

Social Listening, Feeds, and Integration
Showcase supporter engagement and make it easy for your participants to grow their teams.

Motivation and Rewards
Use gamification to engage and elevate your fundraisers.

Flexible Branding, Registration, and Campaign Options
Launch a wide range of campaign types customized for your needs.

Affordable and Accessible Technology
Enjoy software that scales to meet with your needs.

What are you waiting for? Take your P2P fundraising to the next level with OneCause today!

Wrapping Up

Social Media Guide – Looking for social media best practices that you can use throughout your fundraising campaigns? Look no further!

How to Plan a Walkathon Fundraiser – Still need to get started on planning your organizations walkathon? We’ve made it easy for you. Follow this guide to help you and your team launch a successful run/walk event.

Social Media Webinar – New to social media? We’ve got your back! This webinar features nonprofit social media expert, Julia Campbell, as she uncovers top social media marketing trends for nonprofits and the four pillars of social media management.

Peer-to-Peer Product Overview – No event is complete without software to streamline every aspect. Check out how OneCause Peer-to-Peer fundraising can help.