6 Tips for Your Next Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Event

Nonprofits often don’t see the correlation between their fundraising streams, but, often, one type of donor can transition into a more lucrative type of donor down the road. Those who attend events like galas could be major gift prospects. But what about attendees at your walk, run, ride or other peer-to-peer event? Could they have more of an impact on your organization beyond your events?

Through market research, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation discovered that 46% of people who come to the organization through its Take Steps Walk get involved in other parts of the organization, increasing their lifetime values, Sharon Saias, senior vice president of marketing and communications of the nonprofit said at the Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum last week in Philadelphia, where more than 600 nonprofit leaders and peer-to-peer fundraisers gathered to learn the latest trends and developments in the peer-to-peer space. 

“That was a critical piece for us because the organization finally recognized that we're a feeder into volunteers and into other areas of the organization,” she said during the “Using Data to Drive Your Marketing Strategy” workshop. “So that was a really important metric for us to have found out about.”

Throughout the three-day conference, there were more insights shared on where to find success with peer-to-peer fundraising programs in 2024. Here are six highlights from the conference. 

1. Focus on Participant Retention

Just like with other types of fundraising, acquisition is more expensive than retention, so there’s definitely an upside to signing up a participant for a second year in the same way as it’s important to get that lucrative second gift. 

“More than half of the people that rode this past year were new — since post-pandemic — and so how do we focus on engaging those people, retaining those people?” Joe Apgar, CEO of Peltonia, said during the event's opening general session. “And we've seen in our data too … someone that shows up for a second year raises more than someone that shows up for a first year, and you can just see it step up over time. And this being our 16th year, how do we really engage and drive people to be really long-term fundraisers?”

2. Own Your Fundraising Minimum

When Ryan Hammond joined the Eagles Autism Foundation as executive director and implemented a $200 fundraising minimum, many of the peer-to-peer fundraisers for the Eagles Autism Challenge were confused. In fact, some would call the organization in tears inquiring why the foundation was requesting the fundraiser’s personal credit card information and worrying whether they’d be able to meet the fundraising minimum.

“We had to own it that every employee, every [Eagles’] player, every person in our organization, and every community member that registered would be met with these fundraising minimums at different levels of participation,” she said during the morning general session on the second day of the event.

To help people understand the organization’s perspective, she found a better way to position it to them. Event costs were covered between the event sponsors and the organization to ensure 100% of what participants raised went toward the cause. This way, participants had a compelling story to share with their network of supporters. 

“In fact, you can tell me what year you participated or what year you donated, and I can link you back to what projects you funded,” Hammond said. “That was something that was really important in the development of that transparency.”

To add to that transparency, the foundation puts an equal emphasis on how those funds are spent, which helps to further the story donors can tell. 

“One of the interesting things that we took from Howie Roseman, [Eagles’ executive vice president and] general manager, I award those dollars with the rigor that he is drafting players on the field, so I had to build a scientific review panel. I fly them all to [Eagles’ owner] Jeffrey [Lurie]’s house in Palm Beach, Florida. We negotiate what is the best science, we accept applications, and every single grant that we give is endorsed with experts from around the world to say that is measurable, that is innovative, that will change someone’s life.”

3. Encourage Participants to Use Your Event App

At Covenant House International, the mobile adoption was around 7% for its Sleep Out events, Colleen Veldt, associate vice president of peer-to-peer fundraising of the nonprofit, said in her breakout session, “Paint by Numbers: Using Data to Show the Big Picture.” So when it came time to review where the organization was going to invest for peer-to-peer for 2024, the nonprofit had to consider if the app was even worth the investment.

“When we looked a little closer at the average raised for people using the app versus non-users, it's about three times more,” she said. “So that was a big red flag to say, ‘Hold on. Before we get rid of this, maybe we need to invest a little more time in getting our adoption up because there's real opportunity in lifting our fundraising here if we can get folks using the app.’”

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation had very similar findings when it came to app outcomes. Saias found it to be a valuable way to contact participants and encourage fundraising.

“And we did a lot in terms of especially trying to push people to download the app because we know that people who download the app raise three times the amount of money than people who don't have the app,” she said.

4. Lean on Major Donors for Matching Gifts

To help peer-to-peer donors reach higher levels, Hammond taps major donors who can give a minimum of $25,000 to create a matching gift challenge. This assists fundraisers who reach lower levels double their fundraising in a short time while providing major donors a way to achieve big impact.

“I really use that as a tool to engage major gift donors. Anyone who has the capacity to give $25,000 I really lean on them to create matching gift challenges for our participants. So if I could cut their fundraising in half by matching dollar-for-dollar donations through leadership donors, I felt like that was a really great way to … show a donor real impact: ‘Your $25,000 launched on this day at 9 a.m., and in three hours, we turned it into $50,000, which turned into 400 new donors for the organization and then we can kind of track that ripple effect.’”

5. Use Influencers as Ambassadors for Your Cause

Though there may have been some hesitation regarding the safety of the Eagles’ players participating in the bike ride at the onset, Hammond encouraged then-head coach Doug Pederson that the Broad Street bike route was flat and resembled the parade route the team took following its 2018 Super Bowl victory. The Eagles Autism Challenge debuted just three months later in May 2018.

“For those of you who do not have a team of football players behind you, I get it,” she said. “... Full disclosure, I know how lucky I am. But you have influencers and today's the day when anyone can just become TikTok famous.”

Liz Filipowicz, national director of peer-to-peer programs, Autism Speaks (left) and colleagues present during the workshop, "Using Data to Drive Your Marketing Strategy" at the Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum. | Credit: Amanda Cole

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation utilized a TikTok influencer to promote its walk by providing a makeup influencer with a makeup palette featuring the brand colors of the walk.

“People were instructed and taught about how to apply makeup,” Saias said of the makeup demonstration that resulted in 65,000 views for the cause. “And we got a million different questions about the makeup palette, so we're thinking about maybe using this as an incentive.”

6. Utilize Facebook for New Prospects

Though there is a benefit to targeting lapsed teams and participants to improve retention rates, there are also ways to locate new prospects for your peer-to-peer event. Autism Speaks created an interest-based prospecting audience and a communications plan to increase participants and teams for its walk event.

“It was this whole new audience for us,” Liz Filipowicz, national director of peer-to-peer programs for Autism Speaks, said in the session with Saias. “And then we also were being very specific in communication about the team. So what's a better bang for your buck than saying, ‘You register and then you register 10 other people’? And so really making sure we were deliberate and how can we get the most effective communication out there?”

The organization also created a variety of digital ads on Facebook to promote registration and continue speaking to registrants with a multichannel approach that included email, texting and Facebook ads. For example, the nonprofit promoted that participants who raise $150 get a free T-shirt to incentivize participants to become fundraisers.

As a result, Autism Speaks saw a 4% increase in participants. Facebook ads alone drove 1,400 of those participants, a 354% increase year over year. 

“So can I now say, is Facebook a vehicle for us to drive volume? Yes, I can say that,” Filipowicz said. “I know that. I can take that data point and apply it to other things. But what was even cooler is that 86% of those registrations came through our prospecting audience. They were new to Autism Speaks, and, if they were fundraising, donors for Autism Speaks.” 

Though a lot of the focus for events is encouraging registration and higher fundraising goals, Hammond ended her presentation with one last piece of advice to ensure fundraisers don’t lose sight of the true goal. 

“Always remember it's not about the transaction,” she said. “It's about the transformation we can make together.”