Veteran fundraisers know it well — the job can be hard work. For peer-to-peer fundraisers, who ask friends, relatives, and others to give to a charity, the task can be more daunting. They may never have asked anyone for money before. So be sure to make their experience a positive one by providing the right tools and support throughout the campaign. Doing so makes it more likely they’ll return to raise more money, and maybe even recruit their friends to volunteer, too.
The Chronicle spoke to charities with strong peer-to-peer programs; here are the must-haves they identified.
Easily customizable online giving pages
While face-to-face requests for money are often the most successful, much of peer-to-peer fundraising happens online. You’ll want to ensure that fundraisers can easily share links to their donation pages through their social networks. Some platforms allow fundraisers to import a list of their contacts, making it simple to share the page.
Volunteer fundraisers should be able to set up and customize those pages easily, for example by uploading photos, videos, and text. Many online pages include fundraising thermometers or leader boards to help volunteers easily demonstrate their progress and compare it with others.
A less visible but equally important consideration: When selecting the software to create the pages, be sure to choose a platform that can share data easily with your database and other software systems you use.
Training and educational materials
Before your fundraisers ask anyone for money, they should have a level of familiarity with the cause, the organization, and its beneficiaries. After all, they need to be able to explain where the money they raise is going. Some charities, like the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, which together run the AIDS/LifeCycle ride, point fundraisers to relevant pages on their websites. They also recommend that fundraisers contact staff who are dedicated to answering their questions and can provide more background on a charity’s services. Other groups provide a fact sheet with key details on the organization and offer webinars and other training calls to get volunteers up to speed.
Examples of what a gift can accomplish
Give fundraisers concrete examples of what gifts of various sizes can do so they can share them with their friends and family. For example, fundraisers for Share Our Strength’s Chefs Cycle ride get a packet that shows $25 can provide a month’s worth of snacks to a child in an afterschool program, while $250 can supply the curriculum and materials needed to educate 25 families about how to make healthy choices when grocery shopping and cooking.
If money raised through your charity’s peer-to-peer efforts supports more abstract goals, like advocacy, share bigger-picture objectives that donations can support like raising awareness for a cause, Laurie Schaecher, vice president for consulting at Plenty, a firm that advises nonprofits, said at the recent Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum.
Sample emails, letters, and social-media posts
Don’t make your fundraisers start from scratch. Provide materials and templates that fundraisers can customize, such as social-media posts about a participant or a beneficiary or about an interesting fact. For example, for its March for Babies events, March for Dimes offers shareable e-cards, memes, and social-media posts.
Event ideas and case studies
If your charity has a do-it-yourself peer-to-peer program, which allows volunteer fundraisers to get creative about the ways they raise money (often going beyond the traditional walks, runs, or cycling events), it helps to provide some ideas and examples.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation provides a handful of examples including a Pancakes for Parkinson’s event and golf tournaments that supporters can take on if they choose. The charity has a step-by-step guide for fundraisers, outlining everything they need to consider before, during, and after the events, though it still allows fundraisers to create their own event from scratch.
World Vision offers some event ideas for people who want to raise money for farm animals during the year-end holidays, including hosting a “White Goat” gift exchange at work, holding an ugly sweater contest, and asking friends to donate in the fundraiser’s honor instead of buying that person a Christmas present.
Logos and guidelines
Even if your charity encourages creativity, it’s smart to set some basic rules about how volunteer fundraisers can and cannot use your logos — and what kinds of activities you would prefer that they do or don’t host.
You’ll likely want to share your logos in digital form so fundraisers can promote their events, as Susan G. Komen does. “We try to partner with everyone, but do have legal and brand restrictions,” says Megan Rouse, who manages Komen’s DIY peer-to-peer program. If fundraisers want to put on an event that raises concerns for Komen’s brand, like partnering with a marijuana business, staff work with fundraisers and consult the charity’s legal team to help them adjust.
The American Cancer Society explains that to stay within IRS rules on unrelated business income, fundraisers cannot sell any products with the organization’s logo or the Relay for Life logo for profit. They also are prohibited from selling items that can be purchased from, or returned to, a store or vendor.
