Peer-to-peer fundraising can be a powerful strategy to have in your PTA’s tool belt. But, if you’ve never participated in one, it’s good to take a step back and find out the basics.
What is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?
You’ve most likely been asked by kids in your neighborhood to pledge support for a fun run or jump rope-a-thon at school. Students run or jump a certain amount and you donate accordingly. That’s peer-to-peer fundraising!
Peer-to-peer fundraising is an online fundraising strategy where students can personalize their own page and share it with friends and family in order to support a worthy cause. It provides an easy way for friends and family to support their students and provides a platform that can be continued year to year as long as the student is still at the school.
How Does Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Work?
A little prep work up front makes a peer-to-peer fundraiser one of the easiest you have run. You can be ready to launch in minutes!
1. Your Board Sets a Fundraising Goal
Base your goal on previous fundraisers. Increase your goal slightly from last year, but not too much so there’s no danger of missing your goal and discouraging your participants.
2. Your Board Selects Fundraising Software
Make sure to choose a robust platform that offers all the features your organization needs. Pay special attention to what fees you will incur – both at startup and percentage of your donations (With Membership Toolkit, you keep almost 95% of funds raised versus other platforms where you keep only 40-50%).
3. Your Board Designs the Main Fundraising Page
Your board or fundraising chair then personalizes the overall look of the campaign. At Membership Toolkit, we make personalizing your donation campaign a synch with our preloaded graphics, page backgrounds, and buttons. You choose the colors too. It is also impactful to share your mission statement or story and why you are raising funds.
By creating a branded template for your participants, you can control the message and information that gets sent out while still allowing students to create their own personal page with their creativity.
4. Students Create Their Own Fundraising Page
Participants receive their very own page to customize. They can upload a picture, write a note to future donors, and set a personal goal.
The student then inputs the email addresses of friends and family and then easily sends a personalized note to potential donors. They’ll then be alerted when someone makes a donation!
5. Share and Promote Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser
Your peer-to-peer fundraiser almost markets itself with good software that can easily send reminder emails to donate. Your team can post frequent updates to social media and participants can share that information as well to encourage donations.
You can also gain momentum in your fundraising campaign through friendly competition. Leaderboards allow classes, teams, and groups to compete against each other for bragging rights or actual prizes.
Once you have a plan in place to host an amazing event, all that’s left is to choose an event that gets your group excited!
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas
Fun Run
- Color Run
- Read-a-Thon
- Walk-a-Thon
- Dance-a-Thon
- Any-a-Thon really! (get creative!)
- Battle of the Bands
- Viral Video Challenge (think ALS Ice Bucket Challenge)
- and many more!
Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
- Creates school/organization spirit with a little friendly competition
- Raises LOTS of money (and you keep nearly 95% of what you raise using Membership Toolkit’s Fundraising Campaign Tool)
- Extends your reach and grows your donor base
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful tool in your fundraising strategy tool belt. Becoming knowledgeable about these best practices will prove invaluable to your organization for years to come. The sky’s the limit–what peer-to-peer fundraiser will you start with?
