Running a charity and managing auctions to raise funds can be quite a difficult task. Of course, the hard work that you put in is always worth it. However, when you organize these events, you always want to ensure that they are as successful as they can be. This is where peer-to-peer fundraising comes in.
In the nonprofit world, peer-to-peer fundraising is becoming more and more popular and it is proving to be greatly effective. Both organizations and supporters of those organizations are loving it. But how does it work and what makes it so successful?
Below, we will explore all the ins and outs of peer-to-peer fundraising and explain why your nonprofit should make use of it for greater success.
To understand why it is so useful, you need to understand what exactly it is. Peer-to-peer fundraising is a particular type of crowdfunding that takes a multi-tiered approach. Essentially, it is a fundraising effort that encourages and relies on peers to reach out to others on behalf of your cause.
Individuals can create personal fundraising pages for your cause, which will feed revenue back to your nonprofit. This way, you can leverage pre-existing social ties or social networks. Not only does this optimize the impact of your campaign but it can enhance your fundraising efforts.
In other words, the method, also called social fundraising, gives non-profits a much wider reach. You can find and connect with new donors and create and build deeper relationships with your current donors and supporters. While this is not a new idea, it has raised in popularity due to the connectivity that the internet has brought us.
There are a few steps, but the process of making use of a peer-to-peer fundraising method is not too complicated. In general, here is how it works:
Once your non-profit has decided on a goal, you need to set up the main campaign page (using a peer-to-peer fundraising platform). Thereafter, you will need to recruit some volunteers to create their own personal pages for your campaign. Here, you can provide your volunteers with resources if you please and with information to add to their pages.
Each volunteer will share the fundraising effort with their personal networks. This gives you a web of connections that you would not have had otherwise.
There are several practical reasons why peer-to-peer fundraising is attractive to non-profits. However, if those are not convincing enough to you, then maybe some statistics will be. According to the YouGov 2019 Poll, this tactic for raising funds was ranked number one when it came to prompting donors to give to charity.
Additionally, the 2019 Global NGO Technology Report showed that 33% of nonprofits across the globe use this type of fundraising already.
In 2018, $1.39 billion was raised by the top 30 US peer-to-peer organizations. And, about 6.3 million people participated in one of the 30 biggest campaigns of this kind, according to PeerToPeer Professional Forum.
With these statistics, it is difficult to argue against the potential that this type of fundraising holds!
There are several ways that this type of fundraising can bring greater success to charity efforts. After looking at these, it will be difficult to say no to combining your charity auction with peer-to-peer fundraising.
Sometimes, you need major donations or you need to acquire a grant of some sort. These types of things can take a lot of time and money and you need to first build trust and personal relationships before getting what you need. This is inefficient, especially when you’re working in a short time frame.
By making use of existing personal relationships, peer-to-peer fundraising allows you to move around these limitations of traditional fundraising. You have relationships with your volunteers, and they use their connection to get you what you need quickly. This leads to greater fundraising success for your nonprofit or charity organization.
Additionally, because your cause is being promoted by individuals, there will be increased trust between your nonprofit and new donors or supporters. Just think about it. If somebody you know and trust strongly supports a cause, you are more likely to trust and support that cause too, right?
If you tend to use more traditional methods, then you may struggle with limited resources. It can significantly hamper your success. However, with a peer-to-peer method, you can essentially multiply the impact of your limited resources. There is no doubt that this will lead to greater success!
The growth of awareness of your fundraising efforts is likely to be much larger (and will expand organically) using this method. If one person tells their friends and family, and then all of them tell all their connections, and that goes on for a while, the awareness will grow exponentially! All this without your organization having to do much at all.
Each person fundraising on your behalf will likely add their personal messages to their fundraising pages. In this way, they will develop a personal connection to your cause. So, they will likely feel more motivated to bring in new donors.
Another way that this helps is that it connects various opinions and outlooks to your cause. This means that a wider variety of people will be able to relate to the cause. Of course, this will result in your cause bringing in a diverse array of people, which will help to generate increased levels of success.
It is clear that there are a multitude of reasons to combine your charity auction with a peer-to-peer fundraising method. You get increased trust and growth, better use of existing resources, and a much higher likelihood of running a successful campaign.
The method also helps you to establish new relationships with potential donors much more easily. Altogether, it makes for easier fundraising through your supporters so that you can focus on your other campaigns like your virtual auctions.
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