Peer to Peer

Total 2014 P2P event revenues were down 2.47 percent from 2013, and six of the top 10 programs saw losses, with three of them down double-digit percentage points. Those three events still grossed a combined $498.6 million last year, but the downward trend signifies that, even for big-time nonprofits, P2P fundraising events aren't exactly a sure thing. Does that mean you should abandon that run event you were planning? Far from it. But you should arm yourself with the latest in P2P event science to better your chances for success...

By August of last year, more than 3 million people had donated to the Ice Bucket Challenge, the majority of them first-time donors. It was a massive influx of dollars and donors, and ALS Association now had at its fingertips a deep pool of potential future donors. It was a huge opportunity. Converting even a fraction of those first-timers into repeat donors would have a massive, profound effect on future fundraising efforts...

Masumi Herota, a 41-year-old South Carolina native, plans to run for 72 hours straight and cover up to 300 miles as part of a solo P2P fundraising effort to benefit the American Cancer Society. Herota is an "ultra" runner (a sort of elite class of runners who specialize in solo runs covering distances greater than a marathon) whose résumé includes multiple 50K's and two 24-hour runs of more than 90 miles...

Your chief development officer wants to tap into the endurance market. The CDO's expectation of this new event is colored by your organization’s experience with your existing peer-to-peer events. But, there is a missing variable. It is “market relationship” versus “social relationship.” Retail-attractive events yield market relationships for the most part. Retail-unattractive events (walks, for example) yield social relationships...

Last year, Project HOPE set out to implement its first P2P fundraising program. We were intrigued: Here was this respected, well-established nonprofit with five decades of fundraising experience and a reputation for efficiency, and it had never invested in P2P until now. How would it go? Does experience in traditional fundraising methods translate to P2P success? We wanted to find out...

Otis Fulton, Turnkey’s in-house psychologist, notes that a retail-unattractive event fosters social relationships. A retail-attractive event fosters market relationships. While both types of events and relationships can produce fundraising income at varying degrees of expense percentage, you can actually really hurt your income and your relationships by mixing the two...

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a big deal in the nonprofit industry, and a growing number of nonprofits are incorporating the strategy into their own fundraising plans. This type of social fundraising is on the rise—but is it just a passing fad? We don’t think so. Here’s why. 1. It’s flexible Nonprofits are often on the lookout…

Peer-to-peer fundraising has exploded of late, growing in scope and scale from supplementary funding stream to borderline necessity. P2P's emergence has been great for nonprofits, but there's a learning curve. That's why we're hosting the NonProfit PRO P2P: Redefining Peer to Peer conference, October 1 in Baltimore...

If an activity is available and selling well on the retail market, and we present it in the form of a fundraiser, my experience is that the participants in it behave differently. While not 100 percent true, many of these participants in a retail-successful activity are not connected to the mission being supported. These participants are simply buying their experience through their fundraising...

We—as individuals, as groups, as nonprofits, as businesses—operate in an environment that is fundamentally networked, and we’re seeing those networks become increasingly alive and powerful through the application of peer-to-peer technology. This presents a tremendous opportunity for nonprofits to leverage technology to mobilize their constituents' networks, and expand and recalibrate their fundraising programs. As the nonprofit peer-to-peer space…