Year-End Countdown, Week 7: Rally Your Team of Fundraisers

Have you heard? Facebook is unveiling a new tool to help nonprofits raise more this year-end–and we’re having a special live joint presentation to show you how it works. Click here to learn more. 

And the countdown continues.

This week, we’re focused on getting your board, volunteers, and staff engaged and ready to fundraise. A peer-to-peer campaign is one of the best ways to get these key supporters excited, boost your total dollars raised, and expand your reach to new donors.

It’s important to remember that peer-to-peer campaigns aren’t meant to be cure-all, stand-alone efforts. Rather, they a strategic component of a complete and well-rounded fundraising plan.

So, how exactly do you encourage these key supporters to hit the ground running?

Step 1: Make It Easy

Any time you want to turn donors into fundraisers (or get anyone to do anything, really), you’ll see more success when you make your desired action as easy as possible. This especially applies to your board members. They want to help, but they’re busy and may not know where to begin. This is where a little planning goes a long way. Some things to consider:

Offer clarity. First things first, you’ve got to be crystal clear about what you want your key participants to do, how they need to do it, and what you expect from each of them. This means you’ll need to zero in on your fundraising goals, which projects or programs you want to the campaign to fund, and how many donors you think you’ll need to get there.

Give them scripted messages. Get your participants started with pre-written emails, fundraising appeals, phone scripts, and social media posts. They may want to customize these messages to underscore their own stories or connection to their networks, but offering a starting point will give them the head start they need to feel like a personal fundraising campaign is something they can do.

Set a timeline and send reminders, particularly for board members. In a recent conversation with local nonprofits about board fundraising, I heard a common refrain, “My board members want to get involved, but they sometimes work on their own time frame, instead of ours.”

Ok, you may not be able to totally get around this, but being upfront about your campaign timing and deadlines can minimize this concern. Have a timeline just for your board, and send reminders to keep them motivated and on track. Encourage them to set an example for your other donors and fundraisers by kicking off their campaign with a donation that can serve as a matching gift.

Equip them with the right tools.Having the right technology in place will make the entire process of setting up a campaign, organizing your fundraisers, and collecting donations much easier. You’ll want a peer fundraising platform that allows you to customize your messages quickly and launch your campaign, as well as built-in best practices and optimized pages, so you’re getting the most out of your participants’ outreach. The easier it is, the more they can do themselves. That will take more of the burden off of you. (Pretty sweet, right? Want to see a platform that can help you make it easy? Schedule a personal tour of our peer-to-peer fundraising software to learn more.)

Step 2: Make Your Participants Look Good

We all want to look good, don’t we? Help your board, staff, and other key fundraisers look good through a social fundraising campaign that underscores their passion for your work.

Let them personalize their outreach. People are more likely to give when asked by someone they know. When your participants’ campaigns reflect their unique stories and includes their photos, their networks will be more likely to join in and give to your cause.

At the end of the day, giving is most often driven by personal ties and experiences, so encourage your fundraisers to use their connection to your work to fuel their outreach. It will make them feel great and will ensure their outreach is more effective than a generic ask.

Offer a great giving experience. A powerful and personal fundraising ask is one thing, but the giving experience must back that up. Beyond the personalization, make sure that your giving pages are intuitive beautiful, and make completing a donation easy, fast, and fun. Don’t forget to include elements that keep the giving going, like recurring donation options, social sharing tools, and donation tickers to highlight generous campaign donors .These features help you raise more and make it more likely that others will share your fundraisers’ pages.

Step 3: Let Them See the Potential

To get your board, staff, and volunteers excited about your campaign, help them visualize the results of the campaign as well as their individual contributions. Give them a clear vision of your target that clearly shows the impact on your mission.

Leverage the network effect. Work with your board members and staff to identify how many people they can reach, and then think of the potential size of their network’s network. Show them how quickly their messages could spread far beyond your existing donor base.

Help them see the return. A peer-driven fundraising campaign can be an affordable way to grow your list, recruit new donors, and raise money through just one campaign. By using your existing base as a megaphone, social media and word of mouth can power your outreach. With just a little support from email, paid advertising, and the right technology, you can raise exponentially more than your fundraising costs.

Underscore the impact: Each fundraiser and donor has a specific impact on your goal and mission. Outline how each fundraising page and donation gets you closer to the goal. Then, for your board in particular, show how this campaign fits into your larger fundraising vision. Once your stakeholders see their potential impact on your work, they’ll be motivated to jump in and do their part.