Raise more this Giving Tuesday with peer-to-peer fundraising

Empower supporters to fundraise on your behalf this Giving Tuesday through a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. We’ll show you how to equip your core supporters with the best peer-to-peer fundraising tools, so they can share why your cause is important to them and ask their networks to join in supporting you. 

Why you should run a peer-to-peer fundraiser this Giving Tuesday

Many organizations launch crowdfunding campaigns for Giving Tuesday—asking supporters to donate individually to a campaign. However, launching a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign may help you raise more money and reach more people. 

There are many benefits to choosing to run a peer-to-peer fundraiser, including:

• Bring new donors to your cause 👋This campaign structure results in multiple people essentially becoming ambassadors for your mission, asking people you would not have otherwise reached on your own to join your cause and give.
• Gain additional promotion 📣 You can only share your campaign so many times, but your supporters can continue to amplify it by sharing on social media and emailing or texting their networks.
• Make your fundraiser community-oriented 💛 When you achieve your goal this Giving Tuesday, your fundraisers will feel like they're a part of your success—because they are!
  

7 top tips for your Giving Tuesday peer-to-peer fundraiser

1. Assemble your peer-to-peer team 💪 

A peer-to-peer campaign is—by design—truly a group effort, so your first step is to bring together a group of champions for your cause. Reach out to folks who you think would be willing to participate in your Giving Tuesday campaign, make a personalized peer-to-peer fundraising page, and share their page with their networks. 

Make a list of potential champions to ask to participate—think staff members, board members, program participants, volunteers, partner organizations, or sponsors. Include everything they need to know to make a decision:

• What are you asking them to do?
• What support will you provide?
• How much time will this take?
• When do you need them to activate?

A Google Form is a great way to share all this information and directly ask if they can commit—yes or no? 

Once you have a solid number of fundraisers signed up, bring everyone together on a Zoom call or in person. Run through your Giving Tuesday campaign plan, give them the materials they need to participate, demonstrate how to start their fundraising page, and answer any questions they have. 

Think of this as a training session and pep rally rolled into one—this should be fun, and everyone should leave feeling equipped and excited to join your campaign! 

2. Encourage friendly competition with team fundraising 🏅

Fostering friendly competition amongst team members is often one of the most important elements of successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. Kick your peer-to-peer fundraising up a notch by enabling team fundraising and utilizing Givebutter's leaderboard feature, which ranks participants by how many dollars they’ve raised and the number of donors they've gotten.

3. Set your peer-to-peer team up for success with branding that pops 🎨 

Aesthetics can make a big difference to donors, especially on Giving Tuesday when people may have to choose between various causes. Make your fundraising page visually appealing to inspire more people to give. 

Include these elements on your main campaign page and each peer-to-peer fundraising page:

• Make it your own 🎨 At the very least, your campaign should reflect your organization’s unique style and voice. Add your nonprofit’s logo and brand colors to your campaign so donors know they’ve landed in the right place.
• Make it memorable 🧠 Customize your campaign URL to make your fundraiser look more official and easier for donors to type out and share.
• ‍Make it engaging ✨Level up your nonprofit storytelling by adding photos, videos, GIFs, and graphics to your fundraising page (P.S. Givebutter’s built-in Canva integration let’s you add designer-level graphics right from your dashboard!). 

4. Make your impact crystal clear 💎 

Your community will be most responsive to your Giving Tuesday campaign if you have specific fundraising goals connected to a real-life impact. We all want to feel like we're making a difference when volunteering, donating, or supporting a cause. 

Donors also look for transparency. Use the story section of your fundraising page to break down your organization's mission and what exactly your organization will do with the money raised. 

Visual storytelling elements like text, images, and videos can help convey this message. Make sure to share this language with your peer-to-peer campaign members to include or adapt for their pages:

• Suggest custom donation amounts 💸 Customize suggested donation amounts and give each a meaningful label. Be specific about each donation amount (e.g., "Your donation of $25 will provide a week's worth of free lunches for one child.").
• State your goals 🎯 Explain why you are working toward this total amount for Giving Tuesday (e.g., "Raising $100k will provide 20,000 free lunches for children in our community."). A goal bar on your page (and individual and team pages) can display your progress and incentivize more donations. 
• Make it personal 💌 Encourage your team fundraisers to include campaign information in a way that's personal to them. Maybe they add personal reflections on your mission or how your nonprofit has impacted their lives. A prompt can help them brainstorm (e.g., "I'm fundraising for this organization because….").

Did you know?

Givebutter is donating $35K to nonprofits on Giving Tuesday! Learn more and submit your campaign →

5. Inspire generosity with video 📹 

Video storytelling is one of the top ways people receive information and are inspired to give—more than 50% of people who watch nonprofit videos will donate to that organization (or take some other action to get involved). 

Don't worry; you can create many types of videos without a video production team or fancy software. As long as you have people from your mission featured and a clear call to action, you are good to go! 

Givebutter integrates with YouTube, Vimeo, and more, so you can easily share why you're passionate about your cause in a video on your page—and so can your peer-to-peer fundraisers. Encourage your fundraisers to also share a video on their personal fundraising page. We’ve seen campaign pages with personal videos raise 15% more than those that don't have videos!

More to explore

Discover Giving Tuesday video and livestream best practices →

6. Keep your supporters engaged throughout the campaign 📣 

Sharing updates and interacting with your supporters throughout your campaign builds momentum crucial for success. Send encouraging messages throughout your campaign, reminding your peer-to-peer team of the tools and messages they can use to reach their personal fundraising goals. 

When you hit your goal, you'll want to share the good news far and wide! The following tools can help you share your campaign's progress and your gratitude with your team and donors.

Interactive supporter feed 💬

Givebutter’s interactive supporter feed allows you to update supporters in real time, and it will enable your supporters to also spread the love:

• Donor messages 🤟 Donors can leave fun public messages of support on your supporter feed with photos, GIFs, and even drawings.
• Likes and comments 👍 Engage with your donors and encourage more comments by liking and commenting on their public donor messages (Encourage your peer-to-peer fundraisers to do the same!).
• Updates and milestones 🎉 Celebrate progress towards and share important announcements directly with supporters throughout your Giving Tuesday campaign with campaign updates and automatic milestone reached messages. Campaign updates will be published in your supporter feed and sent to all of your donors via email.

Personalized messaging 📫

Givebutter offers a full suite of nonprofit marketing and engagement tools—at no cost to you. Skip the spam folder this Giving Tuesday with donor communication tools that are designed to convert, including: 

• Emails 💌 Send personalized emails to update supporters on your progress. Givebutter includes Canva integration, fully branded emails, and even domain linking for all of your campaign email blasts.
• Text messages 📱 Connect directly with your supporters on their smartphones. You can send outbound text messages, and so can your peer-to-peer fundraisers.

7. Don't miss out on recurring donations 🔄 

Giving Tuesday is a great opportunity to encourage people to join your monthly giving program. Givebutter allows campaign supporters to make their gift a recurring donation on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis with the click of a button.

And the numbers don't lie—check out the significant impact of recurring donations:

• 45% of worldwide donors enroll in a monthly giving program (Double the Donation).
• The average recurring donor will give 42% more in one year than those who give one-time gifts (Network for Good).
• 52% of Millennials are interested in monthly giving over a large one-time donation (The Millennial Impact).
• The retention rate of monthly donors is over 80% compared to new donor retention rates, which average less than 23% (Network for Good).

When supporters sign up to make a recurring donation, they communicate that they want a long-lasting relationship with your organization or cause. These people will likely open your emails, volunteer, encourage their networks to donate, and come to your events. Make sure to think through ways your organization can make them feel special for joining your community!

‍8. Let your donors know they can pay in any way that works for them 💳 

Givebutter is committed to making the donation process as quick and painless as possible to get your cause the funds it needs fast while improving donor retention. 

Make sure your supporters know that they can contribute in any form that works for them:

• Mobile giving 📱 According to M+R Benchmark, the number of transactions completed through mobile devices increased by 50% in 2018 alone. In comparison, the number of donations completed through desktop browsers decreased by 10%. Supporters can donate through Givebutter on their mobile devices with a few clicks.
• Venmo and PayPal ⚡️ Givebutter is proud to be one of the first fundraising platforms to allow supporters to donate through Venmo. Digital payment methods like Venmo and PayPal are especially popular among younger generations. The best part? You don’t even need a Venmo or PayPal account to accept donations through these platforms! 
• Apple Pay and Google Pay 🛍 Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are more popular than ever. Now, you can fully integrate them across all your fundraising efforts. Donors will be able to give in seconds since Givebutter can pull information such as name, email, address, and phone right from their digital wallet.
• Check and cash 💵 For donors who want to support your campaign via check or by handing you cash in person, you can add an offline donation to track everything in one place and boost your fundraising goal bar.
• Scan-to-donate 📸 Share automatically generated QR codes in your direct mail campaigns, emails, or at in-person events. Supporters can scan the code to donate in seconds with any smartphone camera.
• ACH 🏦 ‍Enable donors to transfer funds directly from their bank account at a reduced processing fee.
• Debit and credit cards 💳 Of course, donors can give with all major debit and credit cards.

The cherry on top? Donors have the option to cover payment processing fees, so more of the dollars you raise goes towards your mission—and over 95% of donors do!

9. Don't cut the fun short—end your campaign after Giving Tuesday 🗓️

Here at Givebutter, we see significant donations come through even after Giving Tuesday is over. It's in your best interest to keep your campaign open and let people continue to submit their donations. 

Giving Tuesday can be the perfect launching pad to kick off your year-end campaign. Plus, keeping your campaign open gives your peer-to-peer team more time to follow up with people who are interested in donating but need an extra nudge. 

Crush your Giving Tuesday fundraising goals with Givebutter's free peer-to-peer fundraising tools

We love Giving Tuesday here at Givebutter since it brings out the changemaker in millions and millions of people around the world! We're here to provide you with all the tools and resources you need to raise more, give better, and unleash generosity this Giving Tuesday. 

Dive deeper

Explore the Giving Tuesday guide for nonprofits: What it is and how to participate →

Check out our Giving Tuesday hub for everything you need for campaign planning, email and social media marketing, donor retention, and more on this global day of giving. Plus, verified nonprofits can submit their campaigns for a $5K donation—so don't miss out! 

Sign up for your free Givebutter account today, and let's make your Giving Tuesday campaign butter than ever this year. 💪