Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Back to the Future

Peer-to-Peer FundraisingBack to the Future

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Your Charity Dynamics Team

Colleen LeggeSr. Consultant

clegge@charitydynamics.com

Lindsey RoseMarketing Strategist

lrose@charitydynamics.com

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Agenda

1. What is P2P Fundraising?2. Increased Competition in P2P3. Digital Acquisition4. P2P Donor and Participant Conversion5. Do it Yourself?

What is P2P?

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What is Peer-to-Peer FundraisingAsking or empowering your supporters to ask their network for donations.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising is the fastest-growing and most exciting of nonprofit fundraising channels.

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Walk-Run EventsPrimary Event Objectives: • Raise cause and/or organization awareness and facilitate the

feeling of community in designated markets/cities • Increase organizational revenue through fundraising by utilizing

the existing organization member network and those members’ immediate circle of influence

• Grow an organizations audience by utilizing a team model – introducing the cause/organization to potential new supporters

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Endurance or Third-Party EventsPrimary Event Objectives: • Raise funds for a designated organization or cause through an

event or activity • Utilize the existing success of a popular event to increase

awareness for a cause or organization• Grow your organization audience utilizing a team model –

introducing the cause/organization to potential new supporters

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Campaign Focused Events

Primary Event Objectives: • Designated, targeted campaign that exists within the organization

or cause • Campaign exists within a particular time period or season – has a

clear start and end date to provide supporters clear direction on what to do and when to do it

• Increase revenue with fundraising utilizing multi-channel marketing efforts (examples: direct marketing, eCommunications, social media)

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DIY or IFE Peer-to-Peer Fundraising EventsPrimary Event Objectives: • Educate your organization on the habits and interests by allowing

them to identify fundraising events that interest them. • Grow your fundraising audience by widening the options of ways

they can get involved; no event or fundraising goal is too small

Increased Competition in Peer-to-Peer

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Increased Competition

– P2P programs saturating space – especially in DIY

– For profit active events such as mud runs & color runs are innovating event space but not ‘owned’ by non-profits

– Many legacy walk programs are experiencing decline in revenue year-over-year

What is it?

– Increase acquisition investment – Innovate within existing

programs– Launch competitive initiatives –

running more than one P2P program serving different audiences

– Improve your P2P site experience

How to respond

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For-profit competition

• Color Run – A for-profit event management company, single largest event series in the world, started in 2011

• Tough Mudder – 2010, 150+ events, $75 million annual revenue, only 6.5 million to charity partner

• Spartan Race – Survived as failing business through Wall Street investment capital

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Geo-location• Let technology do the work for your users• One less step to get participants registered for the correct event• Consider possibilities for providing local content on organization

websites as well as events

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Digital Acquisition

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The perfect fundraiser• High-value fundraiser

• Loyal (multi-year participation)

• Community Activator

• Social Ambassador

• Volunteer

• Organization Champion “I wish all my fundraisers were like them”

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Traditional acquisition targeting

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Lookalike audiences

• Targeting algorithm, offered by social networking sites, providing access to new audiences that demonstrate similarities to current high-value audiences

• These sites create a “lookalike audience group” specific to your organization, and provide the ability to target your advertising to them

What is it?

• Determine your high value constituents

• Upload audience to create custom audience

• Develop customized advertising that speaks directly to these custom audiences

How to respond

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How does it work?

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Three options

Upload a list of your existing customers. Then use Lookalike Audiences to find people who resemble that audience.

Install a Pixel on your site. Then create Lookalike Audiences based on people who've visited specific pages on your website.

Use Lookalike Audiences to create an audience based on people who like your Social Media properties.

Custom

SiteVisitors

SocialFans

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Lookalike audiences modeled on most loyal customersThe result:

• Nearly 4 times’ higher return on advertising spend than other display advertising channels

• Facebook was a top-performing channel for new customer acquisition during the festive season

• 60% higher click-through rate using Facebook Lookalike Audiences compared with other display media

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Macmillan’s Go SoberRaised $3.5m in its first year, with 31,000 Sober Hero’s taking part

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Take Action

• Ensure your organizations privacy policy allows for use of personal information in this way

• Set programs goals and determine budget (ROI)

• Identify your high value constituent groups

• Develop contextually relevant content

Planning

• Upload constituent data to create your custom audience

• Set-up ad campaign• Utilize on-site interest

categories to test multiple creative executions

• Ensure tracking/analytics in place

• Optimize based on learnings!

Execution

P2P Donor & Participant Conversion

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Is this your organization?• Event participants and donors are suppressed from direct

response solicitations.

• Do you perform a regular audit of those that are flagged with an erroneous suppression on their account?

Peer to Peer Donor Conversion

• P2P lists are often put into a silo and never communicated with directly by the organization

• P2P relationships are left up to participants to cultivate and solicit each year

• Participants may not renew participation, may not solicit same contacts

• Lapsed participant and donor lists often go unused altogether

What is it?• Cultivate and engage audience

throughout year – supporting participant efforts without stepping on them

• Engage lapsed donors to make a first time (non-event) gift

• Test what works for your audience

How to respond

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Case Study – Lapsed P2P Donor and Participant Conversion

• National Walk Fundraising Program

• Goals– Create an email campaign with the goal to re-engage lapsed

participants and donors.– The primary objective of this test is to maximize action and/or affinity

to give.– Convert lapsed participants and donors into a revenue generating

opportunity.– Develop best practices for ongoing engagement of audience.

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Approach• Developed design, creative

and test schedule for conversion email program

• Email content was tested focused on three areas: – Personal stories– Statistics– Programs

• Email cadence was tested. (Four tracks sent over a two week period.)

• Used source code tracking and email performance tracking to analyze results

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Outcome• $4,080 revenue generated from

test group

• Developed benchmark of average donation of $77 (higher than non P2P giving)

• Validated audience as engaged– Open rate higher (13.27%)

than benchmark for Disease & Health Services vertical (12.75%)

• Developed key success best practices for future engagement of audience

• Required high number of emails for effective conversion, but unsubscribe rate never suffered

• Plan to place lapsed list through conversion series each quarter for new batch of names

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How to respond…• If your organization isn’t soliciting event donors and participants,

you better believe that another organization will.

• Analyze giving metrics for event-only donors, direct response-only donors, and donors who give to both direct response and email.

DIY- Investment Required

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True or FalseDIY…• Means ‘Build it and they will come’• Requires no marketing• Requires no staffing• Requires no cultivation and stewardship• Requires no communication or coaching plan

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DIY Investment: Marketing Required

• Recruitment

• Engagement

• Retention

What is it?

Marketing Channels / Content – how do they differ for new vs. existing constituentsCampaign / Calendar Opportunities

Data Analysis & Audience Segmentation Autoresponders / Coaching StrategiesParticipant Center & ToolsMilestones / Achievements

Event ExperienceRecognition & StewardshipRe-activation / Cross-promotion

How to respond

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Panda Nation launched “Wear it Wild” last October to connect Halloween and raising funds.

Fundraising campaign within a DIY program.

Creative. Different.

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Questions?