N Street Village is the largest service provider for women experiencing homelessness in the Washington D.C. area.
In celebration of their 45th anniversary, the nonprofit sought a fundraising event that engaged their supporters and raised necessary funds so they could continue providing housing, nutritious meals, and holistic health and healing services to their community, rooted in dignity first.
After seeking input from their most loyal supporters, the organization decided to hold a walk that would bring together volunteers, donors, and clients, and encourage new friends to join the Village family to learn about their good work.
The first-ever SHERO Walk in 2017 was a great success, but organizers knew they had to increase their reach if they wanted an even more successful 2018 event.
For N Street Village, peer-to-peer fundraising was the natural solution.
In their search for a peer-to-peer fundraising platform that supported event and team fundraising, N Street Village’s development team found what they were looking for with CauseVox.
After switching to CauseVox and focusing on peer-to-peer fundraising, N Street Village was able to surpass their goal in 2018, raising $52,785 and rallying 384 donors!
With gifts made outside of the platform and onsite, the event raised over $80,000!
The SHERO Walk
N Street Village runs four large fundraisers each year. The SHERO Walk, in particular, is geared toward supporters with children, dogs, and others who want to get involved without a substantial financial commitment.
During the first walk, organizers raised an impressive $27,000 and engaged 106 donors in the fundraising process in peer to peer alone.
Going into the planning process for the second annual walk, the staff at N Street Village recognized that there’s a significant power in community-driven fundraising methods such as peer-to-peer, and they wanted to try it out themselves.
“For our second year, we wanted to use a software that was more peer-to-peer focused,” explained N Street Village’s Event Manager, Makenzie Delmotte.
The N Street Village team chose to power their campaign with CauseVox because of the team and event fundraising features, and the platform’s ability to share impact-related results with donors in real-time.
CauseVox-Powered
Through the CauseVox-powered peer-to-peer fundraising website, SHERO Walk participants have the option to register, donate, or set up a fundraising page online where they can share the campaign with others and request their support.
The process of going through each of these three options is easy and intuitive; something very important to Makenzie and her team. “We want to give them simple, easy to use tools,” she explained.
But having the right tools is just the beginning. When it comes to peer-to-peer fundraising, the best results come from being prepared for everything from the start-up to the final activation of personal fundraisers.
Essential Platform Features
Activating supporters not just to participate, but handle the trials and tribulations of fundraising is a large part of the peer-to-peer process.
Fortunately, having the right platform and support can help streamline the process and make it easier on the back end.
Some of the CauseVox features that helped N Street Villages meet and exceed their relationship-building and financial goals include:
Easy-to-Use:
CauseVox is intuitive enough that most users can donate, register, and fundraise without much (if any) outside assistance.
However, Makenzie and her coworkers are ready to help when the need arises. “We meet women where they are…For some, you have to hold their hands and walk them through.”
Team Fundraising:
Many SHERO participants fundraise and walk on teams and groups, and N Street Village wanted a platform that could handle the intricacies of event and team fundraising without adding extra work on the back-end. With CauseVox, the organization could equip groups of fundraisers through a team-based page without hiring a software developer.
Impact Reporting:
“People want to see that their donation made an impact for the entire campaign,” said Makenzie. To that end, N Street Village appreciated that CauseVox helps donors and other participants focus less on the transaction and more about the story and impact through the CauseVox impact meter.
Sharing:
“Sharing [a campaign] is as important, if not more important, than giving.” Social media and email have made the sharing of information quick and convenient. To encourage liberal sharing, CauseVox embeds social sharing links on all fundraising websites.
Storytelling:
“People can relate to a story or cause in different ways, so we empower people to share their own story about why they get involved.”
N Street Village encourages their fundraisers to use CauseVox’s storytelling features, including the appeal, media uploads, and blog features. This allows them to share their own perspective on their own terms. Along the same lines, the organization also creates resources to assist fundraisers in their storytelling efforts. “
Invest time in making your materials great, including a multimedia video that hooks new donors,” Makenzie noted.
Data-Driven, Forward-Thinking:
Makenzie and the team at N Street Village weren’t just focused on raising and engaging for the SHERO Walk; they had full intentions on using this event as a step toward deeper relationships with supporters. “[We ask], how do we engage them further? We always have to find another engagement piece.”
Using CauseVox, N Street Village is able to track essential donor data and export it to their own CRM systems, meaning there’s no lapse in information from one platform to another. With accurate, easy data transfers, N Street Village can track each donor’s activity, and adjust future engagement as need be.
The Bottom Line: Spend Time On Community-Building
Although the SHERO Walk is just one part of an intricate fundraising strategy, N Street Village uses this touchpoint to build close relationships with their ever-growing donor community and connect them with other cause advocates.
And it works! Through peer-to-peer fundraising, the organization engaged three times as many donors!
By choosing to power the SHERO Walk campaign through CauseVox, N Street Village can spend more time with those who matter most: their supporters and their clients, instead of worrying about the technology, programming, and back-end data captures that tend to overwhelm the fundraising process.
Congratulations to N Street Village for their tremendous efforts!
Have you considered peer-to-peer or team fundraising?
With CauseVox, you can launch beautiful, branded online fundraising sites for any campaign, annual fund, giving day, or capital project without IT or a web designer.
Plus, by using team fundraising just like N Street Village, you’ll naturally enhance your events by activating participants to raise money online and reach new donors for your cause.
Thousands of organizations from small community-service charities and national organizations to global development nonprofits use CauseVox to raise more with less effort.
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Try it for free and see for yourself.
