Are you trying to raise money for your nonprofit with minimal resources and limited time? We’ve prepared this list of 25 peer-to-peer fundraising examples to help you get over these common hurdles for nonprofits.
Although fundraising has evolved and arguably improved over the past decade, it’s common for nonprofits and charitable organizations to rely on tried-and-true fundraising methods like direct mail to raise money.
If you deal with common fundraising obstacles such as small budgets and haven’t yet branched out to community-driven methods like peer-to-peer fundraising, there’s no better time like the present to get started.
A Quick Recap of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
You give $50. You share the campaign with your friend, and she gives $100. She recruits someone who gives $30, and another who gives $20.
Now, the organization has $200, and four supporters. That’s more than each donor would give alone, and a lot more impactful than each gift by itself.
That’s the premise behind peer-to-peer fundraising; smaller gifts raised individually by go-getters (aka personal fundraisers) combine to make a bigger difference for a cause. The community focus of these events make them particularly beneficial for small nonprofits or those with limited resources.
This fundraising technique is an effective way for a nonprofit to raise money, build awareness, engage supporters, and get in front of a new audience of potential donors. And when you add a fun event-element to the traditional online peer-to-peer campaign, you can engage your community on a whole other level.
Whether you’re a peer-to-peer pro or just getting your feet wet, it’s helpful to look at what other organizations do to rally their supporters. Check out these 25 successful and creative peer-to-peer fundraising examples, and see if you can try any at your organization.
25 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples
1. Honorary Fundraiser
There are limitless reasons why your supporters may want to raise money to honor someone. It could be their birthday or a special holiday, or it may be in memoriam for someone who lost their life.
Honorary fundraisers are often organized on your supporter’s schedule (often called a DIY fundraiser), and, in many cases, a nonprofit or charity suggests the event type, such as a symbolic gesture or race (more on these below).
For example, innovation: africa encourages donors, volunteers, and other supporters to donate their birthdays.
Similarly, The Testicular Cancer Foundation also encourages peer-to-peer fundraising for events such as “Cancer-versaries,” where the supporter chooses to participate in a symbolic gesture such as not shaving over a one-month period.
Entire fundraising events can also be in honor of a person or a group, such as people dealing with a life-altering illness.
Pro Tip: Giving your supporters the option to fundraise any time they want helps make the process more accessible.
2. Bowl-a-Thon
Each year, Junior Achievement of Greater Washington organizes around 25 bowl-a-thons in their community. The organization partners with local businesses, professional organizations, and corporations, to rally employees, friends, and family members to raise money and participate.
To help manage the sheer number of donors, participants, and bowling teams, Director of Development and Events Lauren Meltzer, relies on CauseVox’s event-friendly fundraising software.
Regardless of how large or small your bowl-a-thon efforts are, it’s clear that 1. people love bowling and 2. there’s a potential to raise a lot of money.
After dozens of successful bowl-a-thons, Junior Achievement of Greater Washington estimates that they bring in between $4,000 and $65,000 per event! Jackpot!
Pro Tip: Encouraging participants to join bowling teams increases their accountability.
3. Polar Plunge
Jumping into a freezing body of water in the middle of winter; why not? Polar Plunges are an innovating and exhilarating way to get your supporters outside and active in the middle of winter.
The Rotary Club of Athens hosted a successful polar plunge fundraiser that raised over $25,000.
An event of this magnitude takes the 3 P’s: preparation, permits, and a touch of patience, but the energy you’ll experience is priceless.
Pro Tip: Create a personal fundraiser toolkit to support your plunger’s fundraising efforts.
4. Walk-a-Thon
Walk-a-thons can be localized, such as a local high school service group, or nationwide, occurring simultaneously in many cities. Like other activity-based events, supporters raise a set amount of money to participate.
Pro Tip: Add options to increase buy-in, such as a Fun Run or a 24-hour relay.
5. Work Out for Water
There’s no denying the popularity of Crossfit. There’s a chance many of your supporters are already getting their fitness fix at the local Crossfit studio, so a WOD-inspired peer-to-peer fundraiser may work for you.
Take Neverthirst’s lead and organize a Crossfit event (or more) at a nearby gym where participants have the opportunity to compete and raise money for a good cause.
Neverthirst loved that they could monitor each personal fundraiser’s progress from a central website while giving them the autonomy to share their personal story. In the end, Neverthirst felt like this event helped expand their reach “like never before.”
Oh, and they raised over $200,000 in the process!
Pro Tip: Some of your personal fundraisers will need guidance, while others will want creative freedom. Be ready to offer creative guidance or prompts to help your supporters tell their story. Make it easy for your fundraisers by writing an effective default appeal.
6. Virtual Running Event
Finally, there’s a solution for supporters who want to run in an organization’s charity race but don’t live close enough to participate!
Virtual running events resemble a traditional 5k/10k/marathon with participants raising money to be a part of the race, all of which rolls up to the nonprofit organization’s main goal. However, there’s one caveat: instead of running together, each personal fundraiser runs at a specific time or date on their own.
A great example of this comes courtesy of Operation Jack Foundation. Back in 2016, the Operation Jack Foundation organized a virtual marathon to help raise funds for autism awareness initiatives and got the attention of 15 runners and 119 donors in the process.
Pro Tip: Create a cohesive feel by posting updates from runners on the day of your virtual event.
7. Live Crowdfunding
Live crowdfunding combines the power of peer-to-peer with that of social media. This technique builds off of an in-person fundraising event by reaching out to those unable to attend and asking them to give during a set period during the event.
This can occur during a typical gala-type event, or at any other type of in-person fundraiser, as long as the results can be tracked and reported to the crowd in real time.
VisArt’s Visibility Arb Lab Campaign used a Live Crowdfunding format, complete with live updates and a thermometer!
Pro Tip: If you don’t have a large screen to display your real-time results, use a fun stand-in prop such as a thermometer or a jar of jelly beans.
8. Outdoor/Active Events
Do your supporters live on the wild side? If so, a simple walk-a-thon may not offer enough excitement. Why not try a more active outdoor activity such a hike, climb, or skydiving session?
Hope Worldwide hosted a successful outdoor fundraiser with CauseVox. They encouraged their community to run, walk, or bike for the cause. By giving their supporters this option, they ensured that this campaign would appeal to a large portion of their community.
Consider your local options, gauge supporter interest, and get to work planning an event everyone will remember.
Pro Tip: Encourage friendly competition, such as the Girl Scout’s “Toss Your Boss” challenge, where coworkers create a company team and fundraise to send their boss rappelling.
9. Trivia/Game Night
Game and trivia nights are almost guaranteed to reach another part of your supporter base. Plus, they’re a surefire way to bring a touch of competition and strategy to your fundraising event.
The Gauntlet, a fundraising event organized by the Mox Boarding House and other area nonprofits by ENGAGE and Card Kingdom, engages teams of tabletop game players for a fun and strategy-filled afternoon. Since 2013, the charitable drive has raised nearly $480,000!
Pro Tip: Take Card Kingdom’s lead and set up a live-feed during the event.
10. Symbolic Gesture
Symbolic gesture peer-to-peer fundraisers bear a mention because they’re extremely effective whether supporters are DIY or group fundraising.
Junior League’s Little Black Dress Initiative is a prime example of an event where participants do an activity that’s symbolic to the campaign. For this example, LBD fundraisers wear a black dress every day over a week-long period to raise awareness about generational poverty.
Whether it’s growing a mustache, shaving a head, or wearing a silly hat, a simple gesture may be more than enough to get a donor’s attention.
Pro Tip: Ask supporters to document their “gesture” and share them on your social media handles and main fundraising website.
11. Work-a-Thon
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, volunteers are twice as likely to become donors than those that don’t volunteer. Tap into this charitable subset with a work-a-thon, which brings your community together through sweat equity and fundraising.
By connecting your supporters to your cause, not just through your story, but through action, you’re creating a stronger bond and helping with future retention.
The Grapevine Faith Christian School held a fun and fruitful Work-a-Thon, and raised nearly $100,000. According to their website:
Work-A-Thon is an annual event where Grapevine Faith students and staff serve others in our community. Similar to a walk-a-thon, we are raising funds for our school as we serve our community.
Pro Tip: Offer multiple options for participants so that there’s equal opportunity to participate. For example, you don’t want to recruit a bunch of grade school children to clean using harsh chemicals, but they could probably be excellent paper-towel runners.
12. Challenge
Do you remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? That fundraising event took the internet by storm and got the wheels turning at many nonprofits. If you don’t recall, it was a social-media driven fundraiser where nominees were asked to either dump a bucket of ice water over their heads or donate $10 to the ALS Association.
Although the jury is still out whether or not a challenge of this magnitude will ever be replicated, it also gives some excellent guidance about how donors want to engage.
Brainstorm ways you can challenge your own supporters, such as a fast or new habit challenge. If your challenge relates to your mission, that’s even better!
Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to ask supporters to “nominate” others to participate. A friendly push can have a big difference.
13. Bake Sale or Baking Competition
Everyone has a favorite recipe for delicious cookies or pie. For this peer-to-peer fundraiser, ask your supporters to contribute their recipe to your cause at a baking competition.
Bring your bakers together for a competition to see whose baked goods are best. You can create categories for the different types of food and have a panel of judges to decide on the winners. Consider reaching out to local businesses to donate goods and services so that you can offer prizes to the winners.
In addition to the baking competition, raise funds by allowing every baker to sell their goods. This can be done in person wherever you host the baking competition or online through their dedicated fundraiser pages.
Adding a competitive element to your fundraiser is a great way to increase donor engagement. The peer-to-peer fundraising examples on this list that include competition are sure to get your supporters excited to solicit donations from their friends and family.
14. Golf Tournament
No list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples would be complete without mention of a golf event. Golf tournaments are a tried-and-true fundraising concept for nonprofits.
The best part of hosting a golf tournament for your peer-to-peer fundraiser is that it allows you to incorporate team fundraising. Team fundraising is a type of peer-to-peer fundraising where individuals form groups to maximize their impact by soliciting donations together. Each team will have their own fundraising page and compete against other teams to see who can raise the most.
By the time all the teams hit the links, they’re sure to have something worth celebrating with all the funds they’ve raised for your nonprofit.
15. Video Challenge
Viral videos are a great way to bring donations and awareness to your nonprofit. As we mentioned above, everyone knows about the famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but did you know that you can start your own video trend today?
Ask your supporters to set up fundraising pages to show off their videos. With CauseVox’s optimized peer-to-peer platform, your fundraiser can embed their video directly into their individual site. Then, have your supporters share their fundraising sites and their videos with friends and family. If all goes according to plan, the trend may even catch on and inspire new donors to make their own videos and encourage their communities to give.
In order to ensure success with a video challenge, it helps to give your supporters a theme or specific action that they can take to show their support. Like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, you want to make sure that this theme is simple, cheap, and engaging.
16. Day of Giving
Day of giving events are a simple and effective fundraising concept. This is a campaign where you encourage your donors to make a contribution to your nonprofit on a single day.
When setting up a day of giving peer-to-peer fundraiser, think about whether you want this to be an independent event or part of a larger societal movement. For example, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving is known in fundraising circles as #GivingTuesday. On this day alone, nonprofits around the country take advantage of the exposure of this day and the generosity of donors to raise millions of dollars. If you’re interested in starting a winning #GivingTuesday campaign, this webinar has all the info you need.
Your other option for a day of giving campaign is to tailor the day to your cause specifically. You may have a day that already resonates with your community, whether it is a holiday, an anniversary, or any other important date. Use this day as a springboard to encourage your supporters to create fundraising pages and raise money for your cause.
Pro Tip: If you are going to encourage donations for #GivingTuesday, think about how you can differentiate your nonprofit from the rest.
17. Storytelling Campaign
Storytelling is an essential component of every fundraising effort. Regardless of which of these peer-to-peer fundraising examples you select for your nonprofit, we recommend that you incorporate storytelling in some way. However, there is a way that you can further leverage the power of story to raise even more.
Host a storytelling event by asking your supporters to share their “why,” as in “why they feel strongly about your mission” on their personal fundraising pages. These stories will likely receive the most engagement if they are filmed, but you can also present them in text form.
Pro Tip: Embed a video with a strong story directly into the main fundraising page for your campaign like Summit Assistance Dogs did for their “Unleash Your Love” Campaign.
18. Corporate Gift Matching
Did you know that corporations around the country offer matching gift programs for nonprofits? It’s true! You can access these programs to maximize your fundraising with your next peer-to-peer campaign. The best part of this strategy is that it can be incorporated into any of the peer-to-peer fundraising examples listed here.
Many corporations prefer to donate to nonprofits that their employees also support. As such, most companies prefer to have someone who works at the company submit a matching gift request. While this may seem like a difficult barrier to entry, it can actually work in your favor with a peer-to-peer campaign.
If you have a large community of professionals in your network, consider asking them to start fundraising pages and solicit corporate matches through their work. This type of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign can raise a large amount in a short time with the right level of engagement. Some companies will match only those gifts submitted by their employees, while others will match all gifts made during a certain time period.
Corporations and organizations can be major fundraisers for your organization, in addition to individuals.
Pro Tip: Make sure your supporters are set up for success with all the materials they need about your organization. For corporate matching, this may include EIN number, budget info, and other pertinent details about your organization.
19. Volunteer Engagement
Volunteers are among the most important community members for every nonprofit. You may feel uncomfortable about asking them to fundraise for you in addition to all the other work that they do to support your mission. But you shouldn’t. Volunteers have been proven to be an invaluable asset for peer-to-peer fundraising.
The best part about signing your volunteers up as fundraisers in your next peer-to-peer fundraiser is that they can do double duty for your nonprofit. In other words, they can serve the community and your mission while they raise funds. You can even tie these two efforts together by having your volunteers challenge themselves to complete a certain number of volunteer hours while their community supports them with donations per hour worked.
Chances are, your volunteers are among the most knowledgeable and most engaged community members in your network. They will likely leap at the opportunity to spread the word about your organization to their friends and family.
Faith Gives is an annual peer-to-peer fundraiser that engages young volunteers to help raise money for Grapevine Faith Christian School.
Pro Tip: Have a recognizable point of contact for your volunteer fundraisers. Preferably this will be someone with whom they have collaborated before who can assist them with their fundraising.
20. Pledge Campaign
CauseVox is now offering a pledge donation feature to help you raise more with less effort. This feature is a great addition to all the peer-to-peer fundraising examples in this list. But you can also use the pledge donations as the theme of a stand-alone campaign.
Incorporating pledge donations is a simple, yet effective strategy that lets your donors make a large donation in a series of smaller installments. With this option, donors will feel inspired to give more than they would in one lump sum.
If you decide to run a pledge campaign, ask your fundraisers to explain the benefits of pledging and set descriptive tiers for each giving level. That way, donors will know exactly how their donation will make an impact.
Pro Tip: Pledge campaigns are a great year-end fundraiser. This year-end, ask your peer-to-peer fundraisers to solicit pledges from their communities and watch as the donations roll in.
21. Facebook Fundraiser
Social media sites have become increasingly important for nonprofit organizations. They are widely used to raise awareness about causes and reach out to new donors. But did you know that you can raise funds directly through social media channels?
With Facebook’s charitable giving tools, qualified nonprofits can receive donations directly through the site. Donations are quick, easy, and secure, making this an ideal option for organizations of all sizes.
Not only can you ask for donations on your organization’s Facebook page, but also individuals can host fundraisers on your behalf. People around the world already take advantage of this feature to raise funds for their favorite nonprofits on their birthdays. But there’s no need to wait until then. With a Facebook peer-to-peer fundraiser, you can ask your supporters to start fundraising for you today.
Pro Tip: Have a sample post ready to send out to your fundraisers that includes information about your nonprofit and how donors can get more involved.
22. Talent Show
Everyone loves a talent show! Thanks to the advent of digital fundraising platforms like CauseVox, it’s easier than ever to take your talent show online and use this event to help you raise money.
Here’s how you can convert a talent show into a successful peer-to-peer campaign. Start by enlisting dedicated fundraisers in your community and having them set up personal fundraising pages. Then, have them record themselves showing off a particular talent like juggling or playing the guitar. They can upload their talent video directly to their fundraising page and use it to drive donations.
This is a great opportunity to let your community share their passions while raising money for a good cause. You are likely to have great engagement for this event since your fundraisers will be inclined to share their talent video with as many people as possible.
Pro Tip: Ask your fundraisers to include a brief story about why they support your nonprofit in their talent video.
23. Giving Circles
When it comes to fundraising, sometimes it’s best to keep it as simple as possible. When it comes time for your organization to choose from this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples, it’s important to select one that is easily achievable. Why not return to the oldest form of peer-to-peer fundraising – the Giving Circle?
Giving circles are groups of philanthropic individuals who meet to pool their resources and support nonprofits. Before the Internet, these groups were responsible for the peer-to-peer element of nonprofit fundraising, since they would share information about organizations and bring in new donations.
Despite their more traditional format, giving circles are still alive and well today. If anyone in your community is a part of a giving circle, you can make an appeal to see if they will consider supporting your cause.
Pro Tip: If you are approaching a giving circle to solicit donations, consider creating a powerpoint or presentation to help explain your mission and impact.
24. Gifts for Grades
If you’re looking for peer-to-peer fundraising examples that can engage a younger audience, look no further! A Gifts for Grades campaign will inspire your young supporters to raise funds for your nonprofit.
Gifts for Grades campaigns involve having the students in your network ask for donations that correspond to the grades that they receive in school. For example, they could request $10 for every A, $5 for every B and so on.
Everyone wants to see children excel in school. So why not introduce a fundraising element and incentive to this desire.
Pro Tip: Use this event as an opportunity to show your community that you care about education and literacy.
25. Double Dog Dare Fundraiser
You may have noticed that several of the entries on this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples involve a predetermined challenge. As we’ve mentioned, challenges introduce a competitive element to your fundraising and help drive engagement. With a Double Dog Dare fundraiser, you can shift the power of the challenge to your donors.
Your supporters will set up personal fundraising pages, asking their friends and family for donations. But there’s a catch. In order to receive the donations, they will have to complete a dare submitted by that potential donor. The dares should be easily achievable, such as eating a stack of saltine crackers in under a minute, or running through a sprinkler. If your supporters are tech savvy, you can ask them to film these dares and post them on social media.
A Double Dog Dare fundraiser allows your fundraisers to have fun and connect with their communities while raising money for a great cause. The best part is that they can share their passion for your nonprofit both on their personal fundraising pages and in the videos that they make as they complete the dares.
Pro Tip: Make sure to set some ground rules for your dares. You don’t want anyone to attempt something that may be dangerous or too difficult.
Try One Of These Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples Today!
Did you happen to notice a similar theme in most of these fundraising events?
When you add a fun, funky, creative element, people come out of the woodwork to participate.
Another common denominator behind all of these peer-to-peer fundraising examples is that they all emphasize a quality user experience. Make sure you are set up for success with an optimized website. For some inspiration, check out this list of top-performing peer-to-peer websites.
Take these peer-to-peer fundraising ideas and incorporate them however you see fit to extend your reach and meet your goal. To use a cliché, you’ll be successful if you keep the “fun” in your fundraising.
Start your own peer-to-peer fundraiser today with CauseVox!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness in November 2022.
