The momentum behind the Giving Tuesday movement continues to build as nonprofits around the globe bring in more donations year after year.

In 2022, millions worldwide donated a staggering $3.1 billion—a 15% year-over-year increase—despite economic uncertainty.¹ On the Classy giving platform alone, donors helped achieve:

• $44,168,979 raised
• 277,353 donations made
• 4,163 new recurring donations processed

This year we’re back again to help you crush your fundraising goals with the proper preparation, direction, and creativity. Get ready to engage your supporters, inspire your community to take action, and maximize the impact of Giving Tuesday with these six fundraising ideas.

6 New and Creative Giving Tuesday Fundraising Ideas

Classy’s Why America Gives report found that 71% of donors are most likely to hear about new causes and issues to support through word of mouth from friends or family. That’s why these new ideas will center around the theme of community-building to organically engage, retain, and excite donors well into the new year.

1. Build Community Through Social Media

Many of today’s donors are leaning on their inner circles to learn about new causes to give to. This presents an opportunity for social nonprofit fundraising.

Nonprofits can communicate powerful messages about their Giving Tuesday goals through a social media campaign. Take this simple approach to make a more significant impact on a day when donors are eager to get involved.

If you don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered with fresh ideas for your Giving Tuesday social media posts.

Creative Social Media Ideas to Consider for Giving Tuesday

Build exclusivity: Treat all Giving Tuesday donors as “members” of this year’s Giving Tuesday fundraising initiative. Incentivize anyone who donates with special apparel, perks, or fundraising event access. Incentives keep donors excited while simultaneously fueling organic social sharing. You can think of this in the same way a unique coffee cup on one person’s Instagram story can lead to four other people heading to the coffee shop where they got it.

Make it easy to share: Offer supporters templates for nonprofit Instagram stories, Facebook captions, and TikTok videos to share on their social channels. Include some key talking points to help elevate donors’ captions about why donations are critical to the success of this campaign. Reshare content in real-time for maximum effect on Giving Tuesday by providing a unique hashtag to donors.

Track and reward sharing: Another great opportunity to inspire generosity among potential donors is to offer incentives to people who refer their friends and family to donate, just like many popular brands do today to grow their networks. Provide your supporters with unique links that you can track to keep tabs on the success of this referral system. With Classy, you can make use of marketing source codes to create custom links for individuals. In these links, you can create source code values like:

Source 1 = Instagram; Source 2 = Giving-Tuesday-Community-Outreach

Send your supporters their custom links, then remind them to include it in every outreach attempt. Make it easy by equipping them with digital assets to promote your social media campaign to their own personal networks.

2. Ignite the Power of a Peer-to-Peer Campaign

Your Giving Tuesday campaign is a platform to share your story in a compelling way and build connections that extend beyond that single instance. One of our favorite Giving Tuesday campaign ideas goes beyond social sharing. Go one step further and take donors to a campaign page that allows them to put their unique spin on your fundraising efforts to bring in more donors.

As shown in Classy’s State of Modern Philanthropy 2021 report, the average peer-to-peer fundraising campaign raises $22,026 and pulls in about 18 donors per individual or team fundraising page within the campaign.

When someone fundraises on your nonprofit’s behalf, their family and friends are more likely to donate on Giving Tuesday, even if they have no former knowledge of your nonprofit organization. Launching a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign is a prime opportunity for your nonprofit to boost fundraising totals this year and beyond.

Creative peer-to-peer Giving Tuesday fundraising ideas

Make it DIY: Build a peer-to-peer campaign that features your overall fundraising goal and offers donors the freedom to fundraise throughout the giving season in a way that resonates with them. DIY fundraising lets donors get creative with ideas of their own. Maybe someone would prefer to set up a fundraising page to replace holiday gifts or would like to highlight their loved one’s story on a dedicated page.

Lean into workplace employee giving: Consider a peer-to-peer campaign that starts at a company level and extends out to new networks as teams compete to raise the most. Giving Tuesday can be a great opportunity to help employees meet community impact goals and satisfy their personal goals to give back alongside coworkers. Each team member has the potential to connect your cause to new donors, making a considerable impact heading into the year-end giving season.

3. Celebrate Milestones in Memorable Ways

As you hit different campaign milestones on Giving Tuesday, get your community involved in celebrating. Take the opportunity to engage supporters online all day with the personal touches they appreciate, especially if your fundraising effort has been virtual this year.

Creative Milestone Celebrations for Giving Tuesday

Share stories: For notable fundraising milestones, ask various team members to record videos telling their personal stories about what your cause means to them. You can update your Giving Tuesday landing page with videos alongside a real-time fundraising thermometer to showcase progress. This powerful testimonial will incentivize supporters to come back regularly throughout the day or share a preview on social media to entice new traffic to your donation site.

Leverage partnerships: You might also consider leveraging corporate partnerships or sponsorships with local businesses or celebrities. For example, a local member of your community could award a gift certificate to the largest donation at that point when you reach 25 percent of your fundraising goal, and then again at 50 and 75 percent. This can help generate excitement throughout the day and get people to donate larger amounts hoping that their generosity will earn them a nice incentive.

Create a challenge: Imagine getting a different team or nonprofit board member to temporarily dye their hair a color representing your cause each time you raise $1,000. You could livestream this on social media as an incentive to continue donating all day. You can also extend this challenge to your audience through a peer-to-peer campaign and have them submit videos as they complete challenges of their own. This can be a great follow-up that you share with your entire community once Giving Tuesday is over.

4. Livestream Your Campaign

Livestreaming was highly popular before the COVID-19 pandemic and has now become an even more powerful tool for nonprofits who want to connect with their audiences worldwide. The video streaming market is projected to hit $184.3 billion by 2027, so get ahead by locking down your strategy.²

The tactic of livestream fundraising has been used to broadcast live fundraiser galas and endurance events. As a result of the popular demand, many livestreaming platforms have added features that allow viewers to donate directly to nonprofits while watching live content.

Your nonprofit can incorporate a livestream component to your Giving Tuesday campaign that elevates your brand, attracts new demographics, and drives higher online fundraising revenue. Anything you do to encourage viewer participation can go a long way when driving donations. It’s also a solid strategy for building genuine relationships with your viewers.

Creative Livestream Ideas for Giving Tuesday

Broadcast your campaign: Plan to host a full-day or partial-day broadcast on Giving Tuesday that’s filled with live entertainment, fundraising milestone celebrations, and messages from your staff or board members. Ask donors questions that they can answer in real-time, give shoutouts to donors as they complete donations, and talk with them like you would your friends. You can use a virtual fundraising event campaign tied to a designated donation page to track your attendees’ behavior and target year-end appeals from the excitement your event introduces.

Pre-record a Giving Tuesday Livestream: If a live broadcast is overwhelming or too time-consuming, you can still use livestream functionality on Giving Tuesday. Pre-record an entire day’s worth of content and livestream it later to make it feel like it’s happening in real time. You can also do a mixture of pre-recorded videos with actual livestream broadcasts to help ease the workload.

Classy allows your nonprofit to embed YouTube and Twitch livestream broadcasts directly into your campaign page.

5. Unveil a Matching Gift

Giving Tuesday is a great time to unveil a matching gift period to your supporters to drive donations, especially if you’re noticing a mid-campaign lull. It’s essential that you start hunting for this matching gift partner early in your planning phases since it can take a while to solidify the agreement’s details.

Once you have it set in stone, let the public know leading up to Giving Tuesday or as a delightful day of surprise. Either way, make sure you clearly communicate the details, like how much your partner is matching and how long the matching period will last. Sharing these details early on will only help maximize revenue from employee matching gift programs.

Be sure to spread the news far and wide across your social media channels and in your email messages to ensure maximum audience participation. Further, you can have your partner ask their staff to participate in the match to drive even more donations.

Creative Gift Match Ideas for Giving Tuesday

Promote your match in advance: Capture the interest of donors who are on the fence about donating on Giving Tuesday by making it clear that their gifts will go further. Share the tangible impact their donation will make on your cause. As you prepare to launch a Giving Tuesday matching gift campaign, be sure to communicate early on through emails, on social media through countdown stories, or in any other creative ways that make sense for your donor base.

Create a time-bound match: Plan to release a surprise match for a specific time frame on Giving Tuesday where you’ve historically seen donations drop. Suppose you can add an early bird match in the morning or announce a new match in the evening. In that case, you may be able to revive your donor base and generate fresh excitement.

6. Leverage Giving Tuesday Year-Round

Seasoned fundraisers know that Giving Tuesday campaigns don’t end in December. Campaign follow-up is the most critical element to setting up long-term success for your nonprofit organization.

Don’t forget to launch a formal follow-up campaign in the weeks following Giving Tuesday. This additional touchpoint lets you interact on a more meaningful level with each donor and allows them to learn more about what’s ahead for the coming year.

Creative Ideas to Retain Giving Tuesday Donors

Promote recurring giving: The value over time of each recurring donation leads to sustainable revenue you can count on and offers a way to reach new donors through creative incentives and regular outreach. Consider tailoring your Giving Tuesday goals around recurring membership instead of one-time gifts, or pair this call to action with your social media referral approach to get existing donors to tap into their networks. Provide them with branded messaging so that each interaction within their network is impactful and motivates more recurring donors to sign up on Giving Tuesday.

Share a preview of your largest annual events: What if you greeted each Giving Tuesday donor with an exclusive early access invitation to your annual events? Build your event registration pages in advance to capture attendees months early, and ensure you have a touchpoint to steward them with. If you can’t set up your registration before, create an interest form to grab their information and tease out details about your event in the months leading up to it.

Make It a Giving Tuesday to Remember

As you consider these creative fundraising ideas or any others that come to mind, remember that Giving Tuesday is so much more than just one day. It’s an opportunity for your nonprofit to capitalize on the fervor of one of the social sector’s biggest fundraising opportunities of the year. Capture new audiences, delight returning donors, and steward your supporters for future efforts to come.

Be sure to visit our Giving Tuesday Resource Center below for free downloadable resources, creative campaign examples, and so much more.

Sources:

1. “Millions Worldwide Celebrate GivingTuesday 2022 with Acts of Generosity & Giving,” GivingTuesday, November 30, 2022, https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/millions-worldwide-celebrate-givingtuesday-2022-with-acts-of-generosity-giving/.
2. “Video Streaming Market Size Worth $416.84 Billion By 2030,” Grand View Research, 2023, www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-video-streaming-market.

Today, we’re highlighting the impact of a solid corporate giving program on your ability to acquire and retain valuable nonprofit sponsorships. We’ll talk about how to become a preferred nonprofit partner by giving corporations more ways to get involved in your mission.

Get ready to maximize your relationships and see the most value from forward-thinking corporate philanthropy.

The Trajectory of Corporate Philanthropy

Strategic nonprofit partnerships offer many attractive benefits. From improving outreach efforts and advocacy to enhancing programs and services, there are many ways that an alliance can help your organization enhance its efficacy, impact, and sustainability.

The first step to strengthening a partnership is to be clear about what you want to get out of it. Below, we’ll help you identify and clarify your nonprofit organization’s goals with a few ways to be a strong nonprofit partner with for-profit businesses.

Corporations Want Deeper Connections With Nonprofits

Corporations look for opportunities to demonstrate support for causes near and dear to them and treat nonprofits as an extension of CSR and marketing functions.

It makes sense that for-profit companies are more invested in philanthropic efforts when 77% of consumers are more motivated to purchase from brands committed to improving the world.¹ That’s why an estimated 90% of companies on the S&P 500 respond to customer desires by publishing a CSR report each year.²

Take advantage of these companies’ appetite for philanthropic involvement by offering mutually beneficial opportunities. Highlight timely donation requests, volunteer opportunities, and peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns corporations can support to help you scale.

How to Think Ahead to Nurture a Strong Corporate Nonprofit Partnership

Here’s a checklist to strengthen your corporate sponsorships.

• Amplify your mission and values: Use successful partnerships to showcase your organization’s mission and core values to new audiences. Solidify your position as a dedicated nonprofit in your niche and remain consistent with the fundraising approaches and messaging that resonate with your supporters.
• Define what you want to accomplish: Look at what worked well in past partnerships and push the boundaries of possibility. Define what you want to accomplish and keep mutually beneficial goals front and center.
• Create a repeatable offering for partnerships: Employ a structure you can use across multiple partners, recognizing that each partnership will have unique goals. Some may be more interested in sustaining programs year-round, while others may be more interested in supporting crises. On the other hand, some may have products to donate, while others may want to get employees involved in fundraising and volunteer efforts.
• Demonstrate the impact of your partnerships: Put together a nonprofit annual report for donors, just as you would with corporate partners, establishing a clear view of what you jointly achieved over a year. Outline clear nonprofit metrics to evaluate your efforts and see what you can improve or change to get closer to your goals. Showcasing your collective results helps them know the value of the partnership and share that with employees and networks.

6 Ways to Strengthen Nonprofit Partnerships

1. Event Sponsorships

Bring corporate partners in to provide financial support for a larger-scale event such as a fundraiser gala or endurance event. A sponsored event is a great avenue to bring your aligned vision to life intimately and authentically.

Just remember, the key to a successful event is to make it easier for corporate partners to get involved, showcase their brand, and invite their employees and audiences that seek a more interactive giving experience.

• Make the ask: Create a sponsorship proposal letter that’s informative and persuasive. Use this sample letter for sponsorship for a head start on your outreach. After all, asking for sponsorship is all about making a good impression.
• Offer enticing branding opportunities: Feature the corporate sponsor’s logo on your event page using modern fundraising event software. You might even think about placing sponsor branding in the virtual venue through a digital booth and on-site digital display at your in-person event.
• Tap into sponsorships for auction items: Put out the request to your partners for auction ideas and items that draw attention and bids at your event. Corporations can write these expenses off as donations while you promote the auction items as gifts from specific partners and sponsors to build visibility and affinity for their brand.
• Build more community engagement with sponsors and attendees: Take advantage of virtual breakout rooms and chat functionality during the event to offer your corporate sponsors a designated booth. This way, they can get to know new supporters and grow their relationships in affiliation with your nonprofit.
• Create guest seating as part of a sponsorship package: Place your sponsors at premier tables or designated areas in addition to complimentary tickets. You can easily manage which guests sit at which tables through the Classy Live platform.

2. Employee Fundraising

Empower your corporate partner’s employees to take action with peer-to-peer fundraising. This could be a time-based initiative or something they can do year-round. Either way, you’ll gain access to new donor bases through each employee’s professional and personal network. Plus, when you engage your corporate partner’s staff, they may become loyal supporters of your organization.

• Template your corporate peer-to-peer campaigns: Use a fundraising template to ensure all campaigns are ready for your partner’s employees. Anytime you onboard a new corporate partner, create a child campaign with the same branding and content as your campaign template. Meanwhile, your nonprofit can see all corporate partnerships using the original template in one place for easy management and evaluation.
• Let your partners take the reigns: Give your corporate stakeholders a login to manage their fundraising campaigns. They can edit the messaging and content (don’t worry, you can lock down anything you don’t want them to edit) and enable their employees to build personal or team fundraising pages. Offering them more control enhances the experience and encourages corporations to get employees involved in the opportunity to make a more positive impact.
• Encourage friendly employee competition: Incorporate activity tracking into your corporate peer-to-peer campaigns for an added layer of motivation and fun. Allow employees to log into an app and track activity tied to their fundraising goals. You can set up daily, weekly, or monthly challenges for participants and encourage them to share on social media to get a virtual high five from friends and family. Discover how Classy’s integration with Boundless Fundraising can help.

3. Direct Giving

Outside of timely campaigns or events, give corporate sponsors a way to consistently support your organization and attract new audiences to your cause through a co-branded donation form or crowdfunding campaign.

Encourage corporate partners to promote your co-branded donation website to their staff, customers, investors, and community members. When optimized, donation sites bring the benefits of campaign admins, multiple payment types, recurring giving options, and templates.

• Set up a partnership crowdfunding campaign: Create a crowdfunding campaign that tells the story of how money raised impacts your cause. You can even leave placeholders for a partner to incorporate their name and branding easily. This personalized version will likely resonate more with their audience and lead to more conversions.
• Promote the campaign together:  Have your corporate partner share the link in newsletters or other far-reaching communication channels. They could choose to give the first gift and share why supporting your nonprofit means so much to them.
• Brand a timely donation page or campaign: Consider setting up a timely appeal around a holiday, a big giving day, or in response to a crisis. Make it easy for your corporate partners to get their employees and customer base to take action.

4. Corporate Matching Gifts

Donation matching provides employees with an opportunity to have their charitable donations matched by their employer on a campaign page. Empower your corporate partners’ employees to maximize their workplace giving by tapping into corporate matching gift programs.

• Enable corporate matching on your co-branded campaigns:  Double the impact with employer matches that can motivate more individuals to give to your campaign. Lean on a tool, like Classy’s integration with Double the Donation, that allows employees to search for their employer and request a donation match while making an online gift.
• Plan matching gift campaigns strategically: Strategize your donation match period to be around a peak giving season or milestone in your organization. Encourage your corporate partner to use intentional themes like crossing the finish line to achieve annual goals on New Year’s Eve.

5. Cross-Promotions

Broaden your audience to reach more potential donors with a consistent and strategic cross-promotion strategy. Ask your corporate partner about natural cross-promotion to easily reach their network.

Depending on the nature of the partnership, ask your corporate partner for a regular feature on their website, social media channels, or communications to their community. Lean on the marketing expertise of a corporation to brainstorm creative ways to elevate your co-branded initiatives outside the campaign pages themselves. Here are a few sponsorship examples to get started.

6. Launch a Joint Initiative

Outside of monetary support, enhance your programmatic impact with the tools, resources, in-kind donations, and services your business partners can offer. Expand your range of services by launching a joint initiative with strategic alliances to meet your shared goals. As you build your relationship, you’ll see more opportunities to supplement each other’s services and broaden your combined offerings.

• Set up a referral program relationship: Have each party direct constituents to the other for further support. For example, let’s say you’re a nonprofit that provides housing for underserved communities. Your programs don’t offer access to computers, but you might partner with an organization that does. Refer to their services in exchange for the promotion of your mission.
• Collect in-kind donations: Team up around in-kind donations for both organizations to expand services without hiking up budgets. For example, maybe you’re a disaster relief organization that partners with a hydration packet provider for disaster response packages.

4 Simple Reminders For Building a Successful Corporate Partnership

• Go Beyond “Checkbook Philanthropy”

The first way to set your corporate partnership up for success is to understand that corporate social responsibility is no longer as simple as signing a check. After all, any business can do that. To make the most of this relationship, you need to identify and ask for other types of support that lead to social impact.

• Compare Audiences

Research your audience of potential corporate partners to find the right prospects. Consider what exposure your nonprofit can offer to a company, and from there, you can find the best match to maximize your positive impact.

• Know Your Contacts and Decision-Makers

Knowing who to engage with for each task simplifies the process. Assign a point person within your team to communicate and nurture relationships with potential corporate partners. This ensures partner retention and a smooth engagement process.

• Mobilize Employees for Fundraising and Volunteering

Engage the entire staff of your corporate partner. Beyond financial support from key individuals, employees can be valuable allies. Recruit volunteers for events and initiatives, and encourage peer-to-peer fundraising among employees. By involving employees, you gain financial funding and new donors and advocates.

Choosing the Right Corporate Giving Software

The long-term success of your corporate giving programs and any potential corporate sponsorships you’ll secure depends on repeatable and scalable processes. While every corporate partner may be slightly different, structure your menu of offerings around opportunities that will have the most impact on your organization. Then, put your ideas into action with modern fundraising software, like Classy Live, built to support corporate philanthropy and future decision-making.

To continue your learning, dive into Classy’s Six Ways to Strengthen Your Corporate Partnerships webinar, where The Gary Sinise Foundation and Classy discussed strategies for maximizing your partnerships and tips to strengthen your relationships through a multi-pronged approach to maximize involvement from corporations and employees.

Article Sources

1.   “AFLAC CSR Survey,” Aflac, 2019, https://www.aflac.com/docs/about-aflac/csr-survey-assets/2019-aflac-csr-infographic-and-survey.pdf.

2. “15 Eye-Opening Corporate Social Responsibility Statistics,” Harvard Business Review, June 2021, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/corporate-social-responsibility-statistics.

Managing donor data is essential to successful peer-to-peer fundraising for nonprofit organizations. With a clear plan and access to the right donor management software, you can easily identify and nurture active fundraisers and connect with those making an online donation to your cause for the first time.

A sophisticated donor management strategy and streamlined nonprofit CRM help your organization:

• Track donor interactions
• Evaluate fundraisers’ performance
• Utilize segmentation to personalize pre- and post-campaign communication
• Steward new donors more effectively

Here, we’ll explore the value of donor management and donor relationships in peer-to-peer fundraising and provide practical tips for implementing a successful strategy.

What Is Donor Management?

Donor management is the process of tracking, engaging, and stewarding donors to build strong relationships and maximize supporters’ lifetime value.

At Classy, we believe if online fundraising conversions aren’t followed up with intentional outreach and strategic donor stewardship tactics, it risks leaving potential donors untapped for your organization.

Access to accurate donor information is key to creating a sustainable and successful peer-to-peer fundraising strategy and establishing meaningful relationships with your supporters.

What’s the Point of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

Peer-to-peer fundraising is an extremely effective, efficient way to raise money and source new supporters for your organization. In Classy’s State of Modern Philanthropy report, we found that time-based campaigns with a peer-to-peer element raise, on average, 3.8x more than all other time-based campaign types. Plus, four out of five donors who donate to a peer-to-peer campaign are brand new to the organization.

When you factor in the impact of higher donation volume and wider reach on the ability to execute your mission, the value of peer-to-peer fundraising almost goes without saying. Plus, peer-to-peer campaigns create a sense of ownership and investment in your cause, leading to increased levels of supporter engagement and long-term donor retention.

At its core, a peer-to-peer campaign is a stage for storytelling and an opportunity for meaningful connection. Your nonprofit fundraising team has the chance to distill your brand, mission, and impact into a succinct narrative that supporters can share with their personal networks proudly. That trickle-down effect is extremely powerful in inspiring people to join your community.

5 Reasons Why It’s Worth Tracking Your Peer-to-Peer Donor Data

1. Craft Segmented, Tailored Outreach to Re-engage and Retain Generous Supporters

It’s crucial to know who engaged with your appeal and if those individuals are interested in further supporting your mission following a peer-to-peer campaign. To begin that process, you need to know who fundraised on your behalf or donated to a supporter’s personal fundraiser and how to connect with them.

Then, after the initial discovery steps, it’s critical to know each supporter’s level of previous involvement, giving history, and volunteer history with your organization to reach out in a way that resonates. Craft a personalized, intentional message that captures their attention and expresses your gratitude for their contribution.

From there, customize your message as you see fit to present opportunities for re-engagement, whether through a volunteer event, upcoming campaign, or branded content on social media.

2. Pivot Your Strategy in Response to Timely Giving Trends

A real-time analysis of campaign performance and levels of donor engagement is vital for identifying what’s working and what’s not. Doing so allows you to shift or redefine your strategy as needed.

One crucial element of campaign success is capitalizing on timely giving trends. If your campaign doesn’t perform as you hoped, your donor data can provide you with the contact information to learn firsthand what donors and fundraisers loved (or didn’t love) about the experience.

For example, if they let you know that their preferred payment method wasn’t available on your donation form, you can immediately incorporate that option into your campaign with some back-end adjustments or take a mental note for the next time.

Pro Tip: Keep close tabs on today’s donor preferences, like preferred payment types, communication channels, and campaign types. Staying current on the latest fundraising trends can help guide your decision-making, ensuring donors are satisfied with the donor experiences you serve.

3. Understand Your Target Audience Better and Identify Ways to Expand Your Reach

Different generations of donors look for different things. Specifically, regarding next-gen donors, Classy’s Why America Gives report found that they are:

• 2.7x as likely to host an individual fundraising page on behalf of an organization they support
• 3x as likely to advocate on an organization’s behalf than traditional donors
• 1.6x as likely to be motivated to donate following a sudden news event or crisis than traditional donors

If your cause aligns with current events or emergency response, these insights might inform why you see a majority of Gen Z donors in your peer-to-peer database. And while that demographic is becoming increasingly philanthropic, engaging various donor profiles is critical.

Once you identify who your primary donor base is, you can start strategizing how to target other generations more effectively.

4. Identify Donors With the Potential to Increase Their Impact

One of the most important factors of fundraising sustainability is asking existing supporters to increase their involvement over time. Their support safeguards your revenue streams and opens the door to powerful relationship-building opportunities.

A simple way to increase loyal fundraisers’ impact is by inviting them to subscribe to a recurring giving plan. Nailing down your recurring donor acquisition strategy may feel overwhelming, but your donor data will streamline and guide the way.

Once you know who’s a potential candidate and how they prefer to engage with your cause, get up to speed on the talk tracks, resources, and communication styles that feel most comfortable to them.

From there, emphasize the benefits and impact of becoming a recurring donor. Consider highlighting testimonials from others who have already joined your recurring community. You may also consider creating a customizable email template for recurring donation appeals this since they’ll occur regularly.

5. Recruit Top-Performing Fundraisers to Advocate for Your Cause

When someone is willing to dedicate time and effort to a peer-to-peer campaign for your cause, it’s a sign that they feel a deep connection to your work. Capitalize on that connection to plant a seed and discover if they’ll take their advocacy to the next level.

Whether through social media, speaking opportunities, or just casual conversation with friends and family, ask your top-performing fundraisers if they’d be willing to spread the word on behalf of your mission.

Equip them with a fundraiser toolkit or brand book that tells them everything they need to know about your story. You could also invite them to your community events to get face-to-face time with your beneficiaries or just connect with others who care about your cause as much as they do.

3 Nonprofits Making the Most of Classy & Virtuous to Fuel Peer-to-Peer Success

1. Portland Rescue Mission

Portland Rescue Mission has been there to give hope and restore life to men, women, and children struggling with hunger, homelessness, and addiction since 1949.

Through effective peer-to-peer fundraising and many other campaigns on Classy’s fundraising platform, the nonprofit can offer meals and shelter, comprehensive recovery, vocational training, and community transitions.

2. Oasis for Orphans

Oasis For Orphans meets an immediate need to bring children in Kenya into an environment of safety and belonging through a holistic development model.

The nonprofit utilizes a unique model to develop kids holistically. Specifically, the program gives children hope and molds them into community leaders, supported by peer-to-peer fundraising and a balanced mix of other revenue streams.

3. Kids Around the World

Kids Around the World is on a mission to share God’s transforming hope with kids and their communities through food, play, and story. The team creates environments where kids will experience hope through a daily meal, a safe place to play, and stories from the Bible—none of which would be possible without effective fundraising campaigns.

Refine Your Donor Management Process Now, Reap the Benefits for Years to Come

Proactively defining your data collection and organization processes is a huge piece of the fundraising puzzle. Without the right donor management system and fundraising tools, that can be an impossible challenge.

Explore how Classy and Virtuous can help solve any current fundraising software or donation management roadblocks you experience, and lean on our data-backed best practices to guide your strategy for 2023 and beyond.

But where do you start?

Should you host an all-out charity golf tournament or a simple fundraiser at the local miniature golf course? Could you incorporate a live-auction component? And what about that Mulligan thing?

Below, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about golf fundraising to put on an unforgettable fundraising event.

What Is a Golf Fundraiser?

A golf fundraiser is a golf outing paired with fundraising to support a cause. That might be a silent auction for golf merchandise or an 18-hole charity golf tournament. The flexibility of a golf fundraiser means you can tailor it to your specific audience.

Catering to young families? Make it a miniature golf tournament. Want to respond to a recent outbreak of illness in your community? Transition to a virtual event and host an online auction. Want to engage golf enthusiasts? Partner with a pro to host a can’t-miss fundraising event.

Why Use Golf as a Way to Fundraise?

Close to 26 million Americans played on a golf course in 2022—that’s 8% of the total U.S. population.¹ Furthermore, golfers tend to have an average household income of $100,950.²

That said, golfers may be the perfect donors for your organization.

8 Golf Fundraising Ideas to Fuel Greater Giving

There are dozens of golf fundraising ideas to target your specific giving audience. Whether young families or serious golfers, we’ve got a quick list of the best golf fundraisers.

1. Charity Golf Tournament Fundraiser

Host a charity golf tournament fundraiser that requires participants to pay an entry fee to play. You could add other fun components, too, such as a hole-in-one contest or a putting contest.

Consider partnering with a golf resort to gain access to its course, parking lots, lodge, and equipment. If you pitch it right, your partner will see the benefit of advertising their course to your community during the event. Come prepared with refreshments, entertainment, and great prizes as well to ensure guests are comfortable all day.

2. Longest Drive

Line up at the local golf course or Topgolf location to see who can hit the longest drive. You could even incorporate this event into your charity golf tournament on a par 5 or par 6 hole.

Participants could donate for a certain number of attempts or earn their place in the competition through peer-to-peer fundraising. Once they raise a particular amount, they’re free to play.

3. Silent Auction

Accompany a tournament with a silent auction for golf merchandise and experiences. Merchandise may include classic items, like gloves, hats, shirts, pants, golf balls, bags, and clubs. You could also branch out and include experiences, such as:

• Tickets to watch a live golf event
• Lessons from a golf expert
• Lunch with a local pro
• Tee times at a nearby golf course
• Exclusive access to a section of the driving range

4. Caddie Rental

Let golfers rent a caddie for their day out on the course. This could be on their time or as part of your charity tournament fundraiser.

Your volunteers could carry clubs or drive golf carts for the golfers. It’s also a chance for your volunteers to build relationships with the donors, increasing the odds of repeat donations and spreading awareness of your cause.

5. Challenge the Pro

Invite the golf club’s local pro to volunteer for your event. Position this individual at one of the holes along the course and have golfers bet with the pro to see who can hit it closer to the cup. Golfers that win get paid double. If the pro wins the bet, the money gets donated to your nonprofit.

While the actual hole challenge might not be a huge donation driver, the pro’s presence may have a bigger impact. Including a local celebrity in your golf event could be reason enough for some participants to sign up.

6. Miniature-Golf Tournament

Partner with your local Putt-Putt course and host a tournament for the youngsters to show off their skills—see, fundraising ideas for kids don’t have to be a challenge.

Have prizes on hand for winners, holes-in-one, and the coolest shots—that way, every player can have a good time, regardless of their skill level.

And don’t forget about the parents. While some of them might prefer watching their kids compete, others may want to get in on the action. Consider hosting an adults-only miniature golf tournament later in the evening. This is a great way to engage members of your community that want to get involved but don’t have the experience to participate in a competitive golf challenge.

7. Hole Sponsorship

Sell sponsorships to local businesses for all 18 holes along the course of your charity tournament. Hole sponsors can have signage or a flag indicating their corporate sponsorship and give out prizes to golfers who swing under par for their specific hole.

8. Mulligans

Help out golfers when they’re in a bind with Mulligans—an extra chance to swing without hurting your score. Sell these at the time of registration, check-in, or on the course when a golfer has an emergency. Just be sure to set a limit so nobody exploits the system unfairly.

Achieve Your Goals With Classy’s Comprehensive Fundraising Tools

Successful golf fundraisers bring your donors to the table, but you still need fundraising tools to drive donations and simplify the giving process to put on a successful tournament. Fortunately, Classy has the unified solutions you need:

• Donation websites: Collect one-time and recurring donations with ease.
• Classy Pay: Invite donors to contribute via credit card, ACH payment, Venmo, PayPal, and more.
• Recurring giving: Enable donors to strengthen their impact with recurring gifts.
• Peer-to-peer giving: Empower supporters to fundraise on your behalf.
• Classy Live: Host virtual, in-person, and hybrid event experiences.
• Live and silent auctions: Set up auctions with everything from mobile bidding to paddle raises.

Want to learn more about Classy’s fundraising platform? Schedule time to talk with an expert.

Article Sources:

1. “26 Glorious Golf Industry Statistics [2023],” Advice, Zippia, last modified March 16, 2023, https://www.zippia.com/advice/golf-industry-statistics/.
2. “Who Is the Average Golfer?” Morton Golf Sales, last modified July 27, 2020, https://blog.mortongolfsales.com/who-is-the-average-golfer/.

Food fundraisers come in many shapes and sizes and give donors a central theme to rally around. With a little planning, you can leverage food-based events to fundraise for your nonprofit while building and strengthening your community of supporters.

Nonprofits can also leverage Classy to make food fundraisers easy and effective. Below, we’ll show you how. We’ll also cover some of the main questions nonprofits have about food fundraisers and offer 18 food fundraiser ideas to get you started with planning yours.

What Are the Benefits of Food Fundraisers?

Sharing a meal or drink naturally brings people together. For example, families gather for holiday favorites during Thanksgiving, friends enjoy barbecues together in the park, and co-workers socialize over happy hours. However, a food fundraiser is an exciting and engaging event that supports a good cause.

Food is a powerful tool for relationship building, and relationships are the foundation of fundraising. Emphasizing food for your upcoming campaign can tap into the jovial connection shared meals create and ultimately increase your fundraising ability.

In addition to leveraging the relationships food facilitates, food fundraisers:

• Provide a theme that attendees can talk about with each other
• Draw in new supporters interested in your food theme
• Give donors a tasty incentive in exchange for their support
• Offer opportunities to partner with local businesses and restaurants

You’re likely familiar with the food fundraiser model. For example, Girl Scouts sell cookies, high school fundraising may leverage a spaghetti dinner, or restaurants may give a portion of their proceeds to a local charity. This familiarity can encourage supporters to participate.

Food fundraisers can also help spice up peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities via food sales. Your supporters can fundraise on your behalf by selling candy bars or other goods rather than making requests for donations.

How Do You Plan a Food Fundraiser?

Your food fundraiser planning process will depend on the type of food fundraiser you choose. A bake sale will require a different setup and marketing than a fundraising gala dinner.

The basic steps for planning a food fundraising event are:

• Determine theme and approach: Decide whether to host a food-focused event, conduct a sale, add a food component to an existing event, or launch a peer-to-peer initiative. Consider if there’s a type of food or a theme you want to highlight.
• Set a fundraising goal and timeline: Note key dates for marketing and outreach, securing event space, hosting the event, and other milestones. Consider how much you hope to raise from the event and create your budget for it.
• Set up a fundraising campaign page: Use Classy to set up a registration page or allow for a registration with fundraising option to collect entry fees.
• Secure in-kind donations and sponsors: Partner with local businesses and retailers like local restaurants for donated food items, beverages, napkins, utensils, and plates. Consider securing donated event space, if needed, and receiving corporate sponsorships to cover additional costs of hosting your food fundraiser.
• Leverage volunteers: Ask volunteers to help you spread the word about your event, then educate them about your goals during a volunteer training. Consider utilizing these individuals to assist with setting up and taking down your event, tapping into their networks for donations, helping prepare or serve food, and other tasks to make your event a success.
• Invite supporters to participate: Use Instagram best practices and other social media to spread the word about your food fundraiser to community members. Consider using online ticket sales for nonprofits to drive advance registrations.
• Host event and report on progress: Keep your food fundraiser participants engaged and update them on how they can help you meet your fundraising goal. Consider doing this by displaying a fundraising thermometer at your event.

How Can You Get Creative With Your Food Fundraiser?

A great way to get creative with your food fundraiser is to center it around a theme. You can tie it into a holiday, regional cuisines, sporting events, or other activities and flavors.

Once you pick your theme, create unique marketing designs that relate to it. For example, if hosting a food fundraiser with the theme of baseball snacks, create a name and logo for the event that incorporates baseball terminology and imagery. You can also use a color palette similar to your local home team.

Remember that food fundraisers offer many opportunities for fundraising. Get creative with how you raise money and offer participants many ways to give, such as through:

• Event entrance fees or sampling tickets
• A la carte food sales
• Raffle tickets for local restaurant gift certificates or other great food experiences
• Silent auction items like food-themed gift baskets

Another fun way to engage your food fundraiser participants is by incorporating some lighthearted competition. Consider offering a challenge supporters can enter, such as a bake-off or your version of “Top Chef.”

However you decide to get creative with your food fundraising event, always try to customize it to align with your mission. For example, if you serve a particular region in the world, consider incorporating foods from that area. If you run a community garden, cook meals that use vegetables your program grew.

What Are the Best Types of Food Fundraisers?

Food fundraisers are some of the best fundraising ideas because these can take so many different forms depending on your budget, needs, and interests. The best types of food fundraisers are engaging, fun, memorable, and low-cost.

Below are 18 food fundraising ideas to get you started.

1. Bake Sale

Selling baked goods is a great way to leverage the power of small donations. You can also call on your volunteers to help create tasty items for your event.

2. Pancake Breakfast

Since you can buy pancake mix in bulk and make many hotcakes quickly, pancake breakfasts offer a low-cost, tasty way to socialize and raise funds for your cause.

3. BBQ or Grill Competition

A grill-off is a great summer fundraising idea. Invite your supporters to a local park and enjoy the day and some barbecue.

4. Food Truck Event

Another favorite, food trucks, have grown in popularity over the years. Consider partnering with some of your local favorites to organize a tasting event with music and other activities. Setup is easy as long as you have an available parking lot. You can charge an admission fee or ask food truck vendors to donate some of their proceeds to your good cause.

5. Eating Contest

A silly way for your supporters to connect and have a little fun is through eating contests. Host a pie-eating or hot dog-eating contest to see who in your community has what it takes to win.

6. Cakewalk

A fun idea to incorporate into events is a cakewalk, especially for those with a carnival theme where attendees purchase tickets for different rides and games. Have volunteers bake cakes or get them donated from local bakeries. It’s simple to play: attendees walk in a circle of numbers while music plays. Then, when the music stops, if the announcer calls their number, they get to pick out a cake.

7. Cooking Class

Center an event around a cooking class. A local chef can donate their time for an evening, with all purchases of the experience benefiting your nonprofit.

8. Wine Tasting

Partner with local wineries to host a wine-tasting event. It can take place at the winery or as a happy hour at a local bar or restaurant.

9. Dine Out for a Cause

Partner with local eateries and ask those businesses to donate a percentage of profits from a given night to your cause. These drive business to the restaurants while getting your nonprofit brand out there as well. You can include a QR code on table flyers or menus during the event that links diners to your donation form.

10. Chili Cook-Off

A fun competition for the winter months when your donors want to stay warm is chili cook-offs. You can charge an entrance fee to join the competition and for supporters to sample the chilis and vote for their favorites. Consider getting gift cards donated as prizes for the winners.

11. Cookie Dough or Candy Sales

Candy bars, lollipops, and cookies—there’s nothing like a sweet treat. Selling these items works well for online fundraising and peer-to-peer campaigns.

12. Ice Cream Social

What’s a better low-cost, fun way for supporters to come together and build connections than an ice cream social? You can sell the ice cream dishes a la carte or charge an entry fee. Consider partnering with a local ice cream shop that can provide a coupon to attendees for a future ice cream treat as a thank-you for supporting the event.

13. Halloween Festival

Among the holiday-themed ideas, Halloween festivals offer many ways to incorporate food fundraisers. You can sell pumpkin pies, caramel apples, and other treats. Include a spooky cookie decorating contest or other seasonally-themed food activities.

14. Valentine’s Day Gifts

Consider a Valentine’s Day fundraiser to sell heart-shaped chocolates or other treats that donors can have delivered to their significant others, friends, and family. This lets you both raise funds for your cause and get your message out to potential new supporters who receive the gifts.

15. Snack Bar

Concession stands at various events—whether yours or another community event—are a simple way to work a food fundraiser into an activity. You can partner with local sports teams to sell food at their games or set up a snack bar at a car wash, benefit concert, movie night, or 5K charity run.

16. Cookbook Fundraiser

Whether a food bank, community garden, or another related cause, cookbook fundraisers are a great idea for nonprofits working within the food space. Everyone on your team offers one of their favorite recipes to go into your book, then you can sell those books to your supporters.

17. Potluck Dinner

A perfect idea for small nonprofits that want to emphasize a sense of community among supporters is a potluck dinner. Attendees pay a small donation to join and bring a dish to share. Supporters can then mix and mingle and enjoy each other’s generosity.

18. Gala Night

If you want to host a more formal fundraiser, a gala event is a perfect option. Attendees typically receive a nice, sit-down dinner as part of the experience. Work with local caterers to have meals donated. Participants’ registration fees also cover keynote speakers, music, and other activities to enjoy throughout the evening.

Get Creative With Food Fundraising Ideas to Engage Your Supporters

If you’re looking for easy fundraising ideas for your next event, consider incorporating food into the experience. Food fundraisers allow nonprofits to get creative, build community, and drive traffic toward their donations website.

Although it first launched in beta with only a few charity options, Twitch Charity now connects with the PayPal Giving Fund, which offers a catalog of hundreds of thousands of registered 501(c)(3)s.² This development allows streamers to switch into “Charity Mode” to choose a nonprofit from the catalog, set fundraising goals, and control how the donation button appears to their viewers.

Twitch entertains a global audience of over 31 million daily active users, 72% of which are between the ages of 16–34.³ This young and highly engaged audience presents a prime opportunity for charitable partnerships and peer-to-peer donations.

The bottom line is that Twitch Charity streams present a mutually beneficial partnership for brand awareness and fundraising. Since this is likely new territory for many nonprofit leaders, we’ve compiled a guide to help you get started.

What Is Twitch?

Launched in 2011, Twitch is an interactive livestreaming service for content, spanning gaming, entertainment, sports, music, and more. Although your nonprofit may not have experience with the platform quite yet, Twitch is extremely popular among streamers, content creators, and general viewers:⁴

• 44 million Twitch viewers (20% of which are in the U.S.)
• $2.8 billion in revenue in 2022
• $970 million was the price Amazon paid for Twitch in 2014
• 95 minutes is the average session length on Twitch
• About 2.5 million people watch a Twitch stream at any given moment

Users can watch streams from the main Twitch site, mobile app, or even directly within their gaming console. There’s a live chat feature within every channel as well, so users can engage with the streamers in real time.

How to Host an Effective Charity Stream on Twitch

Before the launch of Twitch Charity, users would donate to charity through third-party fundraising platforms. Thankfully, the natively integrated Charity feature streamlines the donation process for streamers, viewers, and nonprofit benefactors.

Giving back is actively encouraged within the Twitch streaming community and the platform itself. Donating to a worthy cause gives people a reason to watch other than just video games.

To host a successful stream, Twitch recommends:

• Choosing a nonprofit that means something to you
• Setting realistic fundraising goals and tracking milestones along the way
• Using incentives to motivate your audience to take action
• Using your personal Twitch channel and other social media platforms to promote your stream and the cause
• Leveraging all of Twitch’s built-in features to make the most of your stream

It’s helpful to learn from experienced Twitch streamers as well, who understand what it takes to pull off successful fundraising campaigns. For example, streamer DrLupo raised more than $2.3 million for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in only 24 hours on Twitch back in 2019.⁵

5 Tips for Connecting With Twitch Streamers to Further Elevate Your Cause

It may seem like a long shot to connect with influential Twitch gamers interested in supporting your cause. Still, about 78% of these users actually want to see more charitable connections in gaming.⁶

Since livestream fundraising is a proven, effective way to rally supporters around your organization, it makes sense that Twitch charity streams are another tremendous opportunity to capitalize on for your nonprofit.

1. Reach Out to Streamers Directly

Take the time to explore Twitch and learn which streamers might be a good fit for your organization. Segment each Twitch channel by where streamers are geographically, what types of games they prefer to play, and other general categories that feel relevant to your organization’s campaign.

Once you find someone that might be a good fit, reach out to initiate an introductory conversation. It’s easy to find their social media channels and other potential ways to contact them in their profile.

Understanding the basics of influencer marketing for nonprofits is a good first step as you contact these streamers.

2. Build a Trusting Relationship

Be upfront about why you’re reaching out and your ideas on potentially starting a partnership. Take the time to help them understand more about your cause and why you believe they would be a strong fit to represent your mission.

Twitch charity streams are most successful when the streamer you work with invests in your mission. As a nonprofit, you also need to spend time getting to know that individual. Ask questions about their previous levels of involvement with nonprofits, what causes they feel most connected to, and other questions that can help you understand who they are better. Think of this partnership like any other sponsorship opportunity—mutual respect is a must.

It’s also worth considering if there is anyone within your organization or community of donors with a strong following on Twitch. You might have an avid gamer in your midst and not yet realize it.

3. Make It Easy to Partner Together

Make your nonprofit stand out, as the most popular Twitch streamers likely already receive requests for promotional opportunities. It’s critical to be an accommodating partner. Use your fundraising team and experience to help organize the stream, leaving the streamer to focus on what they do best.

Here are some resources to provide to the streamer to make their job easier:

• Talking points about your organization and mission
• Relevant links, like your website, donation page, and social channels
• A brand guide, including your logo, colors, and any branded graphics
• Answers to frequently asked questions that might pop up in the chat
• Social media posts and blurbs to add to their channel

Offering something in return for their time will help that individual feel valued and hopefully help nurture a lasting connection. You can also offer to send them some promotional swag from your organization. These are things they can wear or have in the background during their stream to elevate your brand.

4. Promote Your Charitable Stream

Help streamers grow their audience and make the charitable stream a success by promoting the online event. They often have large channels with a built-in audience, but you can’t rely on them to drive traffic and donations. Here’s how:

• Highlight the event on your website
• Talk about the stream on your social channels, using the appropriate hashtags
• Reach out to your sponsors and provide them with resources to help promote
• Send an email to your donor base
• Ask your staff and volunteers to spread the word online and in person with their networks

Charitable streams aren’t limited to just one gamer, either. When you recruit multiple streamers to participate, it can increase the number of potential viewers and donors. Just be sure there’s a cohesive and consistent message coming from this cohort of streamers.

5. Track Your Results

Ask streamers to provide you with some of the large amounts of Twitch user data, like subscribers’ names and profiles, to help you follow up with anyone who participated in your charity event. Just be sure to discuss this with them upfront to help them prepare to collect that information for you.

You’ll also need to determine which metrics are most important to gauge your relative success. Figures like total funds raised and the number of viewers are crucial. This also gives you a benchmark to start from when you plan a repeat of the live stream again in the future.

Using Twitch Charity Streams to Boost Your Nonprofit Fundraising

Twitch’s user numbers are impressive, and the platform continues growing. Membership in Twitch’s partner program has increased by 68% since 2017, and the number of viewers and revenue has grown year over year.⁷ This makes Twitch Charity streams an increasingly attractive fundraising opportunity for nonprofits of all kinds.

Article Sources:

1. “Trillion Minutes Watched One of Twitch’s Several Wild 2020 Stats,” Dexerto, last modified January 30, 2021, https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/trillion-minutes-watched-one-of-twitchs-several-wild-2020-stats-1504715/.
2. “Twitch Users — How Many People Use Twitch (2023)” Demand Sage, last modified January 19, 2023, https://www.demandsage.com/twitch-users/.
3. “28 Twitch Stats to Know in 2023,” TrueList, last modified January 10, 2023, https://truelist.co/blog/twitch-stats/.
4. “Charity Fundraising on Twitch,” Twitch Creator Camp, last modified March 24, 2023, https://www.twitch.tv/creatorcamp/en/paths/growing-your-community/charity-streaming/.
5. “DrLupo raises $2.3 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 24 hours, surpassing goal for third year in a row,” St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, last modified December 21, 2020, https://www.stjude.org/media-resources/news-releases/2020-fundraising-news/drlupo-raises-2-3-million-in-24-hours.html.
6. “How I Hosted My First Charity Stream, and How You Can Host One, Too,” The Verge, last modified July 2, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/21309833/twitch-charity-stream-guide-donations-thermometer-guests.
7. “Twitch Statistics 2023: How Many People Use Twitch?” Earth Web, last modified January 29, 2023, https://earthweb.com/twitch-statistics/

Explore nonprofit fundraising ideas built for schools, from elementary classrooms to high schools, and specific ideas that thrive on college campuses. 

Fundraising Ideas for Elementary Schools

Let’s start by diving into the best fundraising ideas for kids. Explore these safe and fun elementary school fundraising ideas that allow students to express their generosity.

1. Bake Sale

Gather students and their families to create something delicious. Start by sending out a sign-up list to ensure you have enough baked goods to sell in exchange for donations. You’ll allow students to showcase unique recipes and give anyone passing by a chance to enjoy something sweet. 

Bring even more fun to the event with a classroom bake-off. This element can help bring everyone together as a team for some friendly competition. Just make sure to advertise throughout the school for the best chance of attracting hungry customers.

2. Talent Show

Showcase the talent of each unique student to attract a crowd and boost donations. Set up a space to host people, or host it virtually with a set price per ticket sale that helps you achieve your fundraising goal.

Not only will kids get the spotlight to show off something they’re passionate about, but guests will have priceless entertainment. If it goes well, you might just find your most highly anticipated annual fundraising event.

3. Letter Writing

Brighten someone’s day with letter writing, a great fundraising idea for schools to spearhead with younger students. You could host a letter or card fundraiser to have students share a personalized donation appeal to their families and community or write to loyal donors who would love to hear how their donations to your school have impacted students’ educational experiences.

4. School Supply Drives

A school supply drive is a great fundraising idea for the back-to-school season. Get students involved as a way to spring them into action. You can work as a classroom to collect everything from pencils to notebooks and unique stickers to build a collection that students in the school can benefit from for unique educational projects.

5. Magic Show

Raffle off some online magic lessons or other creative raffle prizes for this audience of youngsters. You can also organize a few volunteers to host a magic show to which you can sell tickets in exchange for donations. If it’s within your budget, hiring a magician and increasing the fun by inviting students and parents to enjoy the performance together is always a nice option.

6. Ice Cream Night

Get creative and enjoy a classic treat with an ice cream fundraiser. Host a make-your-own sundae bar with all the fixings, from cookie dough to chocolate fudge, at a set price per participant. 

Another approach is to partner with a local ice cream shop for a fun pop-up field trip with a portion of the proceeds allocated to your fundraising efforts. Split contributions between your school and the ice cream provider to make it a worthwhile event for everyone involved.

A few ice cream stores that support fundraisers:

• Mister Softee
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Kona Ice
• Rita’s Ice

Fundraising Ideas for Middle Schools

As students get a bit older, find new ways to step up the engagement and interactivity of your fundraising ideas to spark new passions for giving back.

7. Color Run

Can you think of anything better than running for your school through a course full of color? The Color Run is an excellent source of inspiration for schools to recreate with their students. Get each student to fundraise individually for the chance to win prizes and climb the fundraiser leaderboard.

You can create the famous color powder that fills the air and turns runners into a colorful masterpiece by simply mixing cornstarch and FDA-approved dye.

8. Dance-a-Thon

Host a dance-a-thon as another way to keep students moving and motivated to give back. Spin up a great playlist and encourage passionate students to come together to dance for a set period, collecting donations through peer-to-peer fundraising for every hour they stay on their feet. 

Announce donations every time one comes in to inspire dancers to keep going and create natural moments for social sharing to spread the word quickly. 

You can even add your dance-a-thon to an existing field day of fun. The same creative approach can apply to your walk-a-thon or read-a-thon, depending on what your students enjoy most.

9. Partnership With a Local Theme Park or Arcade

Get students excited about a night out at a local arcade, amusement park, bowling alley, roller rink, or other entertainment zones by promoting how the proceeds will benefit a program at your school. 

10. Trivia Competition

Consider putting your students’ memories to the test with a themed trivia competition. Encourage students to form teams and fundraise together before the big night. Ask teachers to devise a list of trivia questions for your event and motivate them to volunteer to be hosts.

High School Fundraising Ideas

Before college, bring high school students together to be a part of something meaningful while keeping them interested in participating.

11. Obstacle-Course Event

Tap into the element of competition with a fun obstacle course. Have students recruit their family members and friends to donate on their behalf through a peer-to-peer fundraising model, then cheer them on as they navigate the twists and turns you create for them.

12. Community Service Hours for College

Host a volunteer fair to expose students to school programs or upcoming initiatives needing support. This helps high schools that are always seeking consistent volunteers to assist at sporting events, teacher appreciation dinners, student dances, and more. 

Exposing high school students to volunteer opportunities will make completing extended community service hours easier, bolstering their college applications and strengthening their connection to meaningful causes.

Button: How to Engage High School Student Fundraisers

13. Pancake Breakfasts

Partner with a local restaurant or take over your school’s kitchen with student volunteers to make and serve pancakes at a set price per plate. Encourage them to tell their families and friends about the tangible benefits of each ticket sale to motivate participation. Pair that with a nice cup of coffee, and you’re in business.

Some restaurants participating in pancake fundraisers include:

• Applebee’s Flapjack Fundraisers
• IHOP National Pancake Day 

14. School Clothing Sales

Capitalize on the sentimental value of school spirit and clothing representing high schoolers’ last stop before college. Consider selling school hats, jackets, T-shirts, scarves, socks, and more at sports events throughout the school year. 

Another way to attract customers is through a merchandise catalog. Entice more sales by advertising that a percentage of the profits will benefit a program in your school that directly impacts students and teachers.

15. Beach Day

Kick off summer with a good beach day as the end of the year approaches. Invite students to miss classes for a day in exchange for a donation. Increase the impact by offering an additional option to dedicate their time to a beach cleanup for an environmental nonprofit.

Virtual Fundraising Ideas for Schools

Learning on the go is an unexpected perk of remote learning environments. However, we can’t forget virtual fundraising ideas to help you engage students near and far.

16. Virtual Races

Host a race online to bring in support from entirely new networks of donors. Give students the freedom to choose where they’ll race and invite family and friends worldwide to join in the fun. Virtual event software makes it easier to create consistency for anyone who’d like to participate.

Download Your Guide to Pitching Corporate Sponsors

17. Viral Video Challenges

Boost views by participating in trends on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Video challenges can be an exciting and low-cost way to get the word out about your school and engage students to participate from anywhere. 

Create a challenge related to the reason you identified, such as participating in a mega scavenger hunt, doing ten push-ups in 30 seconds to support your school’s wrestling team, or posting kind notes to a trending song to help fund your seniors’ graduation celebrations. Have participants record themselves completing the challenge and tag others to do the same.

Include specific caption copy and hashtags that bring awareness to your school. Don’t forget to include a link to your donation site to inspire immediate action.

18. Twitch Livestream Event

Head over to Twitch to live stream a gaming tournament, cooking class, battle of the bands, or another live event to raise money for a charitable cause. Twitch charity streams are a great tool to unlock the power of online fundraising and reach more people.

Fundraising Ideas for College Students

When students mature into college, the world of fundraising opens up to include more significant ideas that foster deeper connections with their universities and soon-to-be alumni programs.

19. Short Poetry Contest

Have students sign up to read an original poem to an audience of people who vote for favorites as a no-cost, high-reward fundraising idea. A short poetry contest is a great way to boost confidence and unlock hidden talent.

20. Device Drive

Think of device drives as the new book sale. Especially after schools purchased additional tech to accommodate remote learning in 2020, there may be an opportunity to collect unused devices and distribute them to students who need access to technology to support their studies. You can also look for devices your students no longer use and sell them for monetary contributions to college programs. 

21. Tie-Dye Event

Bring college students together with tie-dye, a trend that never goes out of style.

Sell tickets to students and their friends to reserve their spots and cover the cost of supplies. To keep registration costs as low as possible, ask staff members to donate supplies like dye, light-colored clothing, gloves, and rubber bands.

22. Outdoor Movie Premiere

Find a large lawn or local park on campus, set up an outdoor projector, and lay out some blankets or chairs for attendees to enjoy a movie night. It’s easier than ever to access fresh content with today’s streaming services.

Invite students to come together and pay an admission fee to watch a new release or classic film while supporting an important educational program. You can even throw in a concession stand with popcorn sales and refreshment packages to boost fundraising efforts.

23. Pet Therapy Room

Ease stress and anxiety on campus through the calming effect of an animal with pet therapy. Especially for animal-related or mental health charities, hosting a room of friendly animals available to play with for an hour at a set price will surely pull in supporters.

To arrange a pet therapy room, you can contact a local shelter or pet therapy organization. This one’s a great idea around finals or other high-stress milestones throughout the year where a release on campus seems priceless (plus the animals get some love too).

Fundraising Ideas for College Sports Teams

Sports teams have a unique opportunity to tie their competitive spirit and engaged fans into a fundraising machine for good.

24. 5K Race

Get competitive with a 5K race near campus. Instead of charging for participation, encourage each runner to commit to a fundraising goal. Simplifying registration will allow anyone who wants to participate to easily engage their family and friends, which helps you reach people outside your campus walls. Reach more donors and make the event accessible to more participants all at the same time.

25. Tournaments

Have fun with a Frisbee-throwing tournament, a bowling challenge, or even a Jeopardy-style knowledge tournament—in the same vein as a 5K but without ruling out people based on athletic ability. You can have teams compete to raise the most.

26. Partner With Local Businesses

Capitalize on the campus hot spot, where students grab a bite, hang out, or meet up by partnering with local businesses. It’s a powerful fundraising strategy to reach students and raise money for your team. Corporate sponsorships can offer time and financial support.

Start by agreeing on which portion of the proceeds from a particular day will be donated. Then, brainstorm how you’ll spread the word leading up to the event. You’ll collect donations from a transaction students love while boosting brand awareness for the business with every new customer your fundraiser brings through their door.

17. Giveaway

Get your fans involved firsthand by offering a season pass to games or team merchandise to the donor who raises the most for your program. Set participants up with a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign that makes it easy to call on their inner circles for support and see who makes the leaderboard each week.

Fraternity or Sorority Philanthropy Ideas

Philanthropy is a pillar of Greek life, so check out these fun approaches to your next sorority or fraternity event on campus.

28. Ticketed Fashion Show

Partner with student designers or a local boutique to host a fashion show for students of all ages to attend for a small fee. Have students model their clothing or accessories to boost brand awareness and charge a set amount for tickets to attend. A great playlist, food and drink vendors, and some social media buzz can get people excited to participate for a night away from studying. It’s a win-win.

29. “Win-a-Date” Auction

Get ready for laughs and maybe even a love connection with a “win-a-date” event. Partner with another fraternity or sorority to assemble a ticketed auction for potential dates with a roster of eligible individuals.

These events usually ask each eligible individual to get up on stage and share their personal interests and proposal for a date. Then, the audience is welcome to bid on that date until you have a winner. The more diversity you get in your lineup of potential people to go on a date with, the more money you can raise.

30. Late-Night Food Delivery

Raise significant money with high traffic to your donation form through a late-night food delivery fundraiser ideal for students studying late or ending a night of fun at an hour when most food facilities aren’t open.

Choose to make a massive batch of grilled cheese sandwiches, waffles, and baked goods, or take the simple route with some snack packs. Then, advertise late-night delivery to students in dorms or nearby housing for a set price. The service cost adds value you can charge more for, and any associated tips contribute to your fundraising goals.

31. Coffee Shop Pop-Up

Gather all the fun add-ins to create your signature coffee bar on campus or at a local college event to raise money for your program. Get creative with a special menu that pulls in customers who want to try something new in their morning routine. Then, use social media as a perfect avenue to showcase your creations and get the word out.

32. Greek Life Carnival

Partner with other Greek life organizations at your college or university to host a carnival. Have each organization build a booth, game, or activity to lighten the load and build a fun event for people to attend. The best part is when organizations come together as school community members.

You can choose a single program to allocate ticket and participation revenue to or disburse the entry fee funds evenly between all Greek life organizations involved. Consider hosting a small competition to see which organization can bring in the most attendees to benefit everyone.

33. Alumni Night

Invite proud alums back to their alma mater to see what’s new. Make them feel special with an alumni night for graduates within your fraternity or sorority and their families. You could also host a dinner, a brunch, or a fundraising gala at a ticketed price that helps them give back to a cause that was once near and dear to them.

Bring Fundraising Ideas for Schools to Life With Tech

Every small donation counts, and you likely have one or two ideas you’re most excited to try. Before you plan, consider how to bring your next fundraising event to life with tech that simplifies the process.

Campaign Templates

Once you find what works, repeat the campaign across schools or annually with a template that unlocks:

• Consistent branding for all campaigns to match your school website
• Time savings when a new campaign needs to go live
• The ability to streamline changes across multiple campaigns at once

Hybrid, Virtual, or In-Person Event Platform

Turn ticket-based fundraising ideas into seamless events fit for any audience through:

• A simple registration process
• Silent auctions and mobile bidding
• Text-to-donate functionality
• A live fundraising thermometer to engage students

Modern Checkout Experience 

Include an embedded donation form and preferred payment options to avoid losing out on fundraising dollars:

• Venmo transactions
• PayPal transactions
• Digital wallets, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Microsoft Pay

Closing Thoughts

When it comes to school fundraising ideas, there are countless avenues to explore and engage with. A well-rounded fundraising program involves diverse school fundraiser ideas that resonate with your supporters and community. 

Whether you’re raising funds with an art show at a middle school or selling raffle tickets at a silent auction for a private school, involving various stakeholders such as local businesses, community members, and supportive parents or extended family members is essential. By tapping into the collective strength of your school community and implementing innovative school fundraising efforts, you can successfully raise funds to support your cause. 

When finalizing your school fundraising idea, consider using Classy’s fundraising platform to manage your fundraising effort and let us help you achieve your donation goals. We look forward to helping your community. Learn more about Classy’s giving platform.

After all, your donation button is your nonprofit’s main call to action (CTA). Standard guidance on showcasing your donation button for online giving includes ensuring it is easy to find, links to the correct page, and stands out using contrasting colors—but it doesn’t end there. 

Today, we’re showing you how to further strategize its usage across your different online fundraising efforts. An intentional approach helps your story reach more ideal supporters and makes visitors more likely to take action as they digest and engage with your page.

Below, we look at creative ways to format the best donation button across different fundraising campaign types, with examples from five nonprofits that bring the donor experience to the next level.

1. Peer-to-Peer Campaigns: Focus on Strategic Placement and Visual Distinction

Peer-to-peer fundraising tools allow supporters to fundraise on your behalf. A donation button on your peer-to-peer campaign helps you collect even more one-time (and recurring) gifts for your campaign. 

Since these two CTA buttons—to fundraise or donate—live on your campaign page, you want to distinguish them visually. That could mean using color variations, separating sizing, or adding a contrasting visual that guides a page visitor to the options you offer.

One example comes from Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit working to “promote social and economic justice for all Texans by leveraging the skills and resources of volunteer lawyers and other professionals to identify practical solutions to difficult systemic problems.” The nonprofit’s peer-to-peer fundraising campaign helped it raise over $35,000.

At the top of its campaign page, Texas Appleseed highlights the opportunity to fundraise and donate. The “Become a Fundraiser” CTA leads the two with a transparent background and white outline that grabs visitors’ attention. 

Next to it is the highly visible donation button in red. Each CTA’s visually distinct yet grabby design catches the eye. The strategic proximity of these two buttons—visible at the top of the fold when a supporter lands on the page—gives supporters multiple opportunities to help the nonprofit reach its goal.

Farther down the campaign page, the nonprofit elevates the peer-to-peer component by listing some of the campaign’s top fundraisers and including the headline “Support a Fundraiser” to encourage donors to give directly to a peer’s personal fundraising page.

Pro Tip: By placing a donation button strategically alongside your CTA to fundraise, you can engage more donors by offering options for how they can participate in your peer-to-peer campaigns.

2. Crowdfunding Campaigns: Vary Your Donation Button Options

Crowdfunding campaigns allow for maximum creativity with your donation button. Below are two nonprofit examples that varied donation button options across Classy crowdfunding campaigns.

Incorporate Multiple Types of Donation Opportunities

Classy customer Houston Ballet started a crowdfunding campaign to keep its company dancing despite significant challenges resulting from COVID-19. The crowdfunding page featured a clear goal to raise $5 million, and the nonprofit incorporated three different donation opportunities, all supporting the overall goal.

First, the page displays a visually contrasting Donate Now button next to its progress bar on the campaign’s homepage. The placement creates a quick, easy way for donors to see social proof that others have supported the cause, and they can immediately take action as well.

Farther down the page, the campaign uses impact blocks to suggest how different levels of donations can help support the nonprofit during these times. It uses imagery in line with its brand and includes specific details on how the donation will make a difference, such as home-training gear and digital academy classes.

In the final section of the campaign page, the nonprofit includes a Become a Fundraiser button that encourages supporters to start fundraising pages to make an even more significant impact.

Pro Tip: By offering multiple donation buttons that cover various styles and fundraising types throughout your crowdfunding campaign, you give your supporters choices for how they can help you meet your goal. Your donation buttons progressively tell your campaign’s story as the supporter scrolls through your page.

Leverage Impact Blocks to Showcase Recommended Donations

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley provides healthy meals to anyone who needs one within its community. When the pandemic put a pause on its collection of in-kind food donations, the nonprofit started a crowdfunding campaign to fill the gap in its operations and keep the momentum flowing online.

The initial donation button for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley’s campaign is easy to find on the campaign landing page in bright orange, placed next to a short video showcasing some of the nonprofit’s beneficiaries.

Next on the page is an overview of the  nonprofit’s story, which highlights how its food distribution process looks different this year. Second Harvest of Silicon Valley explains how supporters can give a monetary donation for a particular item instead of in-kind food drop-offs.

Impact blocks show donors how different gift amounts translate to specific food items typically provided in kind. For example, the $50 impact block has a graphic of a roast chicken and says you can “fill the barrel” with 85 pounds of a whole chicken. 

The visually engaging custom illustrations, complete with donation buttons in orange, are specific to its branding. You can get creative with visuals that speak to your audience and draw attention with Canva or other design platforms.

Pro Tip: By adding creative impact blocks with donation buttons on your crowdfunding campaign, you provide a fun way for supporters to understand the tangible impact of their donations. If you hit a creative rut, explore these eight simple designs you can create for free using Canva for Nonprofits. 

3. Fundraising Event: Pair One-Time Donation With Registration

In registration with fundraising, you want your supporters to register for your event and start fundraising. For example, for ticketed events, your primary CTA is to buy a ticket.

Special Olympics Washington created a registration with a fundraising campaign page on Classy for its Polar Plunge challenge. On the campaign landing page, donors see a Register button alongside the donation button in the center of the hero block, under the event logo. 

Farther down the page, the nonprofit again pairs a registration button with a donation button next to a progress circle, inspiring people to join those who have already contributed and taken action.

Pro Tip: By distinguishing your registration and donation buttons visually, you inspire participants to donate more at that moment and people who can’t make your event but still want to support.

4. Recurring Giving Campaigns: Pair Donation Button With Powerful Language

Neighborhood Homework House started a recurring giving campaign to fund its mission to support students in its community. Its initial donation button pairs with text branded around the nonprofit organization’s recurring donations campaign. It explains, “For as little as $10 a month, you can rewrite the future of a generation of Azusa students.”

Below the initial donation button is additional text describing the power of small donations and that you can start supporting now by giving up small monthly expenses. 

The campaign then incorporates impact blocks that showcase examples of things a supporter could skip each month to donate to the nonprofit instead. For example, a supporter could choose to donate their $40 tank of gas or $20 meal delivery.

Pro Tip: By shaping your donation options around your recurring giving story, you build a case for your supporters to join your campaign.

6 Bonus Tips to Round Out Your Donation Process

As you set up a donation platform that converts supporters into loyal donors, here are a few last items to check off your list to complete the experience.

1. Offer suggested donation amounts to guide people and collect donations that make a real impact based on the programs you run
2. Think about offering as many payment options as possible outside of just credit cards, such as trusted transaction apps like PayPal and Venmo
3. Leave a checkbox that lets donors opt in to cover their processing fees and give the maximum gift to your mission
4. Provide an easy way for donors to share their actions for good on social media to build cause awareness through their Facebook page or other accounts
5. Consider embedding your donation form directly on your webpage with a simple modal, widget, or pop-up
6. Test the whole process as if you are a potential donor through different mobile devices and browsers to make it as smooth as possible

Think Creatively About Your Donation Button to Increase Supporter Engagement

Strategic use and formatting of online donation buttons can increase support across different campaign types. Think creatively about what types of donate buttons to use, how to place them, and ways to brand them to your mission to engage your audience and encourage donations.

As you build your donor-centric fundraising strategy, Classy has your back.

Below, we’ve identified the 38 best fundraising ideas for kids in 2023. You’ll find everything from traditional fundraising activities, like raffles and auctions, to more creative fundraising ideas, like flamingo flocking and battle-of-the-bands concerts.

The Best Fundraising Ideas for Kids

1. Sell Tickets for Coveted Raffle Items

Host a raffle. After all, raffles are a tried-and-true fundraising activity. Simple to execute, kids will have an easy time participating. Here’s how to make it happen:

• Choose an item: Source an item from a community partner or popular store. It should be something desirable but not too expensive. 

• Sell tickets: Encourage school students, young athletes, or children from local church communities to sell raffle tickets to participants or family members at an event.

• Draw a winner: Draw the winner and encourage that person to post a photo or celebration post with their raffle prize on social media to draw more attention to your cause.

2. Sell Candy Bars

Include children in your fundraising efforts by selling candy bars in bulk. Kids can sell the candy at school, parents’ offices, events, or church.  

Plus, many candy bar companies provide fundraising discounts. For example, you can contact the Hershey’s distributor to find a local, reliable distributor for all your chocolate bar needs.  

3. Host a Penny Drive

Partner with local businesses and restaurants in your community to put fundraising jars at checkouts. Children visiting these establishments with their parents or guardians will have the opportunity to make a small gift to your nonprofit by putting a few cents in the jar. 

Parents may also encourage their children to take on additional chores or tasks at home to earn an allowance, then donate that money to your nonprofit’s fundraising jar. This is a great way to engage the entire family and create a seamless, no-fuss fundraiser. 

4. Round Up With Local Businesses

Ask local kid-friendly businesses to partner with your fundraising initiative. You could host an ice cream social at the local ice cream shop or offer discounted tickets to a nearby theme park. This encourages families to spend a day or evening together while simultaneously supporting a good cause. 

While you have the children together, educate them on the importance of what you do and why events like this are so valuable. This education at a young age can make a big impact. 

Another great way to source additional donations is to ask customers attending the partner event if they’d like to round up their purchase and contribute to your fundraiser. It’s a small ask for customers (since they always give less than a dollar), but that money adds up over time.

5. Hold a Walk-a-Thon

Plan an unforgettable walk-a-thon with a pledge fundraising model. Children can ask parents, friends, and community members to donate based on their performance—measured by miles, laps, or time.

6. Host a Kid-Friendly Auction 

Encourage children to contribute material items or original creations to your in-person or online auction. Ask them to create an art project or painting, or maybe they want to spend their allowance on a new item for the event. 

Before nailing down your plan, determine if you’d like your event to be a traditional or silent auction model. Aside from contributing their items or creations to the auction, motivate each child to get involved in other ways like: 

• Congratulating winners with handwritten thank-you notes
• Delivering auction items to winners’ tables at the live event
• Encouraging friends and family to bid on their items

7. Guess the Number in the Jar

Stimulate children’s minds while including them in your cause with this fun way to fundraise. Fill a jar with candy, trinkets, or coins and ask kids to guess how many pieces of that item are in the jar. 

Put your jar at an event, school classroom, or local business, and ask for a small fee or 30 minutes of volunteer time for contributors to guess the quantity inside. The winner gets the jar and all the goodies inside.

8. Create a T-Shirt Fundraiser

Invite children to create unique designs for T-shirts that reflect your cause, then ask them to vote for their favorite. Feature the winning design on T-shirts you plan to sell to supporters, family, and friends. 

Don’t forget to add a call to action to your shirts (e.g., “Save water, save the planet”) so that your shirt can act as a brand-awareness builder and free advertising.  

9. Prepare a Scavenger Hunt

Encourage children at a local school to design a scavenger hunt. You could charge admission for kids and families to participate or exchange their participation for volunteer time. 

To elevate childrens’ participation in your event, ask them to:

• Identify items for the scavenger hunt
• Plan where to hide the items
• Create clues and riddles
• Give out hints (when necessary)
• Count the points
• Award the winners

10. Host a Talent Show

Provide an opportunity for kids, classmates, or community members to show off their skills with a talent show. Charge a small admission for participants and audience members and sell concessions at the fundraising event. 

You want everyone to feel supported and encouraged, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it a competition. Recruit judges to assess the talents and award an overall winner. 

11. Plan a Local Race

Plan a 5K fun run for kids and adults. Charge an admission fee for the runners and give a small percentage of the proceeds to the winner, or dedicate 100% of the fees to your mission, and instead feature the winner on your social sites, newsletter, and homepage. 

Depending on your environment and the time of year, you can get creative by doing the following:

• Trail race
• Stroller race
• Speed-walking race
• Midnight race
• Snowshoe race
• Costume-themed race

12. Sell Flowers

Consider selling flowers around holidays, like Valentine’s Day or Easter, that children can send to their friends, parents, or loved ones for an affordable price. You could do this online or in person and even take it up a notch by adding delivery services. This adds a personal touch to the experience that recipients are sure to appreciate.

13. Bake and Sell Treats

Encourage children in your area to pick a few recipes they’d like to make and ask parents to help them bake these special treats. You’ll also need to organize a drop-off location for families to deliver the treats they made, then sell them to the community or go door-to-door. 

14. Wash Cars

Recruit a group of young volunteers to host a traditional pop-up car wash. You could partner with a local business, school, or church to secure prime real estate and exposure for this activity. Then, invite kids to wash the cars and collect the money. 

15. Offer Lawn Services

Ask around your community to see if any young supporters can provide lawn-care services. This can be especially helpful for senior citizens or those unable to perform these services themselves. Lawn services could include:

• Mowing grass
• Trimming bushes and trees
• Picking up trash
• Planting flowers
• Mending fences
• Painting
• Shoveling snow
• Raking leaves
• Watering plants

16. Pick Up Christmas Trees

Offer to pick up and dispose of real Christmas trees in exchange for a small donation. Pass out flyers or go door-to-door before Christmas to get pledges. After the new year, young, licensed supporters of your nonprofit can rent or borrow a truck or trailer and pick up the trees for donations. 

17. Hold a Parent’s Night Out

Recruit babysitters to watch the younger kids while parents go out for a date. Ask parents for a small donation or partner with local restaurants on the same night to donate a percentage of sales to your cause. Either way, these young adults support your cause by volunteering their time. 

18. Partner With Restaurants and Businesses

Provide an opportunity for parents and families to visit restaurants and businesses in your community. Teenagers could set up a free daycare night at the school or community center to watch the kids while the parents go out.

Partner with businesses to guarantee a percentage of sales as donations to your cause. Restaurants and shops in your community get more business, parents get much-needed alone time, and you raise donations—everyone wins.

19. Host a Karaoke Night

Recruit your supporters within a certain age range to perform at your event and encourage them to find friends and family who will come support. Ask audience members to donate a small fee for entry or sign up for a volunteer opportunity. 

20. Offer Face Painting

Provide face painting services at events like a parade or field days. Invite children in your community to do the face painting as an opportunity to serve and build relationships with other kids involved with your cause. You could ask for donations in exchange for the face painting or sell snacks and beverages at your stand for guaranteed revenue. 

21. Provide Gift Wrapping Services

Partner with a local community business to provide gift-wrapping services around the holiday season. Here are a few businesses you might consider partnering with:

• Bookstores
• Toy stores
• Clothing stores
• Candle stores
• Perfume and fragrance stores

Teach children how to do the gift wrapping, then let them provide the service. It might not be perfect, but it’s an opportunity for them to serve others. Plus, any gift will mean more because a child wrapped it. 

22. Have a Trivia Night

Gather families and children together for a trivia night. Ask for donations for entry and reward the winning person (or team) with a small prize. But don’t forget to encourage participants to seek pledges from their community beforehand. For example, a family might collect pledges based on how many points they accumulate. 

23. Run a Shoe Drive Fundraiser

Collect used (or unused) shoes from kids in the community who have outgrown their favorite pairs. Children go through shoes quickly, and those pairs deserve a better home than stuffed in a closet somewhere. Give parents and children an opportunity to put their retired sneakers and sandals to good use by donating them to your shoe drive fundraiser. 

24. Create an Obstacle Course

Challenge local youth groups or classes at school to design an obstacle course and charge a small fee to participate. Children can either pay for an attempt or purchase an upgraded package that allows for unlimited tries.

25. Sell Cookie Dough

Let donors buy the one thing with a longer shelf than baked goods at bake sales: cookie dough. Plus, it’s irresistible. Donors will love purchasing this tasty treat from children in their community because they can either eat the cookie dough raw (yes, please!) or bake it when they want fresh cookies. 

26. Hold a Book Sale

Ask kids in your area to collect books they’ve already read or left deserted on their bookshelves and put them up for sale. Resell them for a steep discount to collect profits for your cause. Parents will love finding a low-price deal on a book they’ll likely have to purchase for their kids’ required reading programs. 

27. Sell Popcorn at Events

Partner with community, school, church, sports, and recreational events to sell popcorn. Kids can run the stand with the assistance of a parent or volunteer and explain your nonprofit’s mission to customers as they purchase their snack. 

People will likely enjoy the extra concession options, and you can collect donations off hungry attendees. Popcorn has an incredibly high return on investment, so your nonprofit organization can keep the bulk of the revenue.

28. Put Your Teacher in Jail

Get classes to work together (maybe to jail the principal) or put them against each other (to jail the “winning” teacher). Metaphorically, of course. “Jail” means the teacher has to sit in their classroom or the teacher’s lounge while the kids have a field day or extra recess. 

29. Plan a Pumpkin-Carving Contest

Sell pumpkins and carving supplies for a jack-o’-lantern competition around Halloween. You might make this fall fundraising idea part of a bigger event or host it separately. Reward the winning pumpkin carver with a trophy or trinket they can keep as a reward. 

30. Organize a Family Game Night

Provide everything the whole family would need for a hassle-free game night. This might include: 

• Space (gym, recreation center, public area, or pavilion)
• Games (board games, card games, and party games)
• Snacks (chips, desserts, and drinks)

Then, find some fun referees for games like Twister or tag. You could also create a family-vs-family tournament and reward the winning family. 

Participants can register for a set fee or agree to run a peer-to-peer campaign that engages their friends and family. Once they raise a certain amount, they’re welcome to attend. 

31. Initiate a Field Day

Host a field day after school or on the weekend with events for kids to participate and compete in various sports. Add sports they might have never tried before, like hacky sack, climbing, jumping, and Frisbee. Charge a small fee for kids to participate.

32. Start a Rubber Duck Race

Encourage participants to purchase a rubber duck to enter in a water race (ducks should have numbers on the bottom). The donor with the winning duck wins a prize. 

You might even consider breaking this into smaller groups to allow more participants to win. For example, you might have 10 races of five contestants rather than one race with 50. 

33. Set Up Flamingo Flocking

Flamingo flocking is a fun way to engage your friends, family, and community. Here’s how it works:

• Someone donates money to nominate a neighbor for flamingo flocking
• Kids sneak over to the house and plant pink flamingos all over the yard
• Kids leave a note asking for a donation and nomination
• Kids move the flamingos over to the next yard
• You repeat until you’ve reached your fundraising goal (or you run out of houses)

34. Form a Read-a-Thon Fundraiser

Host read-a-thons. Rather than earning pledges for laps or miles walked, like with walk-a-thons, collect pledges for the following:

• Books read
• Pages read
• Minutes spent reading

35. Host a Sports Team Competition

Hold a competition for athletes to compete for the crown. But remember, sometimes, becoming the local champion is enough of a prize—so think about your specific audience. Host tournaments throughout the year and rotate sports like:

• Soccer
• Basketball
• Volleyball
• Flag football
• Hockey
• Swimming
• Tennis
• Pickleball

Sports tournaments are great for peer-to-peer fundraising, especially when sports teams can run a joint campaign or ask each teammate to run an independent campaign and compete to see who raises the most. The winner can then be named the team captain.  

36. Build a Mini-Golf Course

Let kids design a backyard mini-golf course. You could use cups as the holes, then get creative with everything else. Use whatever is around the house or in your yard to make a one-of-a-kind game. Then, invite neighbors and kids in the community to come pay to play. Reward children who hit a hole in one with a prize. 

If you want to make this a community event, challenge kids to design the best course and submit photos or videos of their course design to be voted on by the public. Then, recreate the winning course in a local park for everyone to come try. Either charge a small course fee or sell food and merchandise for purchase at the event. 

37. Plan a Pancake Breakfast

Cook and sell pancakes at a before-school event or on the weekend before a long day of sporting events. Pancakes are another cheap item with a high return on investment, so you have the potential to earn quite a few donations with low expenses.

To involve the kids, assign them to the toppings bar. People can come to them for whipped cream, powdered sugar, chocolate chips, or fresh berries. They can either serve the toppings or just be the ones who report when items run low. Either way, getting them involved to some degree is a great way to introduce them to your cause. 

38. Set Up a Battle-of-the-Bands Concert

Empower your kids to compete on the big stage to see who’s the top band. Consider dividing the competition into age groups, like elementary school, middle school, and high school. Ask for donations to enter the family-friendly competition and for entry to the event. Reward the top band with a trophy and prize. 

Do More With Elevated Fundraising Tools on Classy

Bring any of your great fundraising ideas for kids to life with Classy. Classy’s fundraising platform empowers your supporters with leading crowdfunding, peer-to-peer, recurring, and fundraising event features. Kids will have all the tools they need to fundraise on behalf of nonprofits they care about:

• Comprehensive fundraising suite
• Virtual, hybrid, and in-person event management 
• Optimized, direct-giving technology 
• Flexible payment processing
• Best-in-class software integrations
• Personalized donation pages and forms
• Powerful reporting and analytics

Want to see how your nonprofit can optimize its fundraising with Classy? Request a demo to talk with one of our experts.

Throughout the year, we heard insights from our nonprofit and technology ecosystem partners that deepened our understanding of the social sector’s opportunities and challenges. We also conducted research, shared in our annual reports, including Why America Gives and The State of Modern Philanthropy. Now, as part of GoFundMe, we have the broadest view of the donor landscape to date that accounts for both giving to individuals and organizations. 

I’ve synthesized all of these inputs into five trends I believe nonprofits can use to create proactive strategies to raise more in 2023.

1. Fundraising Will Require Precision to Break Through the Noise 

Donors are often inundated with requests to give. Consider the requests that occur on an average day—donors round up a bill at the grocery store, receive a donation appeal through email or social media, and find a pamphlet about an organization in the mail. With so many methods of giving available to today’s donors, you will need to break through the noise with a clear message on the specific channels that reach your donors. 

Focus on data specific to your target cohort of donors to inform which interactions are most likely to result in donations. Understand your target donor’s daily interactions and influences, such as their demographics, careers, location, friends, and family. We’ll see advanced A/B testing capabilities, marketing analytics, and audience segmentation become a greater focus in the coming year as organizations hone in on their ideal audience. New opportunities will be unlocked when a nonprofit knows where to place an impactful message and what that message should contain to align with its donors.

2. Privacy Controls Will Promote High-Quality, Targeted Marketing

As privacy controls increase, creating valuable, relevant content that targets the right audience becomes even more critical. Generic marketing campaigns will lose their effectiveness in garnering donors and hinder your ability to reach and engage the right audience. We’re already seeing this in some of our marketing channels. Take email, for example. It’s becoming even easier to unsubscribe to emails as Apple and Google develop banners at the top of emails and prompts asking whether you’d like to unsubscribe. If your content is not customized toward the individual, you risk getting left behind.

Additionally, as more donors opt out of data sharing, the transparency of how and where you are using their data will become even more important. By increasing the trust in your organization and your data collection practices, you’ll make donors more likely to share their data willingly. 

3. Charitable Funding Will Further Diversify

We see the definition of giving evolving to include not only monetary donations to organizations but also donations given directly to individuals through platforms like GoFundMe, and non-monetary gifts such as volunteering time or the contribution of goods. 

As younger generations inherit wealth from Baby Boomers, the ways in which these younger generations give will continue to evolve the fundraising landscape. We see, for example, that Millennials and Gen Z prefer to be more hands-on with their investments, with 40% checking their investments daily. 

As these generations earn and inherit wealth, they are more likely to turn to investment-based giving such as stocks, Donor Advised Funds (DAFs), and cryptocurrency. Almost 60% of millennials own cryptocurrency or stock, and younger generations are twice as likely to give through structured vehicles, such as DAFs. As you look to diversify fundraising at your nonprofit, donations through DAFs and non-cash gifts will be particularly fruitful as those gift options are typically much larger than cash gifts from the same donor.

4. Nonprofits Will Trade Custom Platforms and All-in-One Solutions for Comprehensive, Specialized Partners

The time, development, and resources required to maintain and keep up with the latest technological advances will outweigh the benefits of a customized solution.

Similarly, while the concept of an all-in-one solution seems to promote ease of use and time-savings, in reality, it lacks the flexibility and agility to match the pace of technology. An all-in-one solution’s reliance on acquisitions means that its extensive list of products does not easily integrate and is not updated to keep up with the latest advancements.

In its place, nonprofits will lean on platforms that take the middle path between point solutions and all-in-one approaches. Organizations will prioritize platforms that balance breadth and focus to drive key efficiency gains. This balance will help avoid the complexity tax associated with managing disjointed solutions and donor frustrations bred from platforms trying to be everything at the cost of innovation and user interface.

5. Technology and Partnerships Will Drive Human Resource Priorities 

You might be one of the many nonprofits seeing heightened competition (and turnover) of employees with expertise in high-priority tools and systems. By leaning on technology and partnerships to automate tedious, day-to-day operations, employees will be more likely to stay on board. 

Instead of seeking out talent based on experience with the platform, we’ll see talent sought out for their expertise in a particular function, such as digital marketing, and their ability to learn quickly as systems innovate. Organizations will look for intuitive, easy-to-adopt technology to pair alongside strong digital partners that support scalability in areas such as SEO, paid advertising, email marketing, and A/B testing. 

Nonprofit Fundraising Trends and the Year to Come

I see so much opportunity ahead for the social sector. As a new generation of donors emerges to redirect fundraising efforts, as the pace of innovation quickens for fundraising technology, and as the way you build relationships with donors strengthens from precise, targeted marketing, 2023 holds a lot of promise. I hope these trends help you take on the new year with a critical lens to identify new ways to support your nonprofit and raise more for your mission.

Let’s cover how you can get creative with donor-engagement initiatives to retain year-end supporters and new donors throughout 2022.

Make a First Impression That Ignites Donor Retention

Your donor experience matters. That’s why supporters delighted by an intuitive campaign page lead to a seamless checkout flow and are more likely to share your cause with their network of loyal peers and passionate philanthropists.

Step one to retaining new donors acquired during the holiday season is to make a strong impression from their first interaction with your organization.

Offer a fulfilling giving season experience that kicks off on Giving Tuesday and lasts throughout every year-end touchpoint. Then, stand out by making each donor feel like they play a valuable role in your nonprofit’s mission—because they do. Once you establish a strong sense of connection, you can shape your donor relationships for years to come. This is especially true for donors giving for the first time.

Think of this analogy: Imagine finally getting a table at the popular new restaurant. You sit down and have one of the most delicious meals, but the service and experience were awful. Will you go back? Do you tell your friends to go? The lesson here is you can have a great cause and mission, but a lackluster experience can negatively impact your donors’ perception of your organization and willingness to support you again.

Surprisingly, catching a donor’s eye doesn’t necessarily need to be extravagant. As seen in Classy’s Why America Gives, it highlighted that the biggest motivator for donors to give to a cause is simply understanding the impact of their gift.

The Top Emotional Benefits of Donating for Loyal Donors: 

1. Feeling gratitude for the work nonprofits do
2. Feeling a part of a greater solution
3. Feeling good about themselves

It’s crucial to note the emphasis that today’s donors place distinguishing an excellent giving experience from one that feels disjointed. Equally important is the ongoing expectation for options and flexibility during the donation checkout experience related to payment types and transaction fees. For example, our report showed that 37% of passive donors reconsider donations because they don’t believe their budget will cover an organization’s suggested donation amount.

By offering various giving frequencies and suggested donation amounts through their Classy donation forms, nonprofits can accommodate any financial situation. Plus, nonprofits can now accept PayPal and Venmo donations to provide more payment methods and provide donors the option to cover any associated fees—so they can give as much as possible to the cause.

Build your donor engagement strategies to attract and retain loyal donors in our latest report.

Engage Donors With an Impactful Thank You

Donors will remember if you nail your thank you.

What’s more, if you use an online fundraising platform for your holiday campaigns, you can automate your thank you emails and donation receipts. After all, donors who land on your donation page and complete their gifts chose you over (or alongside) many causes.

So make your outreach feel personal to remain memorable instead of autoresponders. The goal is to sound human, use authenticity to leave a lasting impression, and make donors want to give to you again.

Here are some engagement opportunities to help follow up with your supporters:

• Customize your thank you message and a donation receipt for your giving season donors to explain the impact of their gifts during that specific time. Add details like who was supported, how many people were impacted, or what the impact looked like (e.g., images). In other words, help them feel that their contributions make a tangible difference that lasts into the new year.
• Go above and beyond with a personalized email in addition to your first thank you that continues the conversation. You can also comment on the activity wall of your campaign page to say thank you through a message that’s not attached to a receipt.
• Demonstrate their gift’s impact with thank you notes from beneficiaries or team members explaining how their gift fueled your goals for this year and how they can continue to support. This helps donors see themselves as part of the solution to your challenges.

You’ll build relationships with a personalized thank you that isn’t attached to an ask. So think of it as another touchpoint to plan into your nurture strategy with donors, and get creative to let your authenticity shine.

Establish a Strong Social Media Presence to Engage Donors Organically

Social media produced conversion rates of page visitors to completed donations that reached up to 50% this year. It only makes sense as these platforms become the hubs for all things engagement and community. That also means it may be time to think about your social media presence in the new year.

Use the month following year-end as an opportunity to rethink your nonprofit’s social media template to see how you can organically show up on your supporters’ feeds to stay top of mind.

Here are some quick tips for using social media to retain donors:

• Make frequent, impactful updates: Use each post as an opportunity to connect to donors authentically. By taking advantage of impactful images and storytelling, you remind donors why your cause needs continued support and makes a difference in the community. For example, a testimonial video from a child who received support over the holidays or an image of volunteering. These visuals are a powerful way to bring a human element to each post you share with your community.
• Include a timely CTA: Use the updated link feature in Instagram stories and the ability to include links in posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter so that you always have a timely call to action. And so you don’t overwhelm donors with too many options, consider your monthly goals and add a link that will provide the easiest path to give. For example, you could feature your live year-end campaign following Giving Tuesday or a landing page for your recurring giving membership program when you need to boost sustainable revenue.

Honesty and impact matter more than ever with social media, and donors are more likely to give again when they receive regular updates about how your cause makes tangible changes with the funding received.

Think Through a Continuous Path to Give

Your giving season donors can be your next loyal supporters if you make it easy to give again. After all, what’s to stop a Giving Tuesday donor who gave $50 this year from writing a $1,000 check for your annual event next spring? So think about how to offer that next step in the giving journey to motivate increased levels of support.

How to Engage Donors With a Cross-Campaign Promotion:

1. Recurring donations: Consider asking your donors to make an automated gift they can set and forget. Recurring donations give supporters a way to contribute at a lower cost while bringing the same impact that a major donor might.

Our Recurring Donor Sentiment report asked recurring donors what motivates them to continue an ongoing donation. Use their feedback to position your ask better:

• 61% are motivated by the affordability of segmenting gifts over time
• 45% are motivated by swag
• 44% are motivated by exclusive access to cause-related events

Download the Full Report Now

2.Peer-to-peer fundraising platforms: Use fundraising to help supporters raise more money than they could give on their own. Then, create tailored asks for your giving season donors to share your cause with their network through a peer-to-peer campaign. You could even opt to share a DIY-fundraising option to get their creative juices flowing on how they can fundraise for you whenever they want throughout the year.

3. Events: Make sure to promote your upcoming fundraising events as widely as possible to allow your supporters to interact with your mission in new ways. You can also incorporate hybrid events into your strategy to expand your reach, and how your nonprofit can spark interest ahead of your event’s formal registration period to generate a positive buzz.

Segment Communication to Engage Donors Longer

People come together throughout the giving season for different reasons. As you better understand demographics within your donor base, customize your outreach based on communication preferences. That helps you create more meaningful outreach. Treating donors with some exclusivity can pay dividends if someone feels compelled to support you during the giving season.

Then, take your personalized communication to the next level by reaching out specifically to donors who gave to your Giving Tuesday or year-end campaign for the first time, as a repeat donor, or as a major gift. We break this down for you below.

Consider These Segmentation Ideas for Donor Stewardship:

1. First-time donors: Follow up with a handwritten letter or video to share how their actions during the giving season or on Giving Tuesday connect to your cause in a personalized way. For example, use their name and show them that they are much more than a transaction by inviting them to get involved in your annual event or upcoming campaigns. It’s also a great time to share your social media handles so they can feel involved with everything you do.

2. Return giving-season donors: Express that you know the supporter made an effort to return to your cause and stick around. It’s a great time to share peer-to-peer fundraising efforts for the coming year and encourage potential donors to get their communities involved in a team effort to make an even more significant impact.

3. Major gift donors: Source a recurring gift when someone makes a large gift, whether it’s for the first time or returning to give again during your year-end campaigns. It’s a great opportunity to explain how automated donations on a weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly basis can move the needle for your cause.

Outside of first-time or repeat donors, other data points that can help segment your lists include:

• Location of donor
• Gift amount
• Specific program supported
• Comment left with gift
• Ecard sent to loved one

Understand How to Engage Donors for a Strong Retention Rate

Your donors came to you with a passion for making a difference. At the same time, there are always new causes to support coming their way. Remaining top of mind is the most straightforward strategy to retain their long-term loyalty.

But remember not to overthink it. Your organization already connects with each of your supporters uniquely. Simply reminding them why they hit that donate button the first time is plenty to impact ongoing support for your cause.

Use our latest donor behavior data in Why America Gives 2022 to tailor your approach based on who your donors are today and how you’d like your loyal donor base to grow in the future.

What Are the Benefits of Virtual Fundraising?

Virtual events helps your nonprofit reach entirely new audiences with a next level fundraising strategy. They also allow for on-demand events that open the likelihood of supporters attending and viewing your content than a time-bound event. You can appeal to your donor’s schedules, and reach more potential donors using the recordings of your event. Imagine hosting your event once, and keeping registration to access the content on-demand all year to continue building relationships and support raising funds.

A Modern Take on Virtual Fundraising Software

As you start to think about virtual fundraising efforts, consider the way technology sets you up for success. Engaging event platforms let you bring physical, virtual, and hybrid events to life with tech enhancements that exceed modern donor expectations.

22 Creative Virtual Fundraising Ideas

Across almost all virtual fundraising events, your nonprofit organization will likely want to livestream content to your audience. You can also embed your Zoom recording, YouTube or Twitch livestream directly into your Classy virtual fundraising campaign or Classy Live event.

In-Person Event Pivots to Virtual or Hybrid

1. Online Gala Dinner

Many nonprofits were forced to pivot their in-person galas to virtual events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck during the height of gala season. However, nonprofits have seen great success hosting their galas virtually. There’s no longer a geographic restraint so anyone can attend, you can emulate table fundraising with online peer-to-peer fundraising and team captains, and you may actually net higher fundraising totals with an expanded attendance and less overhead costs.

Upaya Social Ventures successfully pivoted their in-person gala to a virtual gala in a few weeks and ended up raising over $300,000, 50% more than their initial fundraising goal. They used their Classy campaign page as a central hub to post messages from leadership, share engaging videos, and even host an auction.

2. Online Auctions

Similar to galas, an online auction or silent auction can increase your audience of potential donors and bidders. The key to a successful virtual auction is twofold. On one hand, your nonprofit must take stock of your items, clearly define the rules for participants, set competitive bids, and promote the auction items in emails and on social media.

On the other hand, you can also use this as an opportunity to ask for donations throughout the event that are separate from the price of every auction item. This way, you can keep people engaged at times when they might drop off. For example, if someone is outbid on an item, you can suggest they donate the amount they would have paid to your organization directly.

3. Online Telethons

You can also turn an online raffle or auction into a telethon event. A telethon can be an opportunity to livestream with a special host or group of engaging community members. You can use the time to share items for auction or raffle of fun prizes in exchange for donations. Mobile bidding can enhance the experience as you tie your event to an online campaign or donation page.

Get creative about a theme that resonates with the time of year or your current projects. You can translate that theme to your host’s appearance, the set of your telethon, and any supporting marketing materials.

Food and Drink Virtual Fundraising Ideas

4. Cooking or Mixology Virtual Classes

Whether you’re making homemade pasta or mixing up a nice old fashioned, cooking and mixology virtual classes cater perfectly to a virtual audience. Your nonprofit can partner with a local chef or mixologist, or even famous culinary influencers if you have the connections, and stream the virtual cooking class fundraising event live.

You can charge admission with a ticketed event fundraising page, or in the form of a donation. The key is to set tiers of gifts. For example, $100 can guarantee a supporter gets a seat in the class, but $250 or more will allow that supporter to participate in a live virtual happy hour or webinar with the cook or mixologist after the class is concluded. Additionally, you can make calls to donate to your nonprofit throughout the livestream fundraising event.

5. Group Dining Events

It may not be feasible to gather your community of supporters together around a good meal, but there are ways to transition a feeling of togetherness into a virtual fundraising idea. When Miry’s List hosted their 2020 World Refugee Day Awards Campaign, they offered a takeout picnic that supporters could pick up curbside and enjoy at home while they watched the virtual awards ceremony.

6.Virtual Alcohol Tasting

Whiskey, wine, mezcal, or otherwise, alcohol tastings are never dull events. Your nonprofit can create a virtual fundraising event where the price of registration includes the cost of the alcohol and shipping. Your supporters can then receive their drinks in time for the live event, where a professional teaches them about the alcohol.

There are some rules and restrictions by which you must abide in order to ensure the legality of your event, but Hope for Haiti is a great example of a nonprofit who has done this with Haitian crema. You can use their model to get started, like clearly calling out which states are eligible to receive alcohol shipments, but always consult with your legal team to ensure you’re in compliance with state and federal laws.

Athletic Virtual Fundraising Ideas

7. Yoga Class

Reach out to your local yoga studio and invite them to lead a class, or series of classes, in partnership with your nonprofit over zoom. You can also ask your supporters if any of them are yoga teachers, or know someone, who would want to guide the classes. Either way, you can sell tickets to your community, as well as the community that regularly supports the yoga studio. The best part of this virtual fundraiser is that there’s no limit to the number of people who can join.

8. Bootcamp

For your supporters who want more of a hardcore workout over a relaxing yoga class, bootcamp is the perfect option. Collaborate with a local trainer to develop a regimen and have them lead the virtual workout. You can also design it so no extra equipment is required, supporters can do it on their own time, and they can share results on social media after.

Consider pre-recording the initial workout with the trainer so you can keep the virtual bootcamp up in a more evergreen capacity. Each time someone pays the registration fee, you can email them the video.

9. Virtual Walks and Runs

Many nonprofits who host regular endurance events—like the Cleveland Clinic VeloSano event, a walk-a-thon, a stair climb, or a 5K—often incorporate a virtual fundraising component into their event even when they’re hosting it in-person. The formula is simple: you charge registration through an online donation form and then the athlete completes the distance on their own.

If you’re going fully virtual, it’s crucial that you create engagement opportunities throughout the campaign. Have riders or racers start peer-to-peer fundraising pages to solicit their networks for support, ask them to share photos on social media with a hashtag, and send them branded gear that promotes your nonprofit while they race.

Community Engagement Virtual Fundraising Ideas

10. Virtual Crowdfunding Pet Events

This virtual fundraising idea capitalizes on people’s love of showing off their furry friends. An event like this can be a great way to get people involved with your organization, especially in a virtual environment. Often, all that’s needed is for them to snap a picture of their pet and post it to social media with a specific event hashtag. You could run a crowdfunding campaign that coincides with the awareness to give people a place to take action.

For example, if you’re hosting a virtual pet parade, they can dress their animals up in costumes and post photos. The virtual component also expands the potential audience since people with birds, turtles, rabbits, and lizards might not normally be able to attend an in-person event with their pets—pets they might not be comfortable taking outdoors. Everyone can participate.

The Boulder Humane Society pivoted their annual Doggie Dash event into a fully virtual fundraising event. They drove engagement across their social media channels powered by user-generated content, and raised 101% of their fundraising goal.

11. Community Talks

Virtual community talks offer an opportunity for your nonprofit to offer supporters something of value, as well as solicit donations for your mission at the same time. Tap your board members, executive leadership, or prominent members of your community and have them speak about topics related to your mission. You can also bring in outside speakers to discuss relevant or timely topics.

For example, if your nonprofit is involved in the fight for social justice, you can have a respected diversity coach lead an open discussion for your supporters. Whatever topic you choose, you can engage your audience with Q&A sessions, educational hand-outs, and interactive conversations throughout.

12. Book Clubs

Virtual book clubs are a great way to get your supporters to donate. Charge a small fee for supporter to get admitted. You can make this a club that recurringly meets and give the attendees an opportunity to donate each time. Book clubs allow for discussion and adds a personal touch to getting connected with supporters.

13. Behind-the-Scenes Tours

What goes on at your organization that the average, everyday supporter never gets to witness? Host a virtual fundraising event that takes your supporters on a behind-the-scenes virtual tour of your operations. There are countless options for what you can show your supporters, regardless of your cause category. The key is to provide them with a value equal to the amount they donate to participate.

This tactic worked well for the Joffrey Ballet in their campaign, “Pulling Back the Curtain: The Nutcracker.” They invited people to get a first glimpse of the play with footage, interviews with artists, the art team, and secret delights along the tour. What’s more, they created their page so that people were sponsoring the virtual event versus just making a donation. This language makes it feel tangible for supporters and gives them a sense of ownership over the actual event when it takes place.

14. Virtual Tailgate

Tailgating for a major sports event is one of the most fun parts of watching the game. You can make your tailgate avirtual celebration. Have your supporters purchase a tailgate package, which can be picked up and taken back home before the big game.

The Palmer Home for Children decided to host a virtual tailgate like this for the Mississippi State football team, and supporters a cooler filled with tailgate foods and treats. They creatively sold sponsorship packages as well, and anyone who purchased a sponsorship had their organization included inside the tailgate cooler on special promotions. Anyone who was unable to grab a tailgate cooler could make a one-time donation and celebrate with a virtual cocktail.

Arts and Entertainment Virtual Fundraising Ideas

15. Game/ Trivia Night

Nothing beats an engaging game night to spark donations to your fundraiser. There are endless virtual game night opportunities with trivia being a stand-out when it comes to captivating the attention of the attendees. You can even tailor the trivia questions to your company or charity to get attendees to learn more about the cause.

16. Virtual Movie Night

Movie nights are an easy way to solicit donations. Simply charge a fee to enter the virtual screening of a popular movie. At the end or beginning of the movie, you can further explain your cause and communicate your mission to your supporters.

17. Script Readings

Hosting a virtual movie night is a good idea, but it can be difficult to convince someone to donate and watch a movie at their house when they could simply watch it on their own. One way to level up this virtual fundraising idea is to invite actors to join your organization on a livestream and read the script to a famous movie together.

To be clear, you don’t need to be an arts organization to do this, any nonprofit can. The key is to get the right people to participate in the script reading. If you don’t have connections to influential actors, you can tap into the local businesses, performance arts centers, schools, or even your direct audience of supporters to participate.

18. Tour an Art Gallery

In the world of virtual fundraising ideas and events, no geographic territory is off-limits. Your organization might be located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give your supporters a tour of MOMA in New York City. It boils down to securing partnerships with the right people and orchestrating a virtual fundraising event.

You might not be able to secure access to major venues, but there are thousands of smaller artists around the United States who would likely be willing to showcase their galleries to your supporters. You can build this as a ticketed event and maybe even throw in an online fundraising auction for the artist’s various creations.

19. Virtual Concerts

You might not be able to go to an in-person venue to watch your favorite band play, but that doesn’t mean concerts are off the table. Reach out to bands and invite them to perform for your audience in a closed venue. Sell tickets for the virtual fundraising event idea, solicit donations during the virtual concert, and livestream all the excitement to everyone who bought a ticket.

20. Virtual Pageant

Similar to a concert, you can host a pageant and livestream it for your attendees who bought tickets. Unlike a concert, you can use this opportunity to shine a light on your beneficiaries.

Arc Broward hosted the Virtual Miss Arc Broward Pageant, which empowers their beneficiaries who actually participate in the pageant. They sold tickets to save a virtual seat for the livestreamed event and added upgrade options to enhance the viewing experience with a hot chocolate bomb, a make-your-own pizza experience, or charcuterie board for two. Each enhancement was designed to be a curbside pickup that you take home and enjoy while watching.

21. Comedy Events

Comedians can find opportunities to perform for wider audiences online. Your nonprofit can secure comedy talent from local improv venues all the way up to nationally recognized names, and everything in between. This virtual talent show fundraising event can be more than just a ticket purchase. It can be part of a larger giving day.

The Scleroderma Research Foundation hosts an annual comedy event called Cool Comedy, Hot Cuisine. When they pivoted to a fully virtual event, they moved all of their performers into the virtual space to deliver their performances as well. However, they enhanced the experience by folding in an online auction and gourmet food and wine boxes for purchase.

22. Virtual Fashion Show

A fashion show can be a great virtual fundraising idea for schools, clubs, or communities looking to raise money. You can get creative and partner with local boutiques or stores that would love to have their clothing promoted for a good cause. You could livestream the event or pre-record the fashion show and sell tickets to view it when it’s finalized. You could even lean into a peer-to-peer fundraising model by having each participant or model raise money from their friends, families, and social networks.

African Community Education (ACE) transformed their annual gala into a flexible hybrid event that welcomed virtual guests. During the 2021 giving season, ACE has students walk in a fashion show that was streamed to a virtual audience to immerse them in the experience. The result was a 3X increase in revenue from their 2019 in-person gala.

Which Creative Virtual Fundraising Idea Will You Use?

One benefit to hosting virtual fundraising events is that you can get wildly creative with the ideas and concepts. You don’t only have to stick to ideas that seem to fit exactly in your cause category either; almost any event can be adapted to fit your mission, work, and impact.

Use this list of virtual fundraising ideas to inspire your next great virtual fundraising event, and feel free to tweak them to fit your specific goals. Don’t forget to download our virtual fundraising events toolkit to ensure you nail your next event.

As you build out your nonprofit’s annual strategy, use these virtual fundraising ideas to create engaging experiences for your donors, grow your audience of supporters, and raise more money. Don’t forget to download our Virtual Events Toolkit to help.

The donor experience is a long-standing priority at Classy. However, we recognize that not all fundraisers approach the experience the same way. One of those special circumstances is tribute fundraising to collect donations in memory of those who have passed or are ill.

In many instances, fundraising has a playful and gamified nature. We saw the opportunity to evolve this experience for tribute fundraisers—small changes that can make a big difference for supporters. Today, we’ll talk about four ways fundraisers can create a meaningful donation experience when fundraising for a memorial or tribute.

How Nonprofits Set Tribute Fundraisers Up for Success

Tribute fundraising allows donors to raise money on behalf of someone. At Classy, we ensure the funds donated go directly to a nonprofit that can help support further research and development or work to help other people struggling with a similar circumstance.

Nonprofits have a few options when collecting donations in memory or tribute. The first step is to create a branded memorial or tribute peer-to-peer campaign to give fundraisers a starting point. From there, supporters can customize their fundraising page to speak to exactly who the fundraising will benefit.

You can then promote these campaigns on your website to give visitors an easy way to become fundraisers. Once set up, anyone can start a fundraising page and know the funds collected will go directly back to your charity.

The Importance of Tribute and Memorial Donations

Tribute giving continues to be one of the most popular forms of giving. Across all demographics and even for some organizations, it makes up the largest percentage of overall donation volume.

Simply put, donors are motivated to donate on behalf of someone else because people feel called to support those they know. This is especially true when their donation is in tribute or memorial of someone. In our recent survey of US donors, nearly a quarter said donating as a memorial to someone is their primary motivation for giving.

Online Giving Trends of 2022 also found that tribute giving made up over 25% of gifts for each generation of donors, increasing to 41% for Baby Boomers.

(Source: Nonprofit Source, 2022)

People Are More Likely to Donate When Their Friends and Family Ask

The psychology of peer-to-peer giving shows that people are more compelled to give when supporting someone close to them. Our upcoming Why America Gives report showed how many donors make decisions based on their inner circles. We saw 71% of donors say their primary cause awareness is their friends and families.

People Want to Have an Evolved Tribute Fundraising Experience

Understanding the importance of this giving category, Classy introduced more control for fundraisers to customize their fundraising page when choosing to fundraise in memory or honor of someone else.

While nonprofits can create a peer-to-peer campaign focused on fundraisers raising in memory or as a tribute, fundraisers can also take the extra step to brand their individual fundraising page specific to their beneficiaries. Fundraisers can then tweak any existing peer-to-peer fundraising campaign by electing to fundraise in honor of someone.

Below, we’ll talk about how you can make sure memorial donations are thoughtful and some ways we’ve made it easier on the Classy giving platform.

1. Make It Easy to Create a Tribute Fundraising Page

People may not know that they can create a fundraising page to tribute someone. To increase awareness, as you bring fundraisers through the process of creating a peer-to-peer fundraising page, present a simple way to indicate that the page is, in fact, to honor someone else.

Classy enables this through a check box functionality. This way, before setting a fundraising goal, adding start and end dates, and customizing the page’s information, supporters can enter the process confident that the page will reflect their intentions.

2. Provide Flexibility Around Fundraising Goals

Some supporters who choose to create a tribute fundraising page to collect donations on behalf of someone who’s passed away or is sick may not want to set a fundraising goal. Instead, they may ask for anything their community can contribute.

Classy Tribute Fundraising Pages help supporters in this scenario, with features like a goal and leaderboards displaying top donations removed. This way, only the organizer sees the total raised. That allows the supporter to decide if they’d like to share the results and when the fundraiser should end.

3. Bring the Honoree to the Forefront

Modern fundraising pages let supporters customize their headlines and photos for a personal touch that resonates with their network. So when someone hosts a tribute fundraising page, you’ll want to make sure there’s a straightforward way to show them they can put the honoree’s name and photo there instead.

Instructional text will help guide a supporter to input the name of the individual or group they’re raising money for and offer them the option to bring more personalization through a photo they choose. That way, each page visitor can quickly see the person they’re donating to and the person who invited them to the page.

4. Take a Softer Approach to Page Language

When someone raises money on behalf of someone in need, it’s essential to acknowledge that their position can be challenging. One way to ensure the experience is thoughtful, from start to finish, is to add language tweaks from a typical peer-to-peer fundraising page.

These may be subtle but will mean a lot to the supporter creating their tribute fundraising page. One place Classy includes these tweaks for nonprofits is within fundraising tips displayed during the process. Another is in the instructions about adding an image to reflect the action of this specific fundraiser audience. You can also consider making these language tweaks in the emails you send to fundraisers upon the campaign launch and completion.

Offering Every Supporter a Great Experience

Supporting the sector that changes the world each day means knowing what modern donors need and helping nonprofits attract, convert, and retain more funds.

When supporters have a great experience, they pass that onto those who support their fundraisers, reflecting to your organization. With these small touches to your support experience, you’ll add intentional and thoughtful details that people will always remember.

Ready to explore Tribute Fundraisers on Classy?

An Overview of Fundraising Campaign Types

We’ll take a look at five different campaign types at your disposal when you use a modern fundraising platform like Classy. These include:

• Donation Pages /Donation Websites
• Crowdfunding
• Peer-to-Peer
• Ticketed Events
• Registration with Fundraising Events

Choosing the right campaign type is vital to your fundraising success. Your decision affects the entire marketing and communications strategy that you’ll use to rally and engage supporters.

For example, the call to action you’d include on a donation form would be along the lines of “make a one-time donation.” For a peer-to-peer campaign, you’d change that to something like “sign up to fundraise on our behalf.” If you want to lean heavily on storytelling through photos and narrative text, or explain the power of different gift amounts through impact blocks, you might lean toward a crowdfunding campaign where people can come to donate.

Below, we’ll explore the different use cases and nuances of each campaign type and provide actual Classy campaigns examples. First, let’s go over how you can determine your nonprofit’s primary focus to help decide which type is right for your first campaign.

The Value of Using Multiple Campaign Types

It’s important to state that it can be highly effective for nonprofits to use multiple campaign types throughout the year to capture new donors and audiences according to how they’d like to give. Our annual report, The State of Modern Philanthropy, outlines how valuable a multi-campaign approach can be to a well-rounded fundraising strategy. 

As you go through the list of campaign type options, think about which combination can help you reach your target donors and raise the funds you need at various milestones throughout the year. You’ll see proof points and sentiment from Classy customers to help you envision your organization’s next successful campaign.

What’s Your Campaign Focus?

To ensure you choose the right Classy campaign type, determine your organization’s focus or top priority. This isn’t the end-all-be-all of your fundraising strategy but rather something to guide your first campaign.

Start by exploring the most immediate need that brought you to use Classy in the first place. For example, you might want to establish your main donation button on your website and build a landing page that serves as a place for someone to donate.

Define specific goals and desired outcomes

Your goal will help you choose the best-fit campaign to get you there. The key is to be as specific as possible. It could also be a good idea to envision the end of the campaign and your desired outcomes. Get clear about the donation volume you’d consider a success, how many donors would participate, the ideal length of your campaign, and how many supporters you want to build relationships with throughout the process for future campaigns.

Once your team agrees on its focus, it becomes much easier to create cohesive messaging that helps supporters understand how they can contribute to your work. Each section below begins with a sample focus statement before exploring the different campaign types and examples from real nonprofits.

Donation Page

“Our nonprofit simply needs to gather donations and build a supporter base.”

A donation page can stand as your landing page. Supporters can arrive, read a short section on your work, and complete their donations. Your nonprofit can link to your donation page from your main website through a donation button. 

From there you can take the following action to get donors to your donation page:

• Include it in your monthly email appeal for donations
• Add a promotion within your newsletters
• Create online ads 
• Develop social media posts
• Write timely blogs
• Include the URL on pieces of direct mail

Flexibility of Donation Pages

With a donation page, you can collect either one-time or recurring donations. You can offer the frequency and the donation amounts listed on the form. Further, you can use pass-through parameters to have a pre-selected donation amount automatically populated when someone lands on the form. 

Offer more choices on your donation pages with modern payment options like Venmo, PayPal, cryptocurrency, digital wallets, and ACH bank transfers. Classy also offers an embedded checkout experience with a pop-up modal that can be placed on your website to simplify the experience for your donors. 

Many Hopes brought an embedded checkout experience to their donation website to see a year-over-year donation volume increase of 56% and a $975 average gift size specifically through the PayPal option.

For example, look at how Casa Central built its donation page to be engaging enough to draw someone in yet still strong enough to stand on its own.

Donation Page Classy Campaign Example

The ROI of Donation Pages

Donation pages powered by the Classy fundraising platform bring in the most average recurring revenue of all campaign types from automated repeat donations. They also have the least amount of canceled recurring contributions in the first year from the original recurring donation compared to all other campaign types.

Crowdfunding

“Our nonprofit needs to gather donations, build a supporter base, and tell our organization’s compelling story in the process.”

A crowdfunding campaign is built for storytelling. With this campaign type, you can inspire support for your cause with a robust narrative that ultimately drives people to donate.

Crowdfunding campaigns are the landing page before someone gets to your donation page. It’s meant to draw people in, teach them about your nonprofit, show the impact their gift will make, and steward them to complete a donation. Nonprofits often use video, rich imagery, and well-written copy to accomplish this.

Crowdfunding’s Value for Community-Based Campaigns

While a crowdfunding campaign works well for story-driven appeals, it’s also ideal for time-bound appeals that fundraise against an optional, public-facing goal. You can’t do this on a donation page. In addition, when you run a crowdfunding campaign that’s bound to a set duration of time, it can create a sense of urgency to donate.

Additionally, when someone donates, you can thank and encourage them in real time on the comment wall of the campaign page. This public-facing engagement opportunity shows supporters that you and your team are grateful for the support.

It also lends an element of social proof to the campaign. With a donation page, you cannot see who’s donated, how many have donated, or gauge any sense of momentum. Here’s a campaign by Water4 that puts all of these best practices to use.

Crowdfunding Classy Campaign Example

Crowdfunding for Recurring Giving

Donation pages can effectively include a recurring giving option, but you can also use a crowdfunding campaign to build a dedicated recurring giving program. The only things that change are the call to action, which shifts the focus from a one-time donation to a monthly recurring donation, and the timeline. Recurring giving programs are often evergreen. Operation Broken Silence built a recurring giving program in this fashion.

Recurring Giving Crowdfunding Classy Campaign Example

The ROI of Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding campaigns have the highest percentage of donors on mobile devices who are visiting from social media platforms. We also see that crowdfunding campaigns are the second most common way a donor returns to give a second donation. 

Peer-to-Peer

“We want to empower people to fundraise on our behalf.”

A peer-to-peer fundraising campaign page may look similar to a crowdfunding campaign, but it has a different call to action. Instead of asking someone to donate, a peer-to-peer campaign instead asks them to sign up to fundraise on your behalf.

Some peer-to-peer campaigns will offer both options and invite supporters to donate or sign up to fundraise. That way, people can still give to your cause even if they don’t want to build a personal fundraising page.

Create a Central Hub for Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Your main campaign page serves as a central hub from which supporters build their personal fundraising pages. Fundraisers will then send out their personal pages to their networks, asking people to donate.

All donations to personal fundraising pages link back to your main campaign page and increase your fundraising progress toward the goal. The true value here lies in that network effect.

As individuals reach out to their friends, families, and coworkers to share their fundraising pages, your nonprofit gets exposed to new audiences that may not have heard about your mission before. Peer-to-peer fundraising can also net your organization higher overall fundraising totals.

That’s because someone who starts a personal fundraising page can often raise more from their network than they can donate out of pocket. Not everyone can donate $100 at once, but many people have 10 friends who can each donate $10. Look at how Volunteers of America built their page.

Peer-to-Peer Classy Campaign Example

Year-Round Peer-to-Peer Campaigns

While most peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are time-bound, like most crowdfunding campaigns, you always have the option to leave it on year-round. In these cases, you would call it a year-round peer-to-peer campaign.

Beyond that, you can build your peer-to-peer campaign as a DIY fundraising campaign, which lets supporters fundraise on their own terms and time, like Room to Grow did. Someone can donate their birthday, wedding, athletic event, or another major life milestone.

DIY Peer-to-Peer Classy Campaign Example

The ROI of Peer-to-Peer

An individual’s fundraising page brings in 20 donors on average, so your campaign could potentially reach 100 donors if even five people participated. We also saw that the average amount raised by each participant’s fundraising page in 2021 increased by 34% on average from 2020.

Events

“I want to hold an event that activates my entire community of supporters.”

Classy offers two different ways your nonprofit can tap into the power of events. First, you can choose a ticketed event, which allows you to sell tickets to your event—our online ticket sales for nonprofits feature makes this easier than ever. Second, you can choose registration with fundraising, which combines the peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with a ticketed event campaign. With the addition of Classy Live, these events can now be run virtually or enhanced in-person with mobile features.

Ticketed Event

A ticketed event is what you’ll want to choose for any event that you want to sell admission tickets for, like a gala. You can control the total number of tickets you want to sell, as well as the types of tickets you offer supporters.

You can also create special promo codes to pass out and attract additional attendees. Last, you can include a “Donate” call to action so that anyone who can’t attend your event can still make a donation to support like the High Fives Foundation did.

Ticketed Event Classy Campaign Example

Registration with fundraising is similar to the ticketed events campaign type, but it mixes in an element of peer-to-peer fundraising. Often, nonprofits will use this campaign type for endurance events like 5Ks, marathons, and run/walks.

Participants can still pay for admission to the event, but there’s an option for them to create a personal or team fundraising page as well. Some will also use this peer-to-peer functionality as a gate to entry for the event.

Someone must fundraise a certain dollar amount to guarantee their registration in the event. You can use this example from the Sacramento SPCA to inspire your own campaign.

Registration With Fundraising Classy Campaign Example

The ROI of Events

Not only are events seeing tremendous year-over-year donation volume growth after the pandemic years of 2020 through 2021, but registration with fundraising events converted at the highest rate of all campaign types. We also see ticketed events bringing in the highest percentage of donations over $1,000.

What Classy Campaign Type Will You Choose?

No matter which Classy campaign type you choose, it’s helpful to view your campaign as an iterative work-in-progress that can always be improved. One of the biggest keys to success is to have a defined focus before you start that drives a strong first version that can be improved upon later.

When you understand the call to action and are confident in the campaign type you need, you’ve done the hard part. That way, you won’t spend hours designing a page only to realize you’ve chosen the wrong type.

For more ROI related to specific campaign types on Classy, visit The State of Modern Philanthropy report. If you’re interested in learning more about how Classy can power your online fundraising efforts, please reach out to us. Good luck!

People give for various reasons, like supporting others in need, coming together with coworkers, and playing a role in the more significant challenges impacting our world. We saw this more than ever in our annual donor sentiment report, Why America Gives.

Our report proved that word of mouth is still how most donors (67%) find new causes to give. When we looked at how that translates to online communities, we found that social media is the top way Gen Z finds new organizations to donate.

Focusing on your donors’ communities allows your nonprofit to meet donors’ passions for philanthropic action and channel this in ways that unite them with others. We share exactly how to do that.

One Donor Unlocks a Community

What if you looked at a group of people instead of at each individual donor? Instead of targeting a single individual to convert into a donation, nonprofits can see a donor as a community member. Each individual donor has natural connections to vast networks of potential supporters.

Your donors are often employees within a larger organization, members of family units or circles of friends, or active participants in timely social media conversations. Shifting your strategy to attract, convert, and retain these communities that your donors are already a part of can widen your fundraising scope. One way nonprofits bring this approach to life is through the power of peer-to-peer fundraising.

A single individual fundraising page brings in an average of 20 donors. That means if you can secure ten supporters to fundraise on your behalf, you could reach 200 people. Those donors then become part of your community that you can nurture to take further action.

The ideas below help you understand donors’ relationships with their communities and how you can mobilize those groups to take action to support your cause.

4 Ideas to Raise More Through Your Donors’ Communities

1. Promote New Peer-to-Peer Giving Opportunities

A simple yet practical place to begin embracing the power of community is with your loyal donors. It’s never too late to introduce a peer-to-peer fundraising platforms that empowers them to invite their networks to support your cause.

Put the Creativity in Your Loyal Donors’ Hands

Create a DIY peer-to-peer landing page to get started. This allows your donors to build from the template you’ve created to fundraise on your behalf whenever they’d like. Using a DIY model makes it easier for supporters to launch and customize their campaigns to reflect their unique stories or life events. Many donors will fundraise in honor of a big celebration, memorial, or another timely event that they know will resonate with their communities.

Turn Event Participants Into Fundraisers

Adding peer-to-peer fundraising to your events is a simple way to encourage participants to recruit their networks with a timely call to support. Our annual The State of Modern Philanthropy reports showed us that 4 out of 5 donors who gave to an individual fundraising page in 2020 were brand new to the organization. In 2021, individual fundraising pages raised 34% more on average. We also saw that events with a peer-to-peer fundraising element deliver the highest conversion rates through donations and registrations.

Spin Up a Peer-to-Peer Campaign for Timely Donations

Peer-to-peer fundraising is one way to bring people together quickly. We see that play out when news breaks about a current event or a particular community calls for support.

Peer-to-peer campaigns raise 3.8X more on average than all other time-based campaign types. Feeding San Diego tapped into this peer-to-peer model to gather donors during the pandemic. They were able to deliver on the increased demand for hunger relief by raising $5.4 million to replenish food supplies.

2. Create Content Donors Are Excited to Share on Social

Campaigns with a peer-to-peer fundraising element see the most mobile traffic from any other campaign type from social media. Engaging with new communities means being present in both in-person conversations and the ones happening online. In today’s increasingly mobile world, social media has proven its influence in reaching motivated donor audiences.

Go Where Passionate Donors Are Looking

Social media offers nonprofits many options to connect with donors. The key is identifying which platforms are the most effective use of time and resources.

Our recent report, The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022, dove into which social media platforms offer the most significant potential. We found that Facebook is a clear winner when driving the most traffic. LinkedIn also shows the highest potential to convert supporters who are ready to take action.

Take a Stab at Influencer Marketing

Younger generations look beyond friends and family for daily inspiration. Most young people are turning to social media influencers to inform their decisions.

Philanthropic activity is no different. Start engaging influencers to promote your donation opportunities. Provide creative briefs around specific campaigns, or ask them to help with general cause awareness tactics. Providing them with enticing graphics that catch followers’ eyes will make sharing easier and more enjoyable on their end.

3. Connect Employees Through Workplace Giving

We still see that 25% of all professional jobs in North America remain remote through 2022. More remote work means many people may experience the feeling of disconnection from others. Workplace giving could be the perfect solution to engage corporate partners and employees looking for ways to connect with their communities.

Knowing that the “Great Resignation” continued with 4.53 million U.S. workers quitting their jobs in March 2022, think about how you can encourage businesses to incorporate workplace giving into their employee retention strategies.

 Make It Easy for Employers to Bring Your Cause to Work

The power of peer-to-peer fundraising can perfectly tie into workplace giving. Provide existing donors with company team pages to introduce your mission to their coworkers. Make a strong impression with video materials, photos, timely appeals, and suggested donation goals. From there, engage each new participant with updates about the impact of each dollar raised to encourage them to invite even more supporters over time.

Engage Corporate Partners Directly

Engage local businesses for in-person events and volunteer opportunities. The virtual nature of fundraising brings that to the next level by broadening your reach to more communities. Invite corporations who align with your values to a virtual event to unite their employees around a central cause.

We recently highlighted how Children’s Cancer Association engaged 19 companies and their employees. An activity tracking competition resulted in a 30% increase in fundraisers year-over-year.

4. Bring Communities Back Together Around Events

Events are back and bringing communities together in new ways. They’re also getting stronger fundraising results along with them. Ticketed events grew by 49% between 2020 and 2021, more than any other campaign type.

Our Fundraising Event Attendee Experience Report shows that over 92% of virtual and in-person attendees are likely to donate in addition to registration costs. Over 40% of those donations will likely be more than $100.

Use the Appeal of In-Person Connections to Attract Attendees

Inviting people to your in-person event is a way to meet your team and other supporters. Build on your corporate outreach strategy with individuals who feel exhausted from virtual work. Your event might be their opportunity to interact with others.

Think about hosting concerts and galas, or pull from this list of 77 creative event ideas to ensure you’re offering a memorable experience people want to be a part of. Regardless of format, make it your goal to leave attendees feeling compelled to take action. How attendees feel once they leave will determine how likely they are to share your cause with even more community members.

Bring On the Competition to Keep People Motivated

Some people are naturally drawn to competition, especially with friends, family, or co-workers. Think about hosting a sports tournament to attract passionate groups to take part. You could also introduce a fun challenge to see which local businesses can raise the most.

A team fundraising competition doesn’t need to limit participants by athletic ability. In the end, the community always wins, but the fresh spin may be enough to capture passive donors to participate and become aware of your cause.

Build Your Strongest Community of Donors

By now, you’re probably thinking about which idea to start with to get your community fundraising strategy off the ground. Hopefully, you see that it’s simple but impactful when applied alongside your goals for the year.

For more information on the donation trends and insights shaping fundraising, visit our interactive online report, The State of Modern Philanthropy.

According to our newly released report, The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022, time-based campaigns that include peer-to-peer raise 3.8X more on average than all other time-based campaign types.

The efficacy of this type of fundraising boils down to the psychology underlying the peer-to-peer method. People could be inclined to give to a worthy cause, but they are often more immediately willing and likely to support their friends or family. Understanding these internal motivations can help you boost donations and grow your organization.

About Turnkey

Earlier this year, Classy hosted a webinar on The Psychology of Giving: Copywriting that Compels People to Give with Fulton, given his expertise and work at Turnkey​. Turnkey helps mission-driven organizations acquire and nurture constituent relationships that result in sustainable revenue.

7 Steps to Harness the Psychology of Peer-to-Peer Giving

1. Focus on Identity

In other words, your organization has 6 to 10 potential ways to trigger a meaningful connection with donors. These points of identity could be everything from their jobs, family status, locations, interests, and more. 

Consider how you can connect the act of supporting your cause with different elements of their identity or how they view themselves, whether you’re highlighting their generosity in your language or calling out their membership as a recurring donor. Then, given they will likely ask for donations from friends and connections who share similar identities, equip them with the tools to do so.

2. Understand Donor Motivations

Initial donations are typically based on emotion—almost like an impulse buy. However, these first emotions won’t sustain long-term giving. Donors will only likely continue taking action when you connect with their individual motivations.

The two most common motivations for giving are a feeling of connection to your organization and being able to see the impact of someone’s donations. Make sure your messaging relays and fulfills these factors as you ask for donations and for individuals to create personal fundraising pages.

People who view themselves as moral are also more likely to give. Use the following words in your messaging to remind people of these positive attributes and encourage them to donate:

• Kind
• Caring
• Compassionate
• Helpful
• Friendly
• Fair
• Hardworking
• Generous
• Honest

3. Leverage You-Centric Language

To market your peer-to-peer campaign, you need to both create your organization’s appeals and equip your fundraisers to promote their own efforts. The latter requires you to empower both the fundraisers and their contacts who might give.

Shift your language to speaking about the donor. Make your supporters the heroes of the story. Remind them their support is key to the work you do.

4. Don’t Forget to Thank and Report

Otis mentioned the reason most donors stop giving is that they were never thanked for a gift or asked to donate again.

Prioritize retention and create a thorough follow-up strategy thanking supporters. In addition to thanking them, provide information on the impact of their donation and what it’s helped accomplish in the field.

5. Pay Attention to Readability

Your challenge as a fundraiser is connecting with a wide audience and making your appeals feel personal. Effectively navigating that tension boils down to how you position your language to connect with people. You’ll want to ensure all of your appeals are easily understood by your audience to remove any potential barriers to giving.

In other words, pay attention to readability. One of the most common readability measures is the Flesch Reading Ease, which is on a scale of 1 to 100. Lower Flesch Reading scores equate to easier readability.

Fulton recommends aiming for a Flesch score of 50 or less and maintaining a reading grade level between fifth and eighth grade. Luckily for you, measuring both scores come built into Microsoft Word or can be accessed using free online tools.

People are busy and distracted, and they might skim quickly. Therefore, keep your writing short and simple. Use active verbs and create a sense of urgency to hold people’s attention—at least long enough for them to understand your message.

6. Invite the Audience Into the Cause

People respond when we cause them to feel an emotion. Use language and visual mediums to connect with donors emotionally, and make the call to action clear with strong verbs. Personalize the language to remind them that they’re helping other people.

You-centric language helps show their vital role in your mission. Try using more of the phrase “because of you” to show how donors enable and empower your nonprofit to achieve success. When they understand their role, they’re more likely to take it seriously.

7. Remember Your Purpose

Each message of your peer-to-peer campaign doesn’t always need a call to action. Sometimes a simple thank you goes a long way in making an impression and helping them feel special. 

Fundraising isn’t rocket science, but it is a social science. It requires knowing people and understanding how they work. Your brand is not what people know about your organization. It’s how you make them feel. 

Make the Most of Your Peer-to-Peer Giving

Remember that people give to other people and because of how it makes them feel. They’re also more likely to be motivated to give when asked by people they already know.

When you make donors and fundraisers feel like an important part of your organization, they’re more likely to continue giving. Empower supporters and make them feel appreciated, and see how that positively impacts your results.

The goal of any nonprofit fundraising event is maximizing donations while minimizing expenses. That way, more money goes directly towards your mission instead of covering overhead costs.

Knowing that the average nonprofit donation is $128, think about how much your organization could raise through a successful community event. Those small gifts can add up to make a major impact.

There’s certainly still a need for larger events on your annual calendar, but supplementing large-scale efforts with easier, cheaper options is a great way to sustain a steady flow of donations all year.

To help you get started, here are 14 cheap and easy fundraising ideas to consider. Pitch some of these creative ideas to your team to determine which ones work best for you.

Incorporate These Ideas Into Your Events With Ease

1. Donation Jars

In the age of cryptocurrency and digital wallets, we often forget about cash as a quick donation option. People are always looking for ways to unload clunky coins from their purses and pockets, so you might as well offer them the opportunity to give back in the process.

These hard currency donations might be small, but they can add up quickly. Encourage people to donate by placing physical donation jars around your community. Talk to local businesses like restaurants, grocery stores, banks, or dry cleaners about leaving a donation jar near their register.

Clearly label each jar with your organization’s logo and mission statement. Train the employees of these businesses on how to speak to the public about your cause. Help them answer any potential questions about your mission and educate them on ways to encourage customers to give.

2. Community Yard Sale

Stuck at home during the pandemic, many people cleared out their attics and closets of unwanted items. Nonprofits like Goodwill were overwhelmed by an influx of donations.

Take advantage of this purging frenzy by organizing a community yard sale. Find a large space, like a park, gym, or community center, to host the event. Invite friends, family, and donors looking to unload their unwanted goods, and encourage them to spread the word to their extended networks.

Sellers can donate a flat rate to your nonprofit for a spot to sell their items, or you could ask for a portion of the money they earn. Your biggest task is to drum up interest from potential shoppers. After all, the success of this event depends on the turnout.

Promote your upcoming yard sale through all relevant marketing channels. Send a localized email campaign to supporters close enough to attend, as well as targeted social media ads focused on a specific geographic area. Even printed materials, like flyers or posters, can help raise awareness.

3. 50/50 Raffle

Over the years, 50/50 raffles have become popular because they give half of the proceeds back to your cause while passing along the other half to a lucky winner.

The only things you’ll need for this cheap and easy fundraising event are a large supply of raffle tickets and a captive audience. Sporting events or school pep rallies work well to host these raffles. Simply recruit a team of volunteers to circulate and sell tickets for a set amount, and provide updates on the prize pool throughout the evening to pique interest.

Toward the end of the gathering, divide the ticket profits into two equal parts and select a random winner to take home half of the money. There are even options for hosting a virtual or hybrid raffle if that’s more accessible to your audience.

Whichever environment you choose for your event, remember to review the rules for nonprofit raffles. Make sure to abide by these laws and pay the appropriate taxes on certain cash prizes.

4. Bake Sale

There’s a reason why reality TV shows like The Great British Baking Show are so popular. People love baked goods, especially when they’re homemade. Your nonprofit can ride this wave of popularity by hosting a bake sale fundraiser.

The most important element of a successful bake sale is recruiting volunteer bakers to make cakes, pies, muffins, and other delicious treats to sell. Then, secure a high-traffic venue to host the event and attract potential (and hungry) buyers.

Even better, coordinate the sale with an event that already draws a crowd, like a farmers market, sporting event, festival, or concert. Ask if you can set up a table or small concession stand to sell your items, then let the smell of freshly baked cookies do the work.

5. Concession Stand

While we’re on the subject of food, we can’t forget about running a concession stand at the next local sporting event. With enough volunteers and tasty snacks, these stands can bring in hundreds of dollars in a single evening.

If you’re interested, reach out to your local high school, college, or professional sports teams. See if they‘d offer your nonprofit the opportunity to run a concession stand at one of their venues, or split the proceeds with your organization if they prefer.

Recruit a team of volunteers to work shifts at the concession stand, and encourage your supporters to attend the game with big appetites. This is a great way to stay involved in the community and meet supporters face to face in a relaxed environment.

6. Car Wash

Washing cars is a common way to raise money for high school sports teams, bands, and clubs. They’re not only extremely simple to organize, but also offer a way for donors to check this pesky chore off of their to-do lists.

To organize an effective car wash, your organization needs an open space, like a parking lot or gas station, plenty of washing materials, and a group of willing volunteers.

Attract the most drivers with clear signage and an easily-accessible location. Set a flat price for the service, or simply ask for donations as customers arrive. Just be sure to mark a clear donation box or bin where donors can leave donations on their way out. This is important since most of these gifts will likely be physical cash or personal checks.

Although a car wash is extremely cheap and easy to organize, it’ll end up being a massive flop if no one shows. Don’t forget to promote ahead of time through your organization’s website, social media channels, and email. Get your volunteers to share news by word of mouth, too.

7. Team Trivia Night

Trivia question: What is the largest nonprofit organization in the United States?

Answer: According to Forbes, it’s the United Way, which brought in more than $5.1 billion in 2021.

Who doesn’t love a good game of trivia? Or even better, a trivia tournament to raise money for your charity.

Work with a local restaurant or bar to host the event. Get a volunteer to emcee with a list of brain-teasers, or reach out to a local personality who supports your cause. Teams can pay a set amount to enter the competition, or the restaurant could give back a portion of the revenue they make from food and drinks throughout the evening.

You could even give a portion of the funds to the winning team as an incentive. But win or lose, trivia nights are always a great way to bring people together for some old-fashioned fun.

8. Sports Tournament

If a trivia tournament isn’t your style, host an athletic competition instead. This could be a tournament of flag football, ultimate frisbee, softball, kickball, basketball, or a mix of different sports.

First, you’ll need a venue to host the competition. Starting your search with a public park or community center could help save money on rentals. If that doesn’t work, reach out to local schools or churches to see if they’d let you use their space for a few hours. Your volunteers can serve as referees—just be sure to get them whistles and striped shirts.

Provide clear rules for gameplay upfront. Determine how many teams can participate and organize them into a bracket to decide who plays who. Depending on the sport, you may need to have medical services on standby in case of athletic injuries.

Collect an entry fee from each team to participate. Sell tickets to spectators as a way to generate additional revenue, and consider selling merchandise, food, or beverages in exchange for donations. You could even secure a corporate sponsor if you wanted to go the extra mile and create custom swag for all competitors with your sponsor’s logo.

9. Giving Holidays

There are several built-in fundraising dates across the calendar, with the most obvious example being Giving Tuesday. However, there are quite a few other holidays your organization can leverage depending on your cause.

Holidays are effective opportunities to raise money because they create organic opportunities for connection. You can even tap into holidays that aren’t traditionally known for fundraising, like Valentine’s Day or Halloween. Costume parties or donation drives are great ideas to maximize these special days.

Find ways your nonprofit can leverage specific holidays or cause awareness days to engage wider audiences and keep donors engaged all year. The more direct the connection is to your cause, the easier it is for people to understand the impact of their gift.

10. Happy Hour

One of the largest perks of joining a nonprofit community is the opportunity to meet and spend time with like-minded people. That’s the reason why traditional fundraisers like golf tournaments or galas are so successful. They’re not only fun, but also give donors the opportunity to spend time together.

However, you don’t need a huge budget to bring people together. Host a happy hour at a local restaurant or pub to help people relax and unwind after a busy day. This also offers an opportunity for professionals to network with one another in a low-pressure environment.

Consider setting a theme for your event, like Taco Tuesday or TGI Friday—anything involving food and drinks. It doesn’t need to directly relate to your nonprofit, so don’t be afraid to get creative.

Ask the managers of your happy hour venue to donate a percentage of their sales back to your cause, or give attendees a discount during your event. Keep in mind, you don’t need to serve alcohol for the event to be effective, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

11. Social Media Challenge

If the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge taught us anything, it’s that social media can be an extremely impactful tool for boosting cause awareness.

Invite supporters to participate in a creative challenge to raise money for your cause, then share their experience on social media to garner interest. The Ice Bucket Challenge took off because it included a clear action that caught donors’ attention—dump freezing cold water on your head in an effort to raise awareness for ALS.

You can be as simple or creative as you’d like in crafting your challenge. It could be as straightforward as doing 20 jumping jacks, volunteering for an afternoon, or taking a photo of yourself doing a kind deed.

Keep in mind, the ultimate goal is to get participants and supporters to donate to your cause. Encourage participants to include links to your donation page with each social media post to drive conversions.

12. Talent Show

Plenty of popular reality TV shows, from American Idol to Dancing With the Stars, focus on people’s talents (or lack thereof). Your nonprofit can cash in on that popularity by hosting a talent show of your own.

Solicit local talent—anything from singers, jugglers, magicians, or ventriloquists—to perform in your show. Pick a volunteer or staff member to emcee the event and help create seamless transitions from one act to the next.

Grab three or four of your board members to act as judges. They can crown an ultimate winner after all of the entries have performed, or leave it up to the audience to determine the best act. The show’s winner could be awarded with some of your best swag, or a set of free tickets to your next event.

Sell tickets to an adoring public or ask for donations as spectators arrive. They’ll not only get to see entertaining acts, but also know that they’re supporting a worthy cause in the process.

13. Open Mic Night

If you liked the last two ideas, combine them together by hosting an open mic night for your nonprofit community. Mix happy hour with a talent show to give attendees a memorable night of stand-up comedy, singing, or a combination of the two.

Like a talent show, you’ll need to secure a venue, emcee, talented performers, and a paying crowd. Your open mic night will likely also involve food and drinks, so be sure to plan ahead by getting a rough headcount of attendees.

Identify what type of crowd you’re attracting so your performers know what to prepare for their acts. Determine upfront if you want a family-friendly environment or more of an adults-only evening.

14. Gaming Marathon

Video games are a big business, providing people with the opportunity to engage with a like-minded community and potentially even give back to worthy causes.

Gaming marathons can attract mass audiences and raise awareness for your organization. In fact, nonprofits like Games Done Quick and Extra Life are built completely around this idea.

Recruit a few gamers to stream themselves online while people watch, cheer them on, and potentially donate a certain amount for every hour they play—similar to pay-per-mile races.

The biggest challenge here is forming relationships with well-known gamers who would be interested in participating. If you can’t secure a gaming celebrity or influencer, look within your own staff, community of supporters, or volunteers for others who could be a good fit.

Use a platform like Twitch or YouTube Live to broadcast the video game streams. Share information about your nonprofit with each gamer to discuss as they broadcast, and encourage them to put the direct donation link in the chat box while they play to encourage additional gifts.

Fundraising Made Quick and Easy

The common link between all of these cheap and easy fundraising ideas is that they bring people together to have fun and support a good cause.

Every season presents new opportunities to fundraise for your nonprofit, whether that’s the spring, summer, fall, or winter. Luckily, these inexpensive events can be pulled off nearly any time of year without breaking the budget.

For even more great ideas, take a look at our article, 77 Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits and Charities. 

Odds are you already understand what peer-to-peer fundraising is. This post will help you take the next step in developing a roadmap to execute peer-to-peer campaigns based on current donor behaviors and proven best practices. Visual examples and insights from nonprofits mastering the art of peer-to-peer fundraising will guide you to your next breakthrough campaign.

Already a Classy Customer?

The ROI of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Use cases for peer-to-peer fundraising

Nonprofits who look to expand their donor network or organically attract new supporters without requiring additional resources to do so will benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising.

Common use cases include:

• Endurance events like runs, walks, and rides that encourage fundraising ahead of the live event
• DIY pages that allow supporters to define their “why” behind fundraising for your cause
• Ambassador fundraising that pulls in your closest supporters and provides them with an outlet to easily collect donations to reach their goals
• Tributes and memorials that drive support through personal storytelling
• Giving and awareness campaigns around timely events

Peer-to-peer campaign results on Classy

Every year we look at average donation volume for each campaign type offered on Classy to better understand what’s resonating most with donors. Donation websites that nonprofits often keep live for extended periods (if not all year) brought in the most average donations at $23,828 on average, noted in The State of Modern Philanthropy 2021.

The average peer-to-peer campaign on Classy brings in $22,026 in donations, and four out of five donors who donate to a fundraiser are brand new to an organization. Peer-to-peer functionality is also built into Classy’s registration with fundraising events, which brings in an overage of $23,196 in donations per campaign.

The power of peer-to-peer fundraising is clear as a way to reach new donors and bring in significant donations at various key moments throughout the year.

Best in Classy organization, Dr. Susan Love Foundation, shares:

Why peer-to-peer campaigns win over donors

Peer-to-peer fundraising completely changes the way donors interact with causes they care about. The interactive fundraising approach serves as a bridge between nonprofits and passionate supporters who want an easy way to take action when and how they’d like. After all, they know their inner circles best.

One of the many reasons why peer-to-peer fundraising is so powerful is that it’s rooted in the human desire to support and help those close to you.

Why America Gives 2021 reveals the top three ways donors hear about new causes to give to:

1. Word of mouth from friends or family
2. Direct outreach from an organization or someone speaking on its behalf
3. Social media

When supporters create fundraising pages inspired by personal stories, their authenticity resonates with more people in a way that motivates immediate action. Peer-to-peer fundraising is a natural way to unlock more generosity.

Rather than simply inviting people to give to your organization, the peer-to-peer approach is a two-way relationship that changes a nonprofit’s ability to interact with its donors in more meaningful ways. It can be a time-bound campaign like fundraising for an endurance event or dedicating fundraising efforts to a birthday. Or, the campaign can live year-round as a steady income stream, like a memorial or creative DIY campaign.

7 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign Themes to Consider

1. Seasonal  Campaigns

Unite donors annually around a particular event, memory, or specific period of time that means a lot to your cause. Peer-to-peer campaigns allow you to quickly rally communities around a time-based event like Tunnel to Towers does annually for the memorial of September 11, 2001. The same approach can also be used for educational programs that fundraise to support teachers in the month of May.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is particularly powerful for memorial campaigns because people can show their support for loved ones who are passionate about your cause. The same can be said for remembrance events with a peer-to-peer fundraising element, helping you spark new engagement inside communities to take meaningful action.

Make Your Life Simpler: On Classy, nonprofits can easily create a template of their successful annual peer-to-peer campaigns to continue improving upon year after year without starting from scratch.

2. Peer-to-Peer National Awareness Campaigns

In the same vein of timely campaigns, national awareness days naturally lend themselves to a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy.

Whether you’re engaging teams to fundraise leading up to a 5K on National Breast Cancer Awareness Day, or celebrating National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day by fundraising to provide school lunches to underprivileged students, a peer-to-peer campaign can help you get creative.

The social sharing aspect of peer-to-peer campaigns gives you the opportunity to reach a wider audience and lean into hashtags associated with national awareness days. You can also capitalize on the power of impact blocks to showcase different activities for various donation amounts to help donors understand exactly where their gift is going.

3. Competitions

Friendly competition is a fun way to boost support for your peer-to-peer campaign. You can look at competitions on various levels depending on your particular goals and supporter base.

For example, you can get local schools involved in a competition to raise the most for your cause, segmenting teams by classrooms, clubs, or any other grouping that drives the most excitement. You can even expand that further by looking at a state-wide competition to engage local businesses, organizations, and families.

Another popular example we see on the Classy platform is corporate competitions by department, especially as the year-end season approaches and employers are looking for new ways to build engagement with their employees. The small incentive of an extra day off for the team who raises the most goes a long way in bringing people together, especially as remote workforces become normalized post-pandemic.

If you want to go nationwide, why not encourage donors to give on behalf of their state, then show top fundraiser results with a creative visual map? We love how one of our top Best in Classy campaigns did this to generate engagement across the country.

4. Registration With Fundraising Events

Whether you’re hosting a virtual or in-person event, adding online fundraising capabilities through a registration with fundraising campaign on Classy is always a good idea. If you haven’t heard the exciting news about the introduction of Classy Live just yet, you may want to explore how our new virtual and hybrid event platform syncs directly with your existing Classy campaigns to add an entirely new level of interaction and engagement.

Classy Live’s virtual venue helps you pull in fundraising performance and leaderboards so your donors can focus on their goals at all times.

Allow your event participants to fundraise leading up to the big day, and inspire the people who support them to support you. Even if they can’t physically participate, supporters can contribute to your goals leading up to the event to get involved.

You can easily set a fundraising commitment for supporters to reach in order to register. This way, there’s an incentive for them to get the word out to raise more for your cause. Just be sure to include an option to pay the difference in the event that they aren’t able to reach the fundraising minimum.

Include peer-to-peer functionality in your event to help create an excellent experience and spread the impact further as you collect donations you may have otherwise missed.

5. DIY Peer-to-Peer Campaigns

Encourage supporters to fundraise on your behalf whenever inspiration hits. DIY peer-to-peer fundraising pages give individuals a landing page of options to select from to create their own fundraising pages in minutes.

Imagine a supporter who wants to gather donations for your cause on  their birthday. You could also picture someone who’s dedicated their new year resolution to providing funding that supports recovery from a challenging disease.

Provide people with a way to take action outside of your planned campaign cycle. DIY peer-to-peer campaigns give your supporters the ability to take action and raise money for your organization whenever they want, capturing donations from individual fundraising pages without any additional work on your part.

These flexible campaigns are also a great way to capture an influx of traffic in response to a timely news event, giving people an immediate answer to take action on a challenge they feel extremely drawn to. If you already have your DIY peer-to-peer page set up on your website, you can avoid deterring supporters who can’t find an instant path to get involved.

6. Annual Giving Day

Identify a specific day within a month or season that’s relevant to your cause, like the founding day of your organization, to run a dedicated campaign.

For example, education-based nonprofits may look to take advantage of the start or end of the school year to run a peer-to-peer giving day campaign. We saw an example from St. Benedict’s Preparatory School for their Best of Benedict’s Giving Day campaign that motivated students, staff, and parents to show their support and school spirit.

Providing a day that donors can look forward to, especially when it falls outside of the year-end giving season, is a great way to consistently engage their support and keep them up to date on your latest initiatives.

7. Corporate Giving

If you’re working with corporate sponsors or looking to turn the passion of a smaller group of supporters into a huge impact for your cause, you may just look to a corporate giving peer-to-peer campaign.

Simply provide your custom campaign  to employers to rally their teams around your mission. It’s a great way to broaden your reach if you’re prepared with the right resources to set fundraisers up for success and incentivize them to reach their goals.

Teaming up with organizations means that momentum is often coming out of a desire to connect with colleagues, have some fun competition, and build relationships with causes their employers care strongly about. You may even get the opportunity to match each donation.

How to Set Up Your Peer-to-Peer Campaign on Classy

Classy helps nonprofits create giving experiences that fulfill donors’ passion for making a difference while making it easy for anyone, anywhere to get involved, all in just a few simple steps.

Individuals can access your peer-to-peer campaign and create a fundraising page to begin collecting donations on your behalf. Fundraisers are motivated by their ability to make a real impact, so it’s all about showing them how they can make a difference and providing them with the flexibility to do it in their own way.

Features of a Classy Peer-to-Peer Campaign

Peer-to-Peer Features to Create Compelling Campaigns

• Campaign templating to scale your campaigns with ease
• Embedded videos and live streams to tell your story in an engaging way
• A progress thermometer to bring your goal front and center
• Customized button copy to create urgency behind your story
• A free stock image library to bring your storytelling to life
• Team structures to build connections among donors and increase donations

Peer-to-Peer Features to Convert Visitors Into Donors

• Mobile-optimized pages and donation forms to capture donations on the go
• Impact blocks to communicate the exact impact of every donation dollar
• A fundraiser leaderboard to motivate gifts with a healthy competition
• An activity wall to easily thank donors with a personal message
• Recurring gift options to allow supporters to give effortlessly over time
• Employer donation match options to double the impact of each gift
• Suggested donation amounts to encourage larger gifts
• Frequently asked questions box to keep donors confident in their actions
• Flexible payment processing to avoid an abandoned donation

Peer-to-Peer Features to Empower Wide-Reach Fundraising

• Fundraising commitments to have each fundraiser commit to a predetermined amount that creates loyalty, motivates sharing, and ensures the individual will cover the difference if they aren’t able to hit their goal
• Social sharing to give fundraisers an easy way to share with their family and friends on platforms they visit daily, or through a Classy for Facebook integration
• Automated milestone emails to congratulate fundraisers on hitting certain goals and motivate them to continue
• Designated team captains to keep groups of fundraisers on track and encouraged

Steps to Set Up Your Peer-to-Peer Campaign on Classy

1. Select Campaigns in your account menu
2. Select Create New Campaign
3. Select Peer-to-Peer

Get started by filling out your campaign details in the form that appears. If you aren’t sure what to enter, use a placeholder. You can always edit this information later.

After you enter your campaign information, set up the basic design of your pages to reflect your brand and mission. Below, we will break down exactly how to bring your Classy peer-to-peer campaign to life to offer a unique, seamless experience for your supporters.

How to Craft a Stellar Peer-to-Peer Campaign on Classy

Campaign Page

Hero Block

Your hero block is your opportunity to grab donors’ attention.

The hero block takes center stage on your campaign’s landing page. Select the part of the page you want to edit, and your design tools will appear automatically. Here, you can edit your page’s headline and background.

You’ll have the option to either upload a custom image to use as your headline or upload a background image for your hero block and use standard text as your headline. This block is also where you can edit the progress bar and customize your donation button.

Create a compelling hero block that greets new and existing supporters with a sense of community around your cause.

Design Tips: To use a logo or image for your headline, upload a photo of your choice. We recommend using headline images when possible, even if they are simply a line of text with a transparent background. For best quality, use a png image file with a transparent background.

Content Blocks

Content blocks help you tell your story and communicate key information.

Use the About block to tell the story of your cause. Open your design tools by selecting the text in your preview, and use them to edit your content or change the background.

Start by replacing all default language with customized messaging. Include key information that gives donors the details they need to feel confident in making a donation decision. Bring in testimonials to create an emotional connection with potential supporters that encourages them to give or get involved with your mission. Incorporating stats to support the urgency of your ask is another great tactic (e.g., 100,000 children go to sleep hungry every night).

Impact Blocks

Impact blocks connect donor actions with clear value for your cause.

Impact blocks are a great way to show supporters exactly how their donations can drive your mission forward. Select Impact Levels in the preview to open your design tools. Change the images, donation amounts, and descriptions that appear in your impact blocks to communicate the tangible value each gift offers to your beneficiaries.

For example, “$50 gives 5 children a book to read for the summer” can motivate a donor to give that particular amount as opposed to stopping at $35. They can see the clear benefit of that gift size and feel connected to what it will do as a result.

Arrange impact blocks from the highest to lowest contribution and describe what each amount raised can accomplish. Bring in graphics that connect people to your cause in a way that words can’t. Stick to four blocks or less to ensure your page is optimized for mobile.

Leaderboard

Your leaderboard can foster friendly competition. 

Showcase your top teams or individuals on your landing page to provide donors a reason to periodically check-in. This is a great way to give recognition to supporters and encourage friendly competition.

You can also build a search bar to make it easier for visitors to find a particular individual or group to support. We recommend you turn this feature off using the campaign designer until you’ve achieved roughly one-third of your goal.

Team or Individual Fundraising Pages

Collect support from your donors’ networks and share their unique stories about why your cause matters.

Encourage supporters who choose to fundraise on behalf of your organization to share their own unique stories on their fundraising page. Pre-set the options your supporters can choose from when they create their pages to guide them through the process. Prompt each fundraiser to add their picture, customize the initial story to reflect their personal narrative, and post updates to keep their donors engaged.

Pro tip: Don’t allow fundraisers to change the background image or colors on their page—this keeps your branding consistent.

• Select the Pages tab
• Select Team Page or Fundraiser Page
• Select Design to begin customizing your page

Create pages for your fundraisers that match your overall campaign branding in just a few simple steps. Offer templated messaging about your campaign goals for fundraisers to leverage in their communications. Encourage each individual or team to add their story as well, and take advantage of Classy’s built-in sharing options to expand your reach.

Tips for Your Team and Fundraiser Page:

1. For the best quality cover photo, use a 1400 x 460 px image. If you added a background image to your landing page, it will appear here as well. You can change the cover photo by uploading another image.
2. For Default Photo, we recommend images with a relevant theme or color, or one that features multiple people.
3. The Default Story Title and Story offer supporters the opportunity to explain to their peers why they are fundraising. This gives people a better understanding of the good work your organization does and sets a high standard across all fundraising pages.

Donation Page

Your donation page is where you’ll pull in interested supporters and guide them seamlessly through the checkout process to complete their donation.

Donation pages are straightforward checkout forms where people can submit donations. The most common way to use a donation page is to link it from your website’s donation button. They are also great to include in emails or social media posts.

Fill out your campaign details in the form that appears. If you aren’t sure what to enter, use a placeholder. You can always edit this information later.

Set Up Donation Options

Customize your donation amount and donation frequency options in the donation page set up.  Choose which frequencies you want to offer your donors from Classy’s eight options—one-time, daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly (every three months), semiannually (every six months), and yearly (once a year). Set one option as the default to drive conversion.

Then define the donation amounts that will appear for your donors. We recommend changing these to reflect your organization’s average donation size, plus stretch goals. Matching your impact block donation amounts to the amounts you place on your donation page will help your donors take action when it matters.

Donation Customization Tip: Consider adding one amount lower than your average donation, one amount a bit higher than average, and one amount two times higher than average. Then, set your default to the amount that’s a bit higher than average to encourage donors to give more.

Classy also offers Classy Mode, the ability to offer your donors the option to cover fees, ensuring 100 percent of their intended donation goes to the cause.

85% of donors on Classy cover the processing fees when the opportunity is auto-selected and enabled by default in the checkout flow.

Why America Gives 2021 shows that being able to cover fees for the organization so 100% of the intended donation goes to the cause is a top priority for donors.

Thank You Page

Your thank you page is a platform for relationship building with donors, especially as new supporters join your community through a peer’s fundraising page. 

First and foremost, be sure to thank each donor with a genuine message of gratitude.

Clearly communicate how each donors’ gift adds value and encourage them to continue spreading the word with more friends and family to achieve their goals.

Be sure to include secondary calls to action to fuel donors’ giving momentum. Let them know about other campaigns, events, recurring giving options, and volunteer opportunities you have going on and how they can get involved.

Check out peer-to-peer campaigns that are making a splash on Classy right now are featured among our top 50 campaigns in the Best in Classy. Look to these campaigns for inspiration on how to maximize your return on the Classy giving platform and ultimately raise more for your mission.

Explore Every Campaign Possibility on the Classy Giving Platform

Classy is a giving platform trusted by over 6,000 of the world’s top nonprofits, enabling them to connect with supporters through online fundraising. Classy allows you to make the supporter journey more relevant, engaging, and intuitive. Meet supporters where they are and use the same technologies that consumers interact with every day.

Discover how Classy can help you encourage more people to give, which means more funding to advance and sustain your mission.

Peer-to-peer holiday fundraising is a great way to leverage the spirit of the season to make an impact toward your mission. Invite your supporters to connect with their networks to bolster your year-end initiatives. They can ask friends and family to donate in lieu of gifts, turn the campaign into a good-spirited holiday tradition, or simply tap into a time when more people are thinking about making donations.

Below, we’ve rounded up six peer-to-peer holiday fundraising campaign ideas to inspire your year-end strategy. We’ll look at how each nonprofit used peer-to-peer fundraising best practices to create a successful campaign, and how your nonprofit can do the same to encourage participation in your own seasonal fundraising efforts.

1. Add Friendly Competition to Your Holiday Giving Campaign

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is a nonprofit that facilitates getting essential services to people with HIV/AIDS and other critical illnesses through the talents, resources, and generosity of the American theatre community.

Their holiday giving campaign targets high school and college students to become the “next generation of theatre stars” by fundraising for their cause. The page uses bright colors and creative imagery to draw supporters into their challenge.

Offer Incentives

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS ups the fun factor by using a custom text block to list the four prizes fundraisers can win, each aligning with their mission.

Showcase Your Teams

Participants can join one of three teams, each named after “some of Broadway’s most iconic songs about coming together, supporting others, and creating change.” The holiday giving campaign uses impact blocks to showcase the teams, allowing supporters to immediately join and feel a sense of community and friendly competition.

Celebrate Your Supporters

This nonprofit also leverages a list of the top individual fundraisers and teams to keep supporters motivated. An activity wall feature makes it easy for donors to see the social proof of others getting involved and feel more inspired to make a gift.

2. Utilize Videos and Infographics on Your Holiday Campaign Page

WholeSchool Mindfulness is a nonprofit dedicated to integrating mindfulness practices into school communities. Their holiday giving campaign communicates their story in creative, compelling ways to encourage supporters to sign up as fundraisers.

Grab Donors’ Attention With Compelling Video

The campaign page begins with a two-minute cartoon video telling the story of a student named Rosa who could benefit from their services. It follows Rosa over three years as mindfulness practices make her better able to cope with life’s stressors. The video makes the nonprofit’s mission and impact clear.

Create a Clear Path to Give

Following the video, the nonprofit emphasizes a sense of urgency by highlighting the increased demand for their services as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The brief text encourages supporters to sign up to fundraise for Giving Tuesday before moving into an on-brand infographic titled “The Path of a Mindful Champion.” This infographic helps fundraisers see how they can be successful with their holiday fundraising goals in six easy steps.

By the time supporters scroll through the infographic, they know exactly how to get started and why their involvement matters. The impact blocks sitting immediately below offer a seamless path to start fundraising right away.

PRO TIP: When creating an infographic, stick to just one main point and allow your visuals to do the talking. Design with too much text can be overwhelming and ineffective.

3. Leverage a Matching Gift

Keep Tahoe Blue is a nonprofit taking action to address the environmental challenges threatening Lake Tahoe. In its holiday giving campaign, the nonprofit leverages both the spirit of the season and the power of a matching gift to drive donations.

Offer a Match

One in three donors say they’d make a larger gift if they knew it would be matched, and 84% are more likely to give in the first place if a match is offered. To engage donors as soon as they land on the page, this nonprofit wisely highlights their matching gift upfront, sharing that donors have the opportunity to double their impact through a dollar-for-dollar match up to $30,000.

The holiday campaign’s progress bar shows the full amount raised—including match dollars—to emphasize how donations can have an impact of up to $60,000.

Motivate Donors With Strong Visuals

To further encourage supporters, the page includes a short, one-minute video reminding donors of the “why” behind the campaign. This clear message incentivizes donors to act before the donation matching period ends.

Explain the Tangible Impact of Each Gift

Keep Tahoe Blue also uses impact blocks to suggest fundraising amounts that align with their unique donor base, including specific highlights of how each individual amount can help the organization.

When creating impact blocks for your campaign, remember to:

• Get specific with your copy to clearly explain how far donations will go
• Get emotional to encourage higher gift amounts
• Get creative by taking a unique spin on their traditional use cases
• Get strategic with placement on your page to boost visibility

4. Highlight Feel-Good Holiday Content

Lab Rescue LRCP is a nonprofit that rescues, fosters, and finds homes for abused, neglected, and abandoned labrador retrievers. While the nonprofit’s work can be emotionally heavy, their holiday giving campaign leans into the lighthearted side of their work to engage supporters.

Establish a Connection With Imagery

To begin, the campaign uses a hero image of a dog with the text “Grant a Lab’s Wish” written over it. This creates an emotional connection to the cause, especially for dog owners.

PRO TIP: On Classy, the ideal background hero image size is 1280 x 720 px.

Personalize Your Leaderboard

The page also includes a list of the top individual fundraisers for the holiday giving campaign, but with an adorable caveat—the fundraisers’ names and profile pictures are those of their pets. This is both on-brand for the nonprofit and provides an opportunity to make donors smile.

While giving your donors a smile may seem extremely simple, it’s a powerful way to connect.

5. Tap Into the Holiday Giving Spirit

Childhelp is a nonprofit that supports the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual needs of abused, neglected, and at-risk children. For their holiday campaign, they help their donors get into the giving spirit with festive design elements that encourage donations.

Tell a Story With Your Design

An engaging hero image has the power to grab a supporter’s attention and inspire support for your cause. Make sure the photo you choose reflects the tone of your campaign and sparks feelings of generosity.

The imagery and messaging of Childhelp’s “Home for the Holidays” fundraising campaign is closely tied to the time of year. The page’s hero image of a classic holiday meal and use of warm colors contribute to a “cozy” holiday feeling.

Use Statistics to Support Your Ask

In its brief “About the Campaign” message, this page highlights key figures related to the increase they’ve seen in calls and texts sent to their hotline since the start of the year. This data reminds donors why their gift is critical right now and how it supports this specific fundraising goal, as well as the nonprofit’s larger mission.

Customize Your Copy to Align With Your Goal

To ensure supporters feel welcomed and connected to the cause, Childhelp refers to their fundraisers as “chefs” who are helping to provide resources to those in need by sharing their favorite seasonal recipes. Supporters can either become chefs themselves or support a “special chef” who is already participating.

6. Keep Your Fundraising Message Simple

National Writing Project is a nonprofit that helps teachers connect with their students in more impactful ways to support and inspire young writers.

Be Direct

Streamline your campaign to drive donors directly to your donation form. This page has a simple design with a progress bar and strong hero image, and offers the options to either donate or fundraise.

PRO TIP: Keep the progress bar hidden until you’ve reached one-third of your goal.

Keep Donors Moving

The brief text at the bottom pulls everything together by explaining how this campaign contributes to their larger mission.

Especially during the holiday season, your audience is getting inundated with emails, social media posts, and other information from a variety of organizations asking for their attention and support.

By taking a minimalist approach to your holiday giving campaign, visitors won’t get lost scrolling through too much information. They can quickly visit your page, donate or sign up to fundraise, and keep moving.

Make sure you’re providing enough context to communicate your campaign narrative in a compelling way. Be deliberate with your messaging by using descriptive language and offer something unique to your audience that leaves a lasting impression, like powerful statistics, imagery, or testimonials.

Use Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Best Practices for Successful Holiday Campaigns

Peer-to-peer holiday fundraising campaigns offer fun, impactful ways for your supporters to give back during the holiday season. With some creative campaign page ideas, you can leverage the spirit of the season and engage your audience to fundraise on your behalf.

If you’re looking for more ways to implement a strong year-end fundraising campaign, make sure to check out some of our other resources, including:

• The Smart Guide to Strong Year-End Fundraising
• 5 Post-Giving Tuesday Strategies to Boost Your Year-End Impact
• 11 Winter Fundraising Ideas You’ll Want to Try in 2021
• Top Matching Gift Q&A for Impactful Year-End Fundraising

Soccer in the Streets, an organization that uses the sport to cultivate young leaders and healthy communities, executes this strategy with their annual Corporate Cup peer-to-peer campaign. Their recent Corporate Cup engaged top companies like Salesforce, Deloitte, and Microsoft and raised over $60,000, despite the challenges presented by the pandemic.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Community Engagement Manager Erik Nelson to break down how the organization engages and motivates participants throughout the duration of their campaign. Dive into these insights below and apply them to activate corporate partners for your own nonprofit through team peer-to-peer fundraising.

When and How to Recruit Corporate Partners for Team Fundraising

While Soccer in the Streets’ other peer-to-peer campaigns typically activate team captains from within their community to recruit players and participants, the Corporate Cup taps into corporate giving programs and activates each business as a fundraising team.

The organization promotes the campaign as an opportunity for businesses to create an external team-building experience for their staff, while also offering a fun way to compete against other corporations in similar industries. 

Soccer in the Streets typically reaches out to companies about 15 to 17 weeks prior to the external campaign launch to gauge and generate interest and involvement. 

Communicate how this campaign can engage employees to make a social impact, as well as curate further excitement by fostering healthy competition against other companies. If they’re unable to participate in the team fundraising, ask if they would consider making a one-time donation to the campaign. This was an alternative option that came in especially handy for Soccer in the Streets when it was harder to get full buy-in compared to previous years due to the pandemic. 

Appoint Team Captains

For their other peer-to-peer campaigns, Soccer in the Streets usually selects previous top fundraisers as their team captains. These individuals are not only already bought into the cause, but they naturally set an example for other participants to hustle and crush their fundraising goals. 

The team captains for their Corporate Cup, however, typically are the main contacts from each company for the campaign. That being said, you can still provide these individuals with strategies and tips to further rally and motivate their staff to get involved. Read our blog post to learn how an employee at Classy was able to engage our own staff members to collectively raise $72,000 in a previous campaign. 

Communication Tips for Team Fundraising

Soccer in the Streets attributes much of the success of their team fundraising campaigns to their consistent communications. 

Start Weekly Communications

The organization has typically begun communications about 15 weeks out to encourage people to create their personal fundraising pages, but Erik notes they’re considering changing up this timeline based on feedback from some participants.

“We’ve been finding out that [15 weeks out] has felt like a bit of communication overload for some fundraisers, so we’ve been playing around with starting communications 12 or 10 weeks out,” said Erik. “Most people will usually wait until about 6 weeks out to start their campaigns, but these early messages help them understand there will be steady communications, as well as give them access to weekly stories or updates.” 

The organization then begins sending two messages per week starting 6 to 7 weeks out, as that’s the period when they typically see a spike in activity.

One of the main takeaways here is to keep an eye on the data to build and optimize a communications timeline that’s tailored to your own community’s behavior. Refer back to past campaigns to help build a starting point, and continue to monitor your findings to further inform your outreach frequency and timeline. 

Share Tools, Vary Content, and Test Your Format

Soccer in the Streets packs their communications with meaningful content like impact stories, testimonials and highlights of heavy-hitting fundraisers, and fundraising tools and tips to encourage and equip their participants to hit their goals. 

Their emails were typically formatted in plain text in the past, so during their most recent campaign, they attempted to reduce the amount of cut-and-dry text and make their emails more visually appealing. This resulted in more of a newsletter look, and the nonprofit found this format change increased engagement. 

In the future, the organization plans to house all of their fundraising resources on their Classy campaign page—including tips on how to leverage the Classy for Facebook integration to duplicate your fundraising page onto Facebook, and a click-to-tweet function to easily share your personal campaign—and link to that Classy landing page from their emails. This will also help further reduce text bloat in their emails, increase graphics, and create a “fundraising headquarters” for supporters. 

Another Classy platform feature that enables the organization to offer a stellar fundraising experience is the option to create a templated fundraising page with sample copy that fundraisers can then edit and share. 

Communicate Directly With Team Captains

At the 6 to 7-week mark, Soccer in the Streets starts an inner layer of communications with just their team captains. The goal is to make sure these leaders have all of the information and tools they need to be successful, since they’re the first line of communication for the individual fundraisers at each company.

The organization shares behind-the-scenes information and insights that include:

• Campaign logistics
• Upcoming markers and goals
• Any changes that haven’t been made public yet

With any yet unannounced changes, Soccer in the Streets also solicits feedback from their team captains on the best way to roll them out.

One example comes from the organization’s efforts to keep the fundraising competition fair throughout the campaign. They had previously found that some people would load up on individual donations on the day of the tournament to make sure their team came in first, upsetting some other participants. The organization thus solicited the team captains on the matter, coming to a conclusion of how and when to institute a fundraising time cut-off near the end of the campaign.

Find specific opportunities, big or small, to get input from your team captains. This not only gives you firsthand feedback on how to optimize your campaign, but it can also help these individuals feel like they’re valued and integral to its success. These types of touchpoints can continue to feed their willingness and interest to participate again in the future.

Follow Up

When they wrap the campaign, Soccer in the Streets thanks their participants and sends out post-event surveys to gather feedback on what worked and what didn’t. They especially focus on helping their top fundraisers and donors feel recognized by writing and sending personal letters to those individuals. 

Their final call to action to these participants is to get involved with the organization’s ongoing adult leagues. Identify and link your supporters with other year-round fundraising efforts, including your DIY fundraising program or recurring giving program. 

The power of peer-to-peer fundraising only grows when you marry it with your nonprofit’s efforts to tap into corporate giving programs. Consider how you can engage multiple corporate partners through a team fundraising opportunity, and power your campaign with thoughtful and steady communications to both the general participant pool and your important team captains.

For more tips and a step-by-step strategy to plan your next peer-to-peer campaign, download our free Checklists for Crowdfunding, Peer-to-Peer, and Event Fundraising Campaigns.

We sat down with the customer success management team at Classy for their advice on how to design a successful Giving Tuesday donation page. For more helpful information like the lessons below, be sure to check out our free Giving Tuesday resource library.

1. Appeal Section

To maximize conversions and keep your potential new donors interested, expand upon the appeal you included on your Campaign Landing page and be mindful not to reiterate the exact language you’ve used in previous campaign sections.

Never miss an opportunity to recruit new recurring donors. By turning on our Recurring Donations Optimization Initiative when setting up your donation page, you can give your Giving Tuesday donors the opportunity to make their gift a monthly donation.

2. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

FAQs will only appear on desktop view. If you receive common questions throughout the day, consider adding FAQs to inform your donors about tax deductibility, how funds are utilized, and more.

3. Buttons

To ensure you’re not leaving any money on the table, the lowest suggested gift amount should reflect your typical average donation size (either for online giving holistically or from past Giving Tuesday campaigns).

4. Custom Questions

When adding custom questions, be mindful of whether the data collected from your supporters will make an impact on your fundraiser. To maximize conversation rates, consider removing unnecessary custom questions altogether or ensure the question is not required to submit the donation form.

5. Donor Covered Fees

Donor Covered Fees should always be turned on in the back-end of Classy. When it is, and checked by default, 80% to 85% of donors opt to cover the fees. On a day like Giving Tuesday, that can add up to real savings for your organization.

6. Donate Button

In your Advanced Designer, you can customize the text on your Donate button. If you choose to do so, keep it short, sweet, and action-oriented.

Below are the top 10 campaigns that we featured on Classy’s 2020 Giving Tuesday Resource Center and what we loved about them. Apply these takeaways to your own initiative, so you can create a successful Giving Tuesday campaign that knocks it out of the park.

Get Inspired by 10 Successful Giving Tuesday Campaign Examples

1. The Younique Foundation

One of the most important elements of a successful Giving Tuesday campaign is strong storytelling that draws in visitors. The Younique Foundation is an organization that inspires and provides resources for women who were sexually abused as children and educates and empowers caregivers to protect children from sexual abuse. They creatively leveraged imagery, copy, and video on their Classy fundraising campaign page to share the personal story of an individual impacted by their work, and how Giving Tuesday donations will continue to make a difference.

The clear, well-written copy immediately draws in the reader and makes an emotional impact, complete with a firsthand quote from a beneficiary. We love how that leads you into a video to hear directly from that individual and dive further into her story.

As the visitor continues on the campaign page, the copy and imagery clearly communicate how each donation will make a difference for these 170 survivors. Impact blocks articulate exactly how different gift amounts will provide value throughout these individuals’ healing journeys.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Highlight specific beneficiaries’ stories so that visitors can identify personally with someone impacted by your organization’s work. Use clear language and strong imagery to communicate how supporters can play a role in these individuals’ next chapters.

2. Shriners Hospitals for Children

Creativity is a common trait among successful Giving Tuesday campaigns. Those who creatively hook in their visitors immediately can increase their chances of drawing them through checkout.

Shriners Hospitals for Children leaned on exciting graphics to create a unique, engaging hero block at the top of their Giving Tuesday campaign page. They used balloons with the faces of children impacted by the organization that float up through the block behind the campaign title. That visual is paired with the copy, “The Sky Is the Limit on Giving Tuesday,” encouraging donations that will help children dream big and reach for the stars.

The Giving Tuesday campaign page continued to explain that when Shriners Hospitals for Children reaches their goal, they will host a virtual balloon release on Facebook as a thank you. One virtual balloon was released for every donor who contributed to the campaign. We love that this includes a call to action to follow Shriners Hospitals for Children on social media to catch the action.

The impact blocks also each creatively feature a child whom donors can support along each of their dreams. These are the same faces on the floating balloons in the hero block.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Consider how you can infuse creativity into your Giving Tuesday campaign—from exciting visuals to your powerful, direct messaging—and connect it with your overall campaign theme so there’s no question about how your supporters will advance your mission.

3. Kent State University

The visual and interactive experience of your Giving Tuesday campaign can be a big factor that both spotlights your organization’s branding and engages prospective donors to take action.

Take Kent State University, for instance. Their successful Giving Tuesday campaign embodies their branding from top to bottom. Their hero block pops with custom graphics, and customized buttons throughout the campaign page to visually engage visitors. Including buttons also creates an interactive experience for those who want to learn more about specific initiatives.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: The fundraising platform you choose to create your Giving Tuesday campaign matters. Kent State was able to create this fully customized campaign experience on Classy, bringing their branding to the forefront through every element of their campaign page.

Learn how Classy can help you create a successful Giving Tuesday campaign and offer a stellar giving experience for your supporters.

4. Prisma Health Midlands Foundation

Strong hero images continue to be a recurring theme as we hit our next successful Giving Tuesday campaign from Prisma Health Midlands Foundation. This organization engages community partners to enhance health care for patients and families served by Prisma Health-Midlands.

The colorful hero image grabs visitors’ attention right away. We also see the pink gradient carried throughout the entire campaign as a strong branding element that spans each image they use for their impact blocks. The impact blocks feature quality images and a good text length that keep things clear and succinct.

The organization also titled their activity wall—a feature on the Classy platform that serves as a hub of communication between the organization and their donors or fundraisers—to recognize supporters as Giving Tuesday heroes, which is a nice touch to show donor appreciation.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Get creative with how you tie your campaign visuals together to create a cohesive look and feel throughout the page. A gradient is one such option. Also consider how you can help your donors identify as generous participants in the solution of the social or environmental problem you address.

5. Epilepsy Florida

Epilepsy Florida is a nonprofit organization that serves those impacted by epilepsy and the challenges caused by seizures. They created a successful Giving Tuesday campaign that harnessed engaging media, helpful resources for supporters, and an overall stellar campaign flow.

The organization used high-quality, engaging imagery from their hero block, all the way across their page. Visitors learn about the organization through GIFs, videos, and creative impact blocks. Their copy encourages prospective supporters to step up as partners in their mission, including language that “invite[s] you to be part of our community of supporters.”

The Giving Tuesday campaign page flows and builds on itself, bringing visitors to a graphic that links out to stories and testimonials of individual beneficiaries. The organization also offers a social media toolkit that includes sample social posts and a resource PDF.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Consider including or linking out to content like testimonials and social media resources to connect donors with your work and equip them to evangelize your cause.

6. Vanderbilt Health

Successful Giving Tuesday campaigns often weave in specific branding for the giving day throughout the page. Vanderbilt Health makes that visual splash with their beautifully designed hero image, which marries the classic Giving Tuesday branding with their own campaign’s look, feel, and theme.

The rest of the campaign page carries consistent brand elements, along with clear text defining the campaign’s goal and inviting supporters to take part. We also love how they used a custom block to highlight the donation match, and custom CTA copy emphasizing that donors can stretch their dollars.

Clear impact blocks and a video featuring an individual’s personal story continue to show supporters how their gifts will make a difference.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Beautiful imagery and tasteful, consistent branding will only enhance your campaign’s overall appeal as visitors make their way through your Giving Tuesday campaign page.

7. Hire Heroes USA

Hire Heroes USA created a successful Giving Tuesday campaign that had a clear, powerful theme to empower veterans and military spouses. They also wove in Giving Tuesday branding with their own campaign branding elements, from the custom hero image to other headings on the page.

Typography was a huge branding element for this campaign. A GIF spells out “Together, We Empower” serves as a visual moment that captures visitors’ attention. The engagement continues with text that plays a huge part in their campaign aesthetic as you scroll to their impact blocks, which feature specific words in the box where images typically are used.

8. Room to Read

Many organizations opt to create crowdfunding campaigns or custom donation pages for their Giving Tuesday campaigns, but you might consider peer-to-peer fundraising to activate your community. Get them more deeply involved and eager to spread the word about your cause like this example from Room to Read. Room to Read is a nonprofit organization dedicated to children’s literacy and girls’ education across Asia and Africa, created a stunning, successful Giving Tuesday peer-to-peer campaign to kick off their holiday season.

A captivating hero image instantly draws visitors in at the top of the page, followed by video highlighting the organization’s work. Custom impact blocks with beautiful images are striking and inviting. They showcase how fundraisers can move the needle for girls’ education and literacy.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Much of your ability to use beautiful imagery and create a stunning campaign will depend on the customization and capabilities of the fundraising software you choose. With a platform like Classy, you can create a mobile-responsive, stunning Giving Tuesday campaign that puts your story and brand first, regardless of your personal design experience.

9. Pikes Peak – America’s Mountain

The stunning imagery and branding across Pikes Peak’s successful Giving Tuesday campaign contribute to a powerful donor experience. Custom blocks detail how supporters’ donations can name a piece of Pikes Peak and not only preserve the mountain, but also celebrate loved ones or memories.

The rest of the campaign design seems to channel the likes of curated magazines and websites to capture the majestic mountain and initiative that supporters would help preserve. Thorough, detailed copy breaks down how the new Summit Complex contributes to a vibrant community, and how donations will make it a reality.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: Make sure that any visitor who lands on your Giving Tuesday campaign learns exactly what their gift will go toward.

10. The Salvation Army

It’s clear from the top that The Salvation Army used their successful Giving Tuesday campaign to launch into the holiday season. Bold text speaks to the holidays and the power of donors to help preserve the meaning for people around the world.

We loved how they used illustrations for their impact blocks to create a clean look and feel. Donation amounts are listed from highest to lowest, visually encouraging donors to consider larger gift amounts.

Their campaign further outlines why and how the needs were greater due to the challenges presented by the pandemic.

Takeaway for Your Giving Tuesday Campaign: List your suggested donation amounts from highest to lowest to hopefully encourage larger gifts.

Create a Successful Giving Tuesday Campaign

Strong visual elements, consistent branding, meaningful content, and an intuitive flow all contribute to successful Giving Tuesday campaigns. Get inspired by these examples and consider how you can enhance these factors in your Giving Tuesday campaign this year. Then download our step-by-step 3-Month Giving Tuesday Checklist to plan a successful campaign that catapults you into a successful year-end fundraising season.

Rachele tells us all about what she learned while working for an education nonprofit, including how she grew their peer-to-peer fundraising revenue from $200,000 to $1 million. Get your notebook ready as she gets honest about the experience and tells us which strategies, features, and offerings actually make an impact on fundraising results.

Building a Peer-to-Peer Strategy: Learning From First-Hand Experience

Many of our employees share a passion for supporting organizations like yours because they’ve walked in your shoes. We often hear Classy staff talk about their takeaways from working for nonprofits, so it only made sense to bring their first-hand experience to the Classy blog.

Already a Classy Customer?

Today, Rachele is breaking down her learnings from building a peer-to-peer strategy from the ground up. Read through the key questions we asked her, or jump ahead to what interests you the most. Regardless of your organization’s cause sector, size, or years of fundraising experience, there’s value for everyone here.

Meet Rachele Aidala

Before joining Classy’s Customer Experience team, Rachele used the Classy platform in her previous nonprofit role to support her team’s ambitious fundraising goals. With years of campaign-building experience now under her belt, she taps into her knowledge daily in her current role as a Lead Customer Lifecycle Manager.

Rachele will narrow in specifically on peer-to-peer campaigns for this conversation to help inform and guide your strategy and will pass along valuable insights that you can only get from a peek behind the nonprofit curtain.

But First, Why Does a Peer-to-Peer Strategy Matter?

Hopefully, you landed on this page because you know how valuable a peer-to-peer strategy can be for nonprofit fundraising. Still, we’re here to reiterate that with some key data points.

Peer-to-peer fundraising helps nonprofits mobilize their supporters to spread their message further. Engaged givers become partners in your cause, creating more funding and a more significant impact.

Peer-to-Peer Giving by the Numbers

Classy’s 2021 The State of Modern Philanthropy report showed us just how valuable peer-to-peer is for our customers.

• The average amount raised on a Classy peer-to-peer campaign is $22,026
• The average amount raised on an individual Classy peer-to-peer fundraiser is $475, and each page had an average of five donors
• Four out of five donors who donate to an individual fundraising page on behalf of a nonprofit are brand new to the organization

Nonprofits see significant results with peer-to-peer fundraising when they use the right tools and lean into the power of networking. Feeding San Diego used Classy to build campaigns that empowered passionate supporters to fundraise on their behalf and increased peer-to-peer giving by 230%.

How to Elevate Your Peer-to-Peer Strategy: A Behind the Scenes Look

Q: Why did your organization decide it was time to refresh its peer-to-peer strategy?

A: I joined the organization to manage an existing campaign that rallied students to fundraise for a chance to bring their favorite pop star to their school. It was such a fun way to see the power of peer-to-peer fundraising in action.
These students developed genuine relationships with our organization and many are still committed supporters today, ten years later. After seeing the impact a peer-to-peer campaign can have, we began to understand its value and dedicate a real focus to it. We realized it wasn’t just a fit for a one-off annual campaign, but a real opportunity to build deeper relationships with supporters and grow our fundraising revenue.

Q: How did your team know where to start?

A: We started by introducing additional campaigns with a peer-to-peer fundraising element, each focused on different aspects of our programming. We created one for each season and designed them to reflect our organization’s branding to give them a unique look and feel.

Taking this approach made it possible for us to motivate both individuals and companies to get involved all year long. As our founder traveled to speak about our work, he promoted these fundraising opportunities and invited new supporters to join us. While our peer-to-peer fundraising started with just a group of passionate students, it grew to involve a whole spectrum of supporters from entrepreneurs and corporate teams to communities of churches and teachers.

We got to know each of them individually and supported them as they reached out to their networks to fundraise on our behalf. This community grew slowly month over month with bigger and bigger fundraising goals and ambitions.

Q: What resources helped you along the way?

A: I definitely leaned on others in the nonprofit space. People were so generous with introductions to other organizations from who I could learn from. I was also lucky to be working in New York surrounded by so many other like-minded people doing similar things.

My organization would regularly visit other nonprofits’ offices and have open conversations about our respective fundraising strategies. Trading learnings and brainstorming together was so helpful since online peer-to-peer fundraising was still so new at the time.

Discussing topics like fundraiser activation rates, average amounts raised, and the number of emails sent helped us identify where to start when building out our program.

I also really love learning from examples. I was always hunting down other Classy customers to see how they were using the platform. At the time I would have killed for a resource like Best in Classy, but instead, I would scour the internet to figure out how other organizations were leveraging the software to reach their fundraising goals. That inspiration helped us as we grew beyond just peer-to-peer fundraising and tried new campaign types on the platform.

Q: What were the results of your refreshed peer-to-peer program?

A: In the beginning, we had more of an “if we build it, they will come” mindset about our campaigns. We put so much thought and energy into the branding, design, partnerships, and PR leading up to the campaigns that we thought the peer-to-peer fundraisers would come along with the donations.

We quickly learned that it was the supporter relationships we invested in that would materialize into fundraisers. We began to treat our peer-to-peer fundraisers like major donors, both in how we interacted with them and managed them in our CRM.

The focus on this group of committed supporters allowed us to grow our peer-to-peer fundraising program from a few seasonal campaigns to a year-round evergreen stream of revenue. The year I left the organization, we raised over a million dollars from peer-to-peer fundraising revenue for the first time.

Q: What advice would you offer to other nonprofit professionals looking to do the same for their organization?

A: Start small and look for peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities everywhere. Some of our most memorable campaigns came from places I didn’t expect.

It’s also important to remember that people are incredibly generous and want to get involved with your mission, you just have to find them and give them the tools to do it.

Have a plan for how you’re going to support and celebrate each and every one of your fundraisers. Raising money is hard work and everyone needs a different level of encouragement to reach their goals. Be close enough to your fundraisers to know what they need.

How to Launch Your Own Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign

Classy supports nonprofits and fundraising professionals just like Rachele to build a peer-to-peer strategy that works for them with our peer-to-peer fundraising platform.

Nonprofits build peer-to-peer campaigns on Classy with the help of a few key features:

• Individual and team fundraising pages that can be set up in seconds
• Mobile-responsive pages with digital wallet payment options
• Easy editing for fundraisers on the go
• Built-in tips and coaching to help anyone crush their goals
• Social and text sharing options directly on each campaign page

Whether you’re currently using Classy for your fundraising strategy or are curious about which campaign type can drive results for your organization, our checklists for peer-to-peer, crowdfunding, and events are a great next stop.

September marks the 20th Anniversary of the Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk NYC, one of the Foundation’s many events that honor the fallen of September 11, 2001. The marquee event is one of the top 5K runs in America, with sustained growth from 2002 when it started with 1,500 people. 

Tunnel to Towers unlocks the passion of its loyal donor base by allowing not only event participants but anyone passionate about the cause to get involved through simple and timely peer-to-peer fundraising. As a result, the organization unites communities everywhere to honor and recognize the events of a day we will NEVER FORGET.

Meet the Tunnel to Towers Foundation

Mission: The Tunnel to Towers Foundation is dedicated to honoring the sacrifice of FDNY Firefighter Stephen Siller, who laid down his life to save others on September 11, 2001. For 20 years the Foundation has supported our nation’s first responders and veterans by providing these heroes and the families they leave behind with mortgage-free homes.

Cause Sector: Human Services

Employee Count: 100

Location: Staten Island, NY

Years on Classy: 1

Connect with Tunnel To Towers on Instagram

The Value of a Time-Based Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Model

Peer-to-peer fundraising platforms provide a flexible fundraising experience for today’s donors so they can easily rally their communities around a nonprofit’s cause. When you add the element of a time-based event, such as the memorial of September 11th, 2001, there’s unlimited potential to ignite a fire within supporters and their communities. 

Individuals and teams can set up fundraising pages on Classy and begin collecting donations in just minutes, based on their unique tie to the cause. The time-based window set forth by Tunnel to Towers helps drive immediate action from a wider audience of supporters.

Our data shows that four out of every five donors who donate to a Classy fundraising page are first-time supporters.

See Memorable, Time-Based Peer-to-Peer Fundraising in Action

Get inspired as we break down the 20th anniversary of the Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk NYC campaign on Classy into actionable steps you can apply right away.

How Classy’s Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Tools Brought a Vision to Life

Tunnel to Towers trusts Classy’s giving platform to mobilize donors with actionable fundraising campaigns. Here’s a deeper look at this peer-to-peer event example:

Campaign Goal: Symbolize Stephen Siller’s final footsteps from the foot of the Battery Tunnel to the Twin Towers and pay homage to the 343 FDNY firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers, and thousands of civilians who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Peer-to-peer fundraising for this annual 5K event helps inspire a larger community to support programs benefiting first responders and catastrophically injured service members.

Method: Event participants and sponsors create individual, team, or corporate fundraising pages in seconds that are readily available on a mobile device to make fundraising simple anywhere. Fundraisers build their pages around their personal stories and receive comprehensive toolkits to support them every step of the way.

Tools to Make It Happen: When Tunnel to Towers sets up a peer-to-peer campaign in Classy, fundraising pages are automatically created for those who choose to support the cause in a bigger way. 

Classy’s peer-to-peer campaigns provide supporters with an easy way to add photos, videos, and blog-style updates to their pages, along with simple social media sharing buttons. Each fundraising page connects back to the parent campaign page where donors can see a live leaderboard and activity wall.

As supporters enter Tunnel to Towers’ campaign from various fundraiser pages, they land on a mobile-optimized donation form with the option to give a one-time or monthly gift. With flexible payment options like credit cards or bank transfers, donors receive a frictionless checkout experience. They can even select to cover the processing fees as part of their donation.

Takeaways for Your Own Time-Based Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign

1. Create meaningful fundraising experiences

A campaign built around a cause that welcomes anyone to support is the key to empowering peer-to-peer fundraising. It’s not enough to simply put up a campaign page. 

Fundraisers are motivated by their ability to make a real impact, so it’s all about showing them how they can make a difference and providing them with the flexibility to do it in their own way. Include visuals and text to show fundraisers how to make the experience their own.

At the same time, you want to show the impact that each individual fundraising page has on the larger campaign. Classy connects each page to your main fundraising landing page where visitors can see a live leaderboard and search for teams or individuals to support.

Consider taking advantage of Classy’s Activity Wall feature to personally thank each donor on your main landing page for an added touch, or tapping into our Classy for Facebook integration to expand the reach of peer-to-peer fundraising on social.

2. Remove fundraising barriers

What we loved about Tunnel to Towers’ approach was the care they put into setting any fundraiser up for success regardless of their geographic location. 

Consider how you can use the concept of a  peer-to-peer fundraising guide to thoughtfully inform your fundraisers, such as:

• An event overview to share with potential donors
• An explanation of how fundraising makes a difference to the cause
• Specific scenarios of what the impact of donations looks like
• Fundraising incentives
• Strategies to be successful when fundraising
• Email templates 
• Tips on how to customize your fundraising page
• Social media assets and best practices

3. Make the donation process simple and effective

When you have people fundraising on your behalf, make sure your donation page offers the simplest path to give for new donors. 

Keep these simple aspects in mind to elevate your donation page:

• Include both a one-time and recurring gift option
• Offer suggested donation amounts to choose from
• Include an employer donation match option 
• Build in a search bar to easily find and credit donations to specific fundraisers or teams
• Keep donor information fields shorter and only require information you need
• Allow people to donate directly from their bank account or credit card 
• Add a frequently asked questions box to avoid donors abandoning the checkout process

4. Tap into corporate support with a donation match

Tunnel to Towers leverages the Classy and Double the Donation integration to increase the impact of each gift. Each donation checkout page and thank you page features a matched gift request for donors to tap into the generosity of their employers.

Matching allows fundraisers to increase their totals, achieve their goals, and make more of an impact. Double the Donation helps Tunnel to Towers increase fundraising from corporate employee matching gifts. This is especially important for an event where corporate support is so prevalent, shown by the top fundraising team for the campaign, Team GMC NYC 2021.

After the campaign is complete, we recommend maintaining regular communication with corporate partners to nurture the relationship and keep them engaged for future campaigns.

Fuel Supporter Passion Through Peer-to-Peer

Give your community a brand new way to support your cause with an evergreen peer-to-peer campaign or one that aligns to a key moment for your cause. Be sure to check back next month for another campaign example to keep your fundraising fresh and inspired by new ideas. 

Until then, explore our free peer-to-peer fundraising resources for more ways to expand your reach, amplify your impact, and raise more for your mission:

• Understanding the True Financial Potential of Peer-to-Peer fundraising
• The Anatomy of a Successful Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign
• The 4 Phases of an Effective Peer-to-Peer Campaign

It’s natural to debate the best fundraising events for nonprofits as our sector emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news is that you’re not limited to a single format.

Here’s your complete breakdown of the current nonprofit event landscape, including:

• 10 pros of virtual fundraising events
• 10 pros of in-person fundraising events
• 8 ideas for an event with a hybrid fundraising model

Hybrid Fundraising Events: The Great Debate

In 2020, nonprofits quickly transitioned their long-standing in-person fundraising events to virtual formats for the first time with the help of innovative online fundraising platforms.

Now, as public gatherings begin to resurface, there’s a decision to make. Will you return entirely to in-person events, or will you continue with a virtual model? What if there was a way to do both?

Virtual fundraisers unlock new supporter groups by breaking free from geographic boundaries. There’s also a sense of relief and excitement to return to in-person activities.

Below, you’ll get a complete picture of how each event model offers fundraising value and how a hybrid fundraising model can give you the best of both worlds.

How Hybrid Fundraising Events Elevate Nonprofits

Virtual Fundraising Events Delight Donors and Drive Participation

Classy’s Why America Gives report showed the early success of virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixty percent of U.S. consumers donated or raised more in a virtual environment than they have for past in-person fundraising events.

Virtual activities typically draw in Gen Z and Millennials but don’t discount other generations. Almost half of Gen X respondents (48%) participated in a virtual fundraising event during COVID-19.

10 Pros of Virtual Fundraising Events for Nonprofits

Nonprofits who host virtual events through an online fundraising tool experience:

1. Broad participation on a global scale with low overhead costs
2. Flexible scheduling to accommodate a larger pool of supporters
3. A wealth of data to track attendee interactions and online donations
4. Improved accessibility to create an inclusive environment for any participant
5. Repeatable processes with pre-established campaign templates to host more events
6. More time to focus on creating memorable experiences for donors
7. New content-sharing opportunities like donor spotlights and real-time results
8. Ability  to reuse key event moments and recordings for social media content and future event advertisements
9. Enhanced visibility of a recurring giving program on any event donation page
10. The long-lasting impact of your event’s success on the lives of beneficiaries

In-Person Fundraising Events Offer the Personal Touch That Drives Donations

To understand the impact of personal connection on donor behavior, let’s look at the trends.

Classy’s Recurring Donor Sentiment Report gathered survey responses from over 1,000 active recurring donors to discover what incentivized them to donate on a recurring basis. For 44% of our respondents, exclusive access to cause-related events was a top motivator. We also saw that 55% of recurring donors feel most aligned to the organizations they give to regularly through connection with those who benefit from their donations.

When we see results like these from such actively engaged donors, we uncover an opportunity to continue motivating donations through personal experiences. Nonprofits can attract, engage, and retain donors on new levels through in-person elements at their fundraising events.

10 Pros of In-Person Fundraising Events for Nonprofits

Introducing an in-person element to fundraising events provides nonprofits with:

1. Stronger connection to first-time donors or new supporters
2. Meaningful networking among donors, beneficiaries, and staff
3. Personal touches that showcase personality and authenticity
4. Uniting local communities around location-based causes
5. Physical swag and handouts that serve as marketing well after the event
6. A deeper understanding of their supporter base and what motivates donations
7. Rich participant experiences with more touchpoints for attendees
8. Natural donor advocacy from interactions between  new and long-term supporters
9. Emotion-driven giving that results from seeing others react to a challenge or need
10. Increased ability to convert attendees into lifelong supporters through recurring giving

A Happy Medium: Hybrid Fundraising Events

The hybrid event model offers your nonprofit the flexibility to choose which pros matter most based on your specific goals and donor base. Nonprofits can provide any donor who wants to support their cause with a safe and comfortable way to do so. Hybrid models are an effective approach to offering a unique and memorable event experience by enabling a virtual element and a physical element to your event.

How Technology Supports the Hybrid Fundraising Model

Launch a campaign on your fundraising platform that offers both in-person and online registration options. Another route is to bring an online peer-to-peer fundraising component to your event to amplify your reach and enable your attendees to fundraise on behalf of your organization leading up to the event.

Classy’s  State of Modern Philanthropy 2021 report highlighted the impact of empowering donors to fundraise on your behalf. Four out of five donors who donate to a fundraiser on the Classy fundraising platform are brand new to the organization. Lean on your fundraisers to help you attract new donors.

Elevate your hybrid fundraising event on Classy with these campaign features: 

• Dual registration option for both in-person and virtual attendees
• Utilizing a registration with fundraising campaign to enable your attendees to virtually fundraise individually or as a team
• Host an in-person and online action with Classy Live
• Set a fundraising commitment for your attendees, and if that commitment is met they will get special access to an in-person experience

To get inspired, check out how Pasadena Humane launched a hybrid registration with fundraising campaign on Classy for their most significant event of the year.

8 Hybrid Fundraising Event Ideas to Get You Started

1. Gamify your event through platforms such as Twitch
2. Take a page from popular fitness brands like Peloton and host an in-person class, walk, or run that virtual supporters can participate in with activity tracking apps like STRAVA
3. Livestream your galas, concerts, and other events for free on platforms such as Facebook live, Youtube live, and Zoom  to deliver an engaging online experience
4. Create an in-person incentive for top fundraisers, such as a concert or meet-and-greet experience
5. Host a hybrid shopping experience, such as a garage sale or closet cleanout to allow anyone, anywhere, to donate goods and make purchases with the help of your local post office
6. Open a live competition to international supporters by creating fundraising minimums for participants to achieve through online peer-to-peer donations
7. Get local restaurants to sponsor wine or food tastings where participants get samples sent to their homes to enjoy while a chef or sommelier guides a virtual  tasting experience
8. Build your event around a social media challenge, like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, that invites  fundraisers to complete a task live on their stories or TikTok feed, engage their followers around your cause, and generate the content you can reshare

Get Ready for the Future of Fundraising

Hybrid events are just one way to take the recent trends we’ve seen across the sector and turn them into future-proof fundraising strategies. Discover more trends in our extensive report, The 2021 State of Modern Philanthropy.

Below is a list of fundraising tips and best practices to send to your individual fundraisers. Pass this along to your community so they can get the ball rolling and see the progress bars on their individual fundraising pages climb.

Do These 3 Things After Creating a Personal Fundraising Page

Start by making a donation to your own fundraising page. Other people are more likely to donate to your page when they see that someone has already contributed. Donating some of your own money also demonstrates to potential supporters that you are serious about helping the cause.

Personalize your fundraising page by adding your own text, pictures, or video. Remember, your potential donors will be interested in the cause, but they are primarily interested in you. Make sure you tell them why you are getting involved and what your connection to the cause is (it doesn’t have to be long).

Send individual emails to your five closest contacts and ask them for donations first. Getting your “inner circle” to donate to your page will help you build up some momentum.

The Best Way to Reach Out to Friends and Family

Think about your fundraising strategy like peeling an onion from the inside out. The best fundraisers start by asking their closest contacts first (the core), and progressively working outward to more distant contacts (the outer skin).

After all, your “core” group includes the people most likely to donate to your personal fundraising page. Studies show that as you make progress towards your fundraising goal, people become more and more likely to donate. When you start with your closest contacts and work outwards, you ensure that you build up progress from your core supporters before you reach out to the people who are less likely to donate. This means you can maximize your chances of ultimately reaching (or exceeding) your fundraising goal.

Action Items to Get Started

Take these steps to get the ball rolling on your campaign:

• Day 1, email #1: Send to 10 very close contacts (family and your closest friend or two)
• Day 2, email #2: Send to 10 to 50 close contacts (your entire circle of good friends)
• Day 3, email #3: Send to as many other contacts that you feel comfortable sending a message to (coworkers, friends of friends, distant relatives, your entire address book, etc.)
• Day 4, social media and beyond: promote across your social media channels

Don’t be afraid to send follow-up emails. Your close friends and family won’t mind hearing from you a few times.

How to Write Your Emails to Friends and Family

There is no perfect formula for writing an email asking family and friends for donations, but here are some best practices to guide you.

Writing a General Email

• Start by explaining your connection to the cause and why it’s important to you. Describing how the cause has touched your life is probably the most important element of your message.
• Explain, in a sentence or two, the good work the organization is doing to advance the cause. This helps potential supporters understand where their money would be going and what it would be used to accomplish.
• Be clear to potential supporters about what you are looking for; make a direct ask for financial support.
• Include a link to your personal fundraising page.
• Thank your contacts for their time and support.

Writing to Your Closest Contacts

• You know your closest contacts better than anyone does. Don’t feel like you have to stick to a predefined formula
• If a one line message is going to work, go ahead and do that. If a longer personal message will work best, do that.
• Just make sure you include a direct request for support and a link to your fundraising page at the end of your message

Always remember that when you’re writing to your contacts, just be yourself. If something feels forced or inauthentic, scrap it.

Use Facebook to Fundraise

Start fundraising through Facebook and after you’ve sent out your initial batch of emails. If the organization you’re supporting is on Classy, note that the Classy for Facebook integration allows fundraisers to duplicate their Classy fundraising page to Facebook in just a few clicks.

After creating a personal peer-to-peer or registration with fundraising campaign page, a fundraiser can easily push that campaign, complete with their name, photo, and personal headline, to Facebook to create a Facebook fundraiser. Your fundraising progress will sync across both your Classy campaign and your Facebook fundraiser.

Once you take advantage of this, follow these tips to solicit your Facebook network:

• Tag and thank the people who have already donated to you. Not only can this increase exposure across both your profiles, but this also sets the stage to the rest of your followers that people are already donating to your page.
• Set internal goals (e.g. $200 by the end of week two, $400 by end of week four, etc.). Use your social media accounts to give updates of your progress towards each goal and ask for people to help you get over the next hurdle.
• Don’t make every post an “ask.” Share inspiring news stories or other positive anecdotes about the cause too.
• Consider offering your own gifts to friends and family who help you reach your goal. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, just a token of your appreciation.

Follow Up With People Who Don’t Initially Respond

Setting internal goals for how much you want to raise, by when, helps you accomplish two things. First, you create more urgency when you ask friends and family for support. Second, you give yourself a reason to follow up.

• Reach back out to non-responders when you’re approaching one of your internal goals. If you set a few internal goals, you can plan on sending a couple follow-up emails. Remember, people can easily miss or skip over your initial outreach.
• Include progress updates in your follow-up messages, and consider including any inspiring stories or personal anecdotes you have about the cause.
• Remember to continue using social media. Social media is a softer medium for communicating with your contacts, and it’s more acceptable to frequently post updates in those channels.

Tips to Run a Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Team

Fundraising teams help foster friendly competition and group morale in order to raise money for good. Here are some starting tips if you’re interested in starting a team for a nonprofit’s peer-to-peer campaign:

• After you create your team fundraising page, you need to recruit your team members. Start by emailing or calling the people you think might be interested in joining you, and follow that up by making a few requests through Facebook and Twitter.
• As people join your team, send them a quick email to thank them for joining and helping the cause.
• Set a reasonable team fundraising goal, and send an email out to the group thanking them again and communicating the team goal.
• Send periodic updates about the team’s progress (this prevents slacking and keeps everyone committed) and encourage people to share the fundraising tips, tactics, and ideas that are successful for them.
• Be supportive and send along words of encouragement to team members as you work together towards the goal.

Peer-to-peer fundraising success comes with your passion for the cause, commitment to follow through, and dose of individual creativity. Your efforts are directly impacting an organization’s ability to continue their meaningful work, so keep it up and see your fundraising progress climb.

There are numerous creative ways to ask supporters to fundraise on your behalf, from endurance challenges to birthdays to personal milestones. But first, you’ll need a landing page to direct fundraisers to where they can sign up. In this post, we’ll review two different ways to create your landing page so that you can make the best decision for your organization and fundraisers. 

Option 1: Use a Single Classy Campaign Page for DIY Fundraising

The first method to set up your DIY fundraising page is to create one Classy peer-to-peer fundraising campaign page and use impact blocks to showcase the many different occasions a fundraiser might leverage to raise funds, just like 109 World did here. 

What Are the Benefits of This Strategy? 

• This is simple and straightforward. If you already have content and visual assets ready to go, using one campaign page means you can get started in as quickly as a few minutes. 
• When fundraisers click “Fundraise” on the impact block that speaks to them, they’ll be prompted to start their fundraising page. This means that all of your DIY peer-to-peer fundraisers will be fundraising under the same umbrella campaign and that it will be simple to review your reporting all together. 

What Else Should I Consider? 

• Because each impact block prompts a fundraiser to immediately get started and create their fundraising page, there is less opportunity for idea-specific resources with this set-up. For example, if you wanted to provide educational information specific to endurance event fundraising, you would need to feature that resource somewhere on your campaign landing page, or find a way to ensure the fundraiser received the right information through your communications strategy. 
• When all DIY fundraisers sign up through the same campaign, it’s harder to tell which type of fundraising each supporter is engaging in. 

Option 2: Host Multiple DIY Fundraising Classy Campaign Pages on One Landing Page

Another approach is to create many unique Classy peer-to-peer fundraising campaign pages and to host them all on one landing page on your website. With this method, a fundraiser would click on the option that spoke most to them—say Endurance Events—but instead of being immediately prompted to start a personal fundraising page, they would then arrive at an Endurance Events peer-to-peer fundraising campaign page that displayed unique content and additional ideas. 

In the image below, the Cancer Research Institute first offers six different options for their fundraisers to select from. 

After selecting the option best suited to their interests, the fundraiser is then directed to a specific page that provides more specific ideas to select from, as well as resources. When the visitor hits “Endurance Events,” they’re then taken to the following page.

Once they choose an option, such as “Run a Race,” then the prompt to start a personal fundraising page pops up.

What are the Benefits of This Strategy?

• This strategy provides an opportunity for more custom language and resources for your supporters as they learn how to get started. 
• It also provides a clear understanding of which types of DIY fundraising your supporters are engaging in. Do people tend to raise money for endurance events? Special occasions? Memorials?  With unique campaign pages for each category, you’ll get a clear sense of supporter behavior. 

What Else Should I Consider?

• Because you’re creating many unique peer-to-peer fundraising campaign pages, this type of setup requires more time and resources to execute. 
• In order to get a full picture of your DIY reporting, you’ll need to work to aggregate the data from your various campaign pages in order to get a full picture.

Which Option is Right for My Organization?

To make the right decision for your organization, ask your team the following questions: 

How established is my DIY peer-to-peer fundraising program? 

If you’re just getting started, perhaps you’d like to test the waters with a single campaign page as you develop your strategy and build interest. 

How much time and resources can I dedicate to setting up my landing page? 

If you’re pressed for time or unable to invest in the webwork to create a landing page hub on your website for multiple campaign pages, a single page could be a great way to get started until you’re in a position to build a more robust page. 

How do I want to set up my reporting? 

As discussed above, there are pros and cons to each type of setup when it comes to reporting. Would you prefer all of your DIY fundraisers under one umbrella? Are you in a position to easily aggregate and examine the data from multiple pages? 

How am I going to support my fundraisers? 

Educational resources can make a big difference when it comes to peer-to-peer fundraising. In fact, in a study conducted by Team Rubicon, they found that fundraisers who were delivered a tips sheet raised three times as much money. Do you plan on offering separate resources for different types of fundraising? If your communications and resources are more granular, using many campaign pages instead of one might be a great way to highlight that unique information. 

My Page Is All Set Up—Now What?

Unfortunately, just because you build your page, doesn’t mean fundraisers will come. Here are a few tips for getting fundraisers to visit your page and start raising money.

Make It Accessible

As soon as your page is created, make sure it’s easy to find. Incorporate it into your website and make sure it’s visible in the header, footer, or both. You can also highlight your DIY fundraising program on your social channels, in your email footers, or through your newsletter and regular supporter communications. 

Soft Launch With Specific Supporters

To get started, create a list of supporters you can reach out to for a soft launch of your program. Event attendees and volunteers are a great place to start. These types of supporters have already demonstrated a willingness to dedicate their time and personal energy to your cause. 

Roll Out Consistent Communications

Steady communication will be the key to maintaining a DIY peer-to-peer fundraising program that creates a reliable stream of revenue. Create engagement tracks for your supporters so that they have the information and support they need to execute their campaigns. 

You can also send reminder emails throughout the year to re-engage previous fundraisers. Reaching out a month or two before their birthday, for example, to suggest creating another fundraiser is a great way to retain support year over year. Download our 13 Donor Retention Email Templates for more tips and tricks on how to quickly craft emails that share the right balance of information, opportunity, and personality. 

Get Started

Download our guide, Understanding the True Financial Potential of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising, to uncover the value of peer-to-peer fundraising and how it can strengthen your in-house fundraising team and development revenue. 

That’s why we’ve created this step-by-step checklist to help pave the way to increased conversion rates, revenue, and donor satisfaction. 

Use this checklist to cover off on must-have elements for your donation page, including things like:

• Brand colors and logos
• Giving options
• Domain-masking 
• Suggested donation values
• Custom questions
• Dedications

Learn how to engage your audience with a branded look and feel, concise messaging, and a seamless checkout flow, and discover how Classy can help your organization reach its conversion goals.

Here’s a peek into what you’ll find inside:

Download The Nonprofit’s Donation Page Checklist today to optimize your page for conversion and raise more money for your mission.

Offering these year-round fundraising and donation options is a great way to generate sustainable revenue, diversify your fundraising portfolio, and keep supporters engaged with your mission. Once the campaign is created, it can run on your website indefinitely, reducing your team’s workload while also giving your supporters a variety of ways to get involved.

To further diversify your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy and help support your efforts during low-traffic times, here are three year-round fundraising campaigns your organization should launch if you haven’t already.

1. Main Donation Page

Generic donation pages often lack the personal touch most donors are looking for when deciding whether or not to make a gift. Even if a visitor hits your donation page with the original intent to donate, an underwhelming first impression, or a poorly structured or distracting page, can leave your nonprofit with a missed opportunity.

A fully customized donation page with a compelling appeal and branded call to action can be the difference between converting a visitor or losing a donation. Follow these 10 best practices to optimize your main donation page for conversion:

• Elevate the visual appeal of the donate button on your website. Use a bold color and make sure it’s easy to find at the top of your header.
• Reduce the number of clicks to reach your donation page. Link the main donate button in your website header directly to your donation page.
• Enable domain-masking to match your website branding. Consistency is key.
• Create a concise, compelling appeal on your donation page. Use high-quality images or graphics to support your call to action.
• Be strategic and purposeful with custom questions on your form. Stick to three or fewer to prevent donors from abandoning the checkout process.
• Incorporate a recurring giving option. Encourage donors to amplify their impact with a recurring gift.
• Provide suggested giving amounts. List these amounts from highest to lowest.
• Default your suggested giving amount to the second-to-highest value. Drive donors to this suggested amount to encourage a larger gift.
• Offer donors the opportunity to cover a portion of the transaction fee. When Classy mode is enabled by default, Classy platform data reveals that 85% of donors choose to cover the fees associated with their gifts. When donors need to opt in, 65% of them choose to cover the fees.
• Optimize your page for mobile. 60% of traffic on Classy is from a mobile device, and 43% of donations on the Classy platform are made through mobile devices.

All campaigns built on the Classy platform are automatically optimized for mobile, built with domain-masking, and offer a unique feature called Classy Mode which gives supporters the option to increase their gifts to cover transaction fees.

In order to take advantage of today’s virtual landscape, it’s crucial to transition your supporters from offline to online givers. Download these six quick tips to unify your offline and online fundraising.

2. DIY Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Offering your community the option to fundraise with a do-it-yourself (DIY) campaign allows supporters to fundraise for any personal reason or special occasion that they feel passionate about, regardless of the time of year. Whether they want to fundraise for their birthday, an athletic milestone, or even their wedding, they choose when and how to raise money on behalf of your organization.

DIY fundraising takes the form of a traditional peer-to-peer campaign, but without the pre-set stop date. Fundraisers can access the parent campaign on your website, and then customize their own personal fundraising page to reflect their goal.

To get started, here are a few campaign elements we recommend:

• Create a clear custom headline
• Include two calls to action (to fundraise and to donate)
• Maintain brand consistency on your parent campaign
• Hide the progress bar
• Display a leaderboard

If you’re looking to elevate your campaign a bit further, here are a few examples from The Salvation Army that your organization can use as inspiration:

Use impact blocks to spotlight examples of when a DIY fundraiser might apply. Link each button to a fundraising goal, rather than a donation value, to motivate your supporters. Remember that the fundraising amounts should be higher than a single donation amount.

Break down the process for your fundraisers so that each person feels confident getting their campaign up and running. Explain how to set up a campaign, promote it, and achieve your goal with clear and concise instructions.

Provide fundraising resources with key messaging, example emails, social media content, and tangible tips to set your fundraisers up for success, like this toolkit from The Salvation Army.

In addition to these examples, it’s important to be a cheerleader for your fundraisers by engaging with them throughout their fundraising campaigns and congratulating them for their progress. Classy’s milestone email feature automatically sends an email to thank and encourage donors when they raise a certain amount, giving them the recognition they deserve.

The Classy for Facebook integration is another tool that fundraisers can leverage to extend their reach. After creating an individual peer-to-peer or registration with fundraising campaign page, a supporter can seamlessly push that campaign, complete with their name, photo, and personal headline, to Facebook to create a Facebook fundraiser. Your campaign progress remains in sync so that anyone within your network can view the impact their contribution made.

3. Recurring Giving Campaign

A strong recurring giving program establishes a predictable stream of revenue for your nonprofit, and the consistency and reliability of this revenue source can support your nonprofit during times of crisis or uncertainty.

Recurring donors are over five times more valuable to your nonprofit than one-time donors, and return at a rate of 25% to go on and make an additional one-time gift on top of their recurring gift. The annual aggregate amount of their recurring contributions almost always adds up to more than just a one-time gift, and the increased retention rate of this donor segment can help your nonprofit improve its long-term planning.

By offering a way for donors to connect with your organization on a recurring basis, they remain closely tied to your mission and connected to its impact. This bond inherently increases their loyalty to your organization while also strengthening their relationship with fellow donors.

To help sustain and grow your impact over time, consider launching a branded crowdfunding campaign, like the LoveYourBrain Foundation, to promote your recurring giving program, its story, and benefits for those who join. Their page draws donors in with a strong headline image and branded visuals.

Here are a few ways to boost the visual appeal of your recurring giving campaign:

• Build a strong hero block that emphasizes the impact of each gift
• Make your campaign distinct with photos, videos, or logos that are unique to your recurring program
• Include a list of benefits or incentives that make your recurring donors feel special
• Optimize your page for mobile with digital wallets and ACH (you can do this with one click on the Classy platform)

In addition, leverage impact blocks to highlight the different programs within your organization that recurring gifts will impact, or get creative like Love146 and show items people could sacrifice in exchange for a recurring donation.

Once these year-round campaigns are live on your website, you can focus your time on donor communication and fostering a stronger sense of community. Offering a variety of ways for supporters to get involved gives them the freedom to drive your mission forward on their own terms, and to be creative in the process.

To further accelerate your organization’s impact, register for the Collaborative: Virtual Sessions today for access to engaging conversations and online sessions led by some of the industry experts and leaders we admire most. Reserve your spot now to learn about fundraising and marketing best practices, current technology, organizational priorities, and so much more.

I’ve had the privilege of working with Classy’s nonprofit customers for over three years. While each nonprofit can be vastly different and our product has created innovative new features over the years, I always come back to the same 10 pieces of advice.

See Classy’s top 50 fundraising organizations and campaign examples for inspiration.

Online fundraising combines your standard relationship-building with digital mediums. The capabilities of your online fundraising platform have a massive impact on your overall success, and platforms like Classy can help you connect with your supporters effectively and efficiently online. Follow these 10 tactics that range from broader best practices to detailed product tips.

1. Your organization’s branding should be front and center.

When your supporters go through the donation process, you want them to have a seamless checkout experience that they trust and are thus more likely to complete. Part of what makes checking out seamless is having an organization’s brand front and center, so the donor feels assured they are in the right place. Donation pages that are customized with an organization’s branding perform six times better than those that are not personalized.

We always advise nonprofits to customize their donation pages to include their own logo, brand colors, and their domain name in the URL link. This can all apply to your email receipts as well. You can even update the browser icon to match your website. At the end of the day, your donation forms should look beautiful, match your branding, and streamline the giving process to be as simple and trustworthy as possible.

2. Harness the power of setting campaign goals.

Setting goals for a fundraising campaign is an important step to ensure you are staying on track and seeing year-over-year growth. However, it can have so much more impact than just for your internal tracking purposes. Your goal can also be a motivating tool to encourage more donations quickly.

Most Classy campaign types come with a progress bar or circle showing the thermometer bubble up as more donations come in. Supporters love to see their donation move the progress bar, and they’re more inclined to give if they know their donation is not just a drop in a bucket, but actually making a difference in reaching the goal.

A pro tip is to hide your progress metrics at first and do a soft launch where you share the campaign with a small pool of loyal supporters whom you feel will likely make gifts. Then, turn on the progress metrics for your hard launch to your wider network. Nobody likes to be the first to give, so by launching your campaign with about 5 to 10% of your goal fulfilled, you’ll be able to hit the ground running.

Don’t forget to continuously communicate with your supporters around your goals. For example, let people know when you’re halfway to your goal, or that you’re so close that you only need 10 more donors to give $100. Breaking it down like this makes giving less intimidating and helps donors feel like their gift really does matter.

3. Offer innovative ways to give and that also improve your conversion rates.

Keeping up with modern payment methods is critical to attract the modern donor and accommodate how they like to give. Classy provides innovative payment options via our processor, Classy Pay powered by Stripe.

Aside from regular credit card transactions, Classy Pay also provides digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Microsoft Pay. When a donor is checking out on their phone, the corresponding payment option will appear. Because donors are already using digital wallets for everyday transactions, it’s much easier for them to click one button and complete the donation process.

When digital wallets are enabled, conversions from mobile devices increase by 11%. The digital wallet already has the credit card information saved, so the donor does not have to fish out their actual wallet and enter in the number.

On top of digital wallets, Classy Pay also offers ACH payments via Classy Pay. This allows donors to enter in their bank information and initiate an automatic bank transfer rather than entering in credit card details. ACH is a great option for monthly recurring plans as expiration dates are not an issue with bank transfers.

We always recommend nonprofits opt for Classy Pay powered by Stripe as their payment processor and highly encourage our customers to enable digital wallets and ACH payment options, which is as easy as clicking a box.

4. Take advantage of matching gifts.

A matching gift for a campaign is a powerful strategy to increase your number of donations. Many donors will choose to give, or give more when there is an associated match because they know their gift will have double the impact.

A common myth is that donation matching is just for Giving Tuesday and end-of-year campaigns. They are powerful to use year-round. If your organization has corporate or major sponsors that are interested in donating a matching gift for a certain time period and/or up to a certain dollar value, it’s easy to add this in on Classy’s backend. You can also always repurpose an existing gift as a match, or combine several smaller donations as one larger match within a campaign.

5. Enable Classy Mode to allow donors to cover a portion of your transaction fees.

Classy provides a feature called Classy Mode that allows donors to cover some of your processing fees. Most donors are happy to add on a bit extra to their gift so that more of the donation can truly go to your programs. I also recommend organizations turn this feature on and set it as the default to promote further engagement.

6. Customize your donation amounts to align with donor behavior.

On Classy donation pages, you can enter four suggested donation amounts. Rather than keeping the templated amounts, take a look at your online donor base to understand their current behavior. Use your average and median donation values to help guide what the suggested donation amounts should be. For example, if your donors typically give $100, use that as a middle value so that you can encourage larger gifts.

You can also set a default donation amount so that a particular amount is bubbled in when a donor lands on your donation page. Having a preset default amount helps nudge donors to give that amount, or consider something close. We recommend defaulting the second-to-highest value on your page to encourage a higher amount, but still remain humble by not selecting the highest amount.

7. Comment on your activity wall to personally steward donors.

When you first log into your Classy account, you’ll land on your activity wall that will highlight all supporter activity on your campaigns. You can comment on any donations, registrations, or fundraising page creations. Your comment will then be directly emailed to the supporter.

This extra step is a great way to quickly thank your donors without spending too much time. Not only will they get an automatic notification when you comment to them on the feed, but it’s also very personal and feels like you’re communicating with a friend or family member, rather than receiving just the official email receipt.

8. Remove and edit any templated language on campaigns and emails.

Within Classy’s campaign templates, we include templated language as placeholders. While it may seem obvious to update the language to your own, there are a couple key areas that people often miss:

• On Landing Pages, edit “About the Campaign.” “Campaign” is an internal fundraising word and doesn’t always resonate with donors. Take every opportunity to evoke an emotional response from your potential donors. We recommend changing this to a powerful quote or statistic.
• Within peer-to-peer and registration with fundraising campaigns, you have the option to create a template page for fundraisers. Many organizations assume that their fundraisers will update their individual page to make it personal to them. While we highly encourage fundraisers to do this, we also recommend giving them a head start.They don’t live and breathe your programs, so help them out by writing out some text on the template in their voice that provides information about your nonprofit and the impact you have on the world. Don’t be shy to include a photo or video as well. They can always come back and update their own personal story, but you’re helping them get started. Plus, if they don’t make any changes, you still have a good first impression with any new potential donors who may see the page.
• Don’t forget to update the language in your donation receipts (both for one-time and recurring monthly gifts). These will automatically get sent to donors, so make sure to make it more personal to your organization.

9. Utilize year-round campaigns to create sustainable revenue and diversify your fundraising strategy.

Many fundraising appeals have a start and end date, such as Giving Tuesday and year-end asks. However, you can create some campaigns to permanently live on your website year-round.

It’s always smart to provide multiple ways for people to engage with your nonprofit. Not to mention, when you are not promoting a big time-sensitive appeal or event, you can default to promoting one of these and the pages will always be ready to go.

1. Main donate button: You should have a clear donate button that immediately takes supporters to the checkout form. Ideally this is branded and follows donation page best practices.
2. Recurring giving option: We always recommend having a monthly giving program linked to your website. Definitely keep monthly giving as an option on your main donation form, but you’ll probably find that most people opt to give one-time on that page. Typically for monthly gifts, donors require more information to truly understand the impact a monthly gift can have. Recurring gifts are a commitment for supporters, but recurring donors are over five times as valuable to your nonprofit. Take the time to create a crowdfunding campaign dedicated to this program.
3. DIY peer-to-peer campaign: All nonprofit websites should include a fundraising option in case a supporter wants to fundraise on behalf of your organization throughout the year. You can set up a peer-to-peer campaign that utilizes the impact blocks to highlight different ways someone may want to fundraise, such as by hosting a birthday campaign or setting an athletic milestone. This is an excellent way to promote engagement in different ways from your existing supporters, acquire new donors through their fundraising pages, and dip your toe into the peer-to-peer fundraising world.

10. Donor communication is an essential piece of your fundraising strategy.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in building campaigns and planning logistics of appeals, but donor communication is crucial to the success of your fundraising strategy. Here are several main practices you should be following:

• Segment your email marketing lists. The more specific and personal you can make your emails, the better engagement you’ll have. Even if you use 99% of the same message in all emails, it can make the world of a difference if you simply acknowledge their relationship with your organization in the first sentence. For example, recognize your monthly donors and thank them for their existing contributions; then dive into your regular appeal.Segmentation can also help if you are concerned about over-communicating with donors; not everyone needs to receive every appeal message.
• Send at least five emails per campaign appeal and post frequently on social media during the campaign’s lifetime. Announce the launch of the campaign, keep people updated on its progress, end with a final push, and don’t forget your thank yous. Limited communication often results in campaigns that don’t hit their goals.
• For peer-to-peer campaigns, create fundraising toolkits that include instructions for fundraising, tips for how to be successful, and sample email and social media templates fundraisers can use.
• Take donor stewardship to the next level by using Classy’s Campaign Messages. You can send an email to all donors, attendees, or fundraisers and thank them. Send a thank you immediately at the end of the campaign, but also a month or even more out to update them with the results on their dollars. So often it feels like donations fall into a black hole and donors don’t understand the true impact they had. This is an easy way to prove that you haven’t forgotten about their gift and it really did make a difference.
• On the topic of stewardship, handwritten thank you cards and phone calls really go the extra mile.

Make sure to follow these 10 online fundraising tips to take advantage of low-hanging fruit and improve your campaign results.

Summary of 10 Tips:

1. Your organization’s branding should be front and center.
2. Harness the power of setting campaign goals.
3. Offer innovative ways to give and that also improve your conversion rates.
4. Take advantage of matching gifts.
5. Enable Classy Mode to allow donors to cover a portion of your transaction fees.
6. Customize your donation amounts to align with donor behavior.
7. Comment on your activity wall to personally steward donors.
8. Remove and edit any templated language on campaigns and emails.
9. Utilize year-round campaigns to create sustainable revenue and diversify your fundraising strategy.
10. Donor communication is an essential piece of your fundraising strategy.

We’ve created three step-by-step checklists that break down what to include in your crowdfunding, peer-to-peer, or event fundraising campaigns. They also include pro tips and best practices to help you elevate your campaign’s visual appeal and drive supporters to answer the desired call to action. 

Follow these fundraising campaign checklists to create a compelling landing page that attracts donors or fundraisers, as well as nail your donation pages and follow-up messaging to encourage gift completion and emphasize the impact of each donation.

Here’s a peek of what’s inside: