Is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Right for You? with Tess Conrad
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What if you could tap into the enthusiasm of your biggest supporters and turn them into fundraising rockstars? That's where peer-to-peer fundraising comes in!
I had a blast chatting with Tess Conrad of Full Potential Fundraising, a fundraising pro who's passionate about helping small nonprofits do big things. Tess shared her wealth of experience on all things peer-to-peer – setting realistic goals, finding the perfect fundraisers, creative campaign ideas, and the importance of treating those new donors like the gems they are.
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Key Episode Highlights:
P2P is about relationships, not transactions. Focus on those long-term donors, volunteers, and supporters who already love what you do. Their personal stories are your most powerful fundraising tools.
Make it easy (and fun!) for fundraisers. Provide templates, social media ideas, and a simple guide. The less they have to think about the logistics, the more they can focus on spreading the word about your amazing cause.
Stewardship is EVERYTHING. P2P donors aren't a one-and-done deal. Treat them like the new donors they are: welcome them, thank them, show them their impact, and keep them engaged with your mission.
Your board members can be fundraising powerhouses. With a clear ask and the right support, they can easily tap into their networks. Plus, P2P gives them an action-oriented way to truly make a difference.
Start small and celebrate wins! Don't be overwhelmed by the big P2P campaigns you see. Even a modest goal with a handful of fundraisers can be a huge success for a small nonprofit, building momentum for future growth.
Don’t forget to become a supporter of our show!
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GURy-BbU7ig
Links and Resources:
Connect with Tess on Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/tess-conrad-cfre
Learn more about Full Potential Fundraising: https://www.fullpotentialfundraising.com/
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mariario/
Support the show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/208666/supporters/new
Transcript:
00:00:00 Tess: If you have a donor base and you have some volunteers around, to get started, just make a plan, decide your timeline and all those things I talked about earlier, and then just start talking to your donors about it. Of course, you can post that you're doing a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign on your social media, send out emails, but the best way is pick up the phone, call your donor and even ask for their advice on it because it's brand new and ask them to sign up.
00:00:29 Maria: Hi friends, ever wondered how you could turn your big ideas into results? I'm Maria Rio, your go-to guide for helping small nonprofits have real world impacts. Together, let's reimagine a better sector, tackle systemic issues, and yes, raise some serious cash. Welcome back to The Small Nonprofit, the podcast where your passion meets action.
00:01:01 Maria: Hi friends, welcome back to The Small Nonprofit Podcast. I'm your host, Maria Rio. And in case you didn't know, in case you're new here, we do weekly episodes on all things nonprofit. And I try to bring the best experts over to you to talk about all things fundraising, governance, leadership. And today I have one of those experts here with me, Tess. Tess, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience.
00:01:27 Tess: Hi, Maria. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. So my name is Tess Conrad and I'm the founder of Full Potential Fundraising. I'm a fractional fundraiser, similar to you. So I work basically as a part-time development director for small nonprofits. And I also offer services in legacy giving, peer-to-peer fundraising, and major gift pipeline development.
00:01:46 Maria: I love that we met through Cindy, because obviously Cindy was hosting this podcast before. So we both did Cindy's Fractional Fundraising Academy and we got to know each other a little bit there. And then when I went to Vancouver to visit a client, it was really nice to get lunch and hear a little bit more about how you got to where you are today. Do you mind sharing a little bit of your, how you started a nonprofit, what you've done up to now, and yeah, if you wanna tell us a little bit about your business, that'd be great.
00:02:15 Tess: Yeah, absolutely. So you and I have very similar backgrounds and it's so cliche to say, but I fell into fundraising. I was in my last year of theater school and I really needed a job. And I found face-to-face fundraising with Public Outreach, the company we both worked for. And I even think we had like a small period of overlap that we were on the opposite ends of the country. But I managed the mall team doing indoor fundraising and sending people up for monthly donations. And I really just fell in love with it.
00:02:43 Tess: Whenever I tell people I've done face-to-face fundraising, the immediate response I usually get is, oh my gosh, that's so hard, I could never do that. But I love it. And I just, I think it was so cool to be able to stop strangers and get them to sign up for monthly donations. So from there, I did a certificate in fundraising management at BCIT and moved on to do a variety of roles within charities in all different kinds of fundraising. I'm really a generalist. So I've done peer-to-peer fundraising, legacy giving fundraising, major gifts, annual giving, which is why fractional fundraising turned out to be such a good fit for me.
00:03:18 Tess: And I was really looking for my next step when Cindy was offering her Fractional Fundraising Academy, which was a great program to get started. And yeah, now I'm happily booked up with all my clients and I really love the work that's so engaging to have served so many different small charities.
00:03:35 Maria: I love the variety of fundraising strategies that we get to do in this kind of perspective and role, but I didn't know you did malls. Did you only do malls or did you do door to door, street?
00:03:46 Tess: I was primarily doing malls, but I would also do street fundraising too because we didn't always have the bookings.
00:03:51 Maria: What a classic. Yes. Yeah, it definitely brings me back to, you know, being a baby fundraiser, like a decade ago, my God. But yeah, what is your favorite type of portfolio to work with since you've worked with so many?
00:04:06 Tess: That's such a good question. And I feel like I like so many different portfolios for so many different reasons. I have a real soft spot for advocacy based organizations because the reason why I got into face to face fundraising was because I was organizing locally with my community for environmental and social issues. So when I get to work with nonprofits that are advocating for real social change, it really lights that fire in my belly. And the supporters for that are amazing too.
00:04:36 Maria: Awesome. When it comes to fundraising, like, do you prefer to do, like legacy, peer to peer, monthly, or is it kind of like you're happy to do all of it?
00:04:46 Tess: I love so much of it, especially any kind of fundraising where I'm working one-on-one. So legacy giving and major gifts, and also peer to peer fundraising and community fundraising. It's really cool to see donors and volunteers become ambassadors for their cause and get really motivated by raising as much as they can for an organization.
00:05:06 Maria: Love legacy giving too. I haven't gotten to do much of it, but just like the conversations that you can have with people and just building those one-on-one relationships as you're saying, like with major donors, peer-to-peer fundraisers, just hearing the things that light them up and why they're excited to be involved with your cause, whether that's through a donation or giving their time or bringing their friends and family into the cause. To me, that cheers me up.
00:05:32 Maria: Sometimes fundraising, you get a little down with like, oh, I got to know or whatever. My board has unreasonable expectations, but having these one-on-one conversations has always really lit me up. I don't think I've actually also done as much peer-to-peer as you have, but I think it's something that a lot of nonprofits can really deploy and make a huge impact on how they engage their supporters and turn them into advocates, as you were saying. So I don't know if you see a lot of charities using that strategy lately or not.
00:06:06 Tess: You know, it's a bit all over the map. And I definitely think it's untapped within the smaller organizations, especially. But the thing I love about peer-to-peer and community fundraising is there's so many different ways to do it and you can adapt it for the smallest of small organizations all the way up to, you know, large organizations where, you know, I managed a $9 million fundraising bike ride for a big organization. So it's just such a wide variety there. And yeah, it's a relatively untapped way of fundraising.
00:06:38 Maria: So what are the things that make a good peer-to-peer fundraiser? If you can scale it so big-ly, sorry, so big-ly, if you can scale it to such a large amount, what would you think are the necessities, whether it's a small peer-to-peer or a large peer-to-peer fundraiser?
00:06:55 Tess: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first step is having clarity on your goals and campaign timelines. So if… you basically are running it like a campaign and it's great to set a group dollar goal that you're getting everyone on board to work towards. And then you also want to spend a good amount of time planning what type of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign you're going to do and how you're going to engage people in it before you go do it. Obviously, planning is so important.
00:07:21 Tess: And then the second part of that is setting up good collateral and just in, and it doesn't have to be complicated, just a two pager on how to fundraise and some email templates. When you work with peer to peer fundraisers, they're really busy, we're all busy, we have so many things going on in our lives. And if you can make fundraising as easy and painless as possible for them, they'll raise so much more. So just making those email templates. And then also just putting time in to work with your fundraisers and coach them.
00:07:55 Tess: Really, I see the fundraiser's role in a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign being a coach and cheerleader because there are ups and downs in fundraising and for a lot of people, it's their first time that they've ever gone out to ask money for money for an organization. So you just have to be there saying, hey, just ask everyone and let's brainstorm your network and see who you can talk to or what kind of event could you run that would get people in your community excited.
00:08:20 Maria: And how do you set that first initial goal, like if you've never done a peer-to-peer?
00:08:25 Tess: I would say you have to be realistic about who you're going to be able to ask to do this fundraising for you. Similar to all sorts of fundraising, it's really going to be existing supporters. So who do you have in your donor base, in your volunteer base that would be potentially interested in doing a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign? And then when you get an idea of, say, we have like 100 people we can ask, we're expecting 30 of them to sign up, and then how much would be realistic for them to raise, which really depends on their network. But I would say if it's your first time, try a bit of a smaller goal, like 500 to 1,000 per person. But I've also run campaigns where everyone raised 2,500 or more. So like all fundraising goals, I think it depends.
00:09:14 Maria: That's true. And do you usually find it easier to set what the peer-to-peer fundraiser is going to be or to give them more freedom to choose what that's going to be? So for example, I'm going to do a walk and you come up and make your own teams. Instead of like, we want you to fundraise for this cause and here's our goal. You choose what you're going to do. Do you see a preference with donors?
00:09:38 Tess: I would say I don't necessarily see a preference with donors. I see both of those working very well. So I've worked with a small charity where they do a 5k walk and run. And it's just you're doing a 5k walk and run. They don't do a big event because that takes up so much logistics and they just don't have the capacity for it. But they say, hey, make your team, choose your location, do your walk and run. It doesn't have to be 5k. Some people can do less, some people can do more. But then everyone is excited for that. And it's in their branding, the walk and run.
00:10:07 Tess: And the other one being a challenge event where it's like, hey, you sign up and you decide what you're going to do. And that's my personal preference just because it allows for so much creativity and it's also very inclusive for people of all abilities and all walks of life. Because if you do it as a challenge event, someone might decide to climb a mountain, another person might decide to do a video game marathon, which I've seen done very successfully for a small theater company here in Vancouver. That's really cool. Or maybe even someone, like knitting, is going to do a challenge of, like how long of a scarf they can knit in a week. I don't know. Like it's so much more fun to do the challenge event. But I see both be, really successful.
00:10:44 Maria: Oh my God, I never even thought about something like knitting. That's so interesting. I personally default to something like a walk because it's so easy to organize on the organization's end. And I can raise a lot of money. Like I've seen a walk raise like $100,000, but I think giving them the opportunity to choose their own thing. Like if you're having friends over for your birthday, but the knitting is a really innovative one. That's really interesting.
00:11:08 Tess: Yeah, that's the fun thing about peer-to-peer fundraising and community fundraising is it allows for so much creativity. And I'm even surprised sometimes by what fundraisers choose to do.
00:11:17 Maria: So you usually don't engage the donors first. You launch the goal first, and then you ask people to become peer-to-peer fundraisers for that goal. Is that right?
00:11:28 Tess: When you're conducting peer-to-peer fundraising as a campaign, that is what I would recommend. Similar to how you might plan out any kind of fundraising campaign when you're running appeals and the like, you're doing it as a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and you'll have a recruiting stage and then the fundraising stage.
00:11:44 Maria: Oh, I just remembered a board member out on screen who was telling me that one of their peer-to-peer events back in the day when they started the organization was to watch as many bad movies as possible. So it was something like per hour people were pledging, like if you watch 10 hours of horrible movies, I will donate this, right? So I don't know, it's really fluid and it's really fun how creative people get with it.
00:12:10 Maria: But I wanted to talk a little bit about the toolkit that you provide a peer-to-peer fundraiser. So you have a donor, they're like, yes, I would love it. I'm gonna knit the longest scarf in the world. And now what? It's like, I don't know what to do. I've never fundraised, but I really like your cause. What's the next step?
00:12:29 Tess: Yeah, absolutely. So the toolkit is really just a document that breaks down the steps for them to fundraise and makes it really simple. It doesn't have to be very long. But the first step is you might include some directions on how to set up their peer to peer fundraising campaign within whatever CRM system you're using. Some best practices for that include, you know, like personalizing the page, encourage them to share their own personal story about why they're supporting the cause.
00:12:54 Tess: And I talk about how people donate because of the emotion behind it. Not the facts and figures, but that story. And that story often is the fundraisers. You see it all the time in cancer charities, where people share their story. But even in an advocacy organization, they may talk about why they care about the environment or whatever issue it might be. The second thing is talking about fundraising best practices. So that one-to-one ask is so much more effective than any other form of fundraising because a fundraiser can post about their campaign on social media, which is great.
00:13:26 Tess: They will, you know, get their friends aware of their campaign, but to actually drive the donations, it's an ask and that can be in a DM and social media or an email or a text message or a phone caller meeting, as scary as that might be. And then to make it as easy as possible for them, as I mentioned, you want to have those email templates right in there so they can copy and paste. I also still include social media templates with the branding. Just make it easy as possible, the least time amount of possible that they have to spend on this campaign.
00:13:54 Tess: And then I also include a section where I say after you've done the one-to-one asks, you can get creative with your fundraising. So if you want to do a bake sale or if you want to do some kind of little fundraiser, do it then. But I always encourage fundraisers to make those one-to-one asks first because they might find that they exceed their goals just with that and they don't need to, you know, do this really complicated fundraising event that might only get them $500.
00:14:20 Maria: They might not need to knit the scarf. I'm just, I love peer-to-peer because I love what you're saying about that one-to-one ask. We know that if you do that one-to-one ask, to someone that you know, they're, I think, one in four more likely to give than if they had any other form of solicitation. So I think that's really interesting. But I do wonder about the retention of those people who are asked. Let's say my friend asked me to make a donation. I do it. I do the ice bucket challenge, you know? Then how do you retain those donors and continue to engage them if their first touch point was one of these advocates, peer-to-peer fundraisers?
00:15:04 Tess: Absolutely, and thank you for bringing that up because when it comes to peer-to-peer fundraising, this is what I want to get on my soapbox about and just broadcast to the world. Because peer-to-peer fundraising is a really effective way to bring in revenue in a short period of time when you have those ambassadors ready to go. And then often I see charities just treating it like that and they just forget about those donors and fundraisers until the next campaign comes. So stewardship is so important and it doesn't have to be complicated.
00:15:33 Tess: It's just thinking about, hey, like this donor that came in, just welcome them in like a new donor. Send them a thank you card. If it's a larger donation, have the ED call them, and then make sure they're on your email list and communications, and then also create a segment so you can report back on their gift and acknowledge the fact that it came from the peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
00:15:56 Tess: And the same thing with your fundraisers. It's so much work to do a fundraiser, and at the end of the campaign, there's a big celebration, and then it's usually crickets from the charity until the next campaign comes, and it's like, hey, do you wanna come again? And then I see this hamster wheel happening, and I've seen this hamster wheel at really well established large peer to peer fundraising campaigns where they're not really growing because they have such a hard time retaining their fundraisers. I consider a peer to peer fundraiser to be similar to a major donor. They're going to get one to one touch points from me at least every quarter.
00:16:26 Maria: It's kind of like, you know how digitally we use lookalike audiences on Facebook or Instagram to find that next one degree of separation person who cares about our cause. It's kind of like the in-person version of that, it feels like.
00:16:41 Tess: Absolutely it is, yes. And you know, especially when charities so want those new donors, and those new donors can be so hard to acquire, it's just why would you neglect this huge opportunity you have when you have this large list of new donors? And granted, yes, some of them might have only given because their friend asked them and they won't give again unless the friend asked them again, but I bet you that over half of them probably would if you actually stewarded them and reported back on the impact.
00:17:08 Maria: So just as a possible issue that some organizations might face that I'm thinking of as you're speaking, treat these people as new donors, which means that you have to have their information. So don't set up your peer-to-peer campaign on something like Facebook, where you're not gonna get their email, their mailing address, their full name. Set it up on something where you can actually own the information.
00:17:32 Tess: Absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. That's so important. And it was actually an issue when I ran a peer to peer fundraising campaign with a charity and we gave them their own peer to peer fundraising campaigns, but then they went on Facebook and created a Facebook fundraiser. And then those donors wanted tax receipts and we didn't have the information for those donors. So also make sure you tell your fundraisers only, collect donations through this platform because on Facebook, we can't issue tax receipts. Facebook just sends a check at the end of the campaign. They don't even tell you which campaign it's from. So you have to go chase down the fundraiser. But yeah, absolutely.
00:18:05 Maria: Yeah, same thing with, like crowdfunding. I did see an organization do a crowdfunding campaign with another one, and neither of them had access to the information. It's like, these are people who want to be engaged, who you cannot engage further, who you can't send like a thank you card or a phone call or show any kind of appreciation or deepen that relationship if you don't have the information. So just as a heads up for people listening, if you are thinking of doing this, make sure that you own the data and you can connect with them after the fundraiser. But back to what you were talking about, I would love to hear a little bit more about how you identify those donors who would be a good person to ask to become a peer-to-peer fundraiser.
00:18:49 Tess: Yeah, I look for donors who are long-term donors. So ideally they've been given, giving for three or more years, and it really doesn't matter what level. If someone's been giving $50 a year for 10 years, like that's a great person to ask because those are your, like die-hard fans, right? Also, if you have any volunteers as well, I would say volunteers at any level are probably a great people to ask because they already have so much time and commitment to your cause.
00:19:18 Maria: That sounds really sensible and I like that you're including volunteers in there as well because sometimes they're often overlooked. Is there, like a period of time that you would say, like, approach a volunteer after they've been volunteering for like three months, a year, one month, what does that look like?
00:19:33 Tess: Yeah, I would say probably a year is enough time to kind of build up a relationship with that volunteer. But of course, it depends because if that volunteer, you know, just, it's such a die hard fan, and especially if they're starting to say things like, I wish there was more I could do. And that's also a bell should go off in your head for a donor saying I wish there's something more I could do. That's a great candidate for peer to peer fundraising because they're just ready to take their support to the next level.
00:19:59 Maria: Have you seen a lot of peer-to-peer campaigns that are not based on financial transactions? So like a food fundraiser, or I've seen this one where people try to collect as many pads and tampons to bring to an organization. But I wonder if there's a way to collect that information for those people who are buying the pads and tampons and giving it to the one contact.
00:20:23 Tess: That is such a great question. And I haven't actually led a peer-to-peer fundraising like that, although I've supported one like that. My friend was collecting donations from a local women's shelter and I was like, sure, I'll add things. Yeah, that's fantastic. I would say off the top of my head, it would be great if you empowered your fundraiser to take that information down, even just, if you had a reason to collect the information, such as maybe we're going to do a celebration party or we just wanna thank you. Like give us an email for that.
00:20:53 Maria: Actually, now that you think about it, there was this one donor who was buying strollers for one of our programs every year. So she would get, I don't know, like 15 to 20 of her friends each year to donate $750. And then we would actually get that information because we would have to issue them a tax receipt. We couldn't issue the tax receipt to her. And it's technically like a gift in kind. So that was helpful because it was not an automated process, right? Like they were donating the strollers. Anyways, just something to think about. Okay, so how can our audience members, let's say they've never run a peer-to-peer before, how can they get started?
00:21:36 Tess: If you have a donor base and you have some volunteers around, to get started, just make a plan, decide your timeline and all those things I talked about earlier, and then just start talking to your donors about it. Of course, you can post that you're doing a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign on your social media, send out emails, but the best way is pick up the phone, call your donor, and you know, even ask for their advice on it because it's brand new and you know, ask them to sign up.
00:22:04 Tess: And you don't need a huge amount of people to do a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, especially if you're just starting out, you know. I ran a campaign where we had six people and they raised a hundred thousand dollars which is amazing, but even if you had 10 people who raised $2,000, that would be a great start and then you can just build on it from there. I kind of consider that first year just be building up the foundations of your first peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
00:22:32 Maria: Are you also engaging the board in something like this? Like, are they saying like, I wanna do a peer-to-peer fundraiser. We know how hard it is to get board members to fundraise, but I'm wondering if peer-to-peer, you know, light some up a little bit more.
00:22:46 Tess: Yeah, definitely. You should be going to your board members for this type of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. And when we're asking our board members just generally like, oh, can you introduce us to your contacts and help fundraise for us? It can kind of seem like a big and elusive thing, but if it's, hey, we're doing this campaign, we have this goal, we already have a few people signed up and you're just kind of taking part in it, you can kind of use that momentum to encourage them to fundraise and you can pay extra attention to them in helping them opening up doors to their contacts and giving them the templates and everything they need.
00:23:15 Maria: Yeah, it's a very, very clear call to action. Instead of like, run something for us and donate the money. It's very, like, here are all the templates. Here's how much we're looking to raise. Here's the script, just send it to people and we can help you with any of the other parts. What does the campaign timeline look like from beginning to end? And is it different if it's a larger peer-to-peer versus a smaller one?
00:23:40 Tess: Yeah, and it is different if it's a larger campaign to a smaller one. So for the really big campaigns, we're kind of looking at our timelines over a year. So planning would probably take two to three months. Recruiting donors would take, sorry, recruiting fundraisers would take another two, three, four months. And then the campaign itself could sometimes be three months long, where you're encouraging people to fundraise for a certain period of time up until whenever the main event is happening.
00:24:10 Tess: For a smaller campaign, especially when you're first starting out, I think that timeline could be really condensed. I would recommend four weeks for planning, and then four weeks to do your recruiting. Four to six weeks, kind of like the same way you would do an appeal campaign. And then four weeks for the fundraising itself.
00:24:30 Maria: Does the fundraising itself require the organization to provide merch or benefits or anything like that?
00:24:37 Tess: It absolutely does not require it. And, you know, I have really mixed feelings about things like swag because fundraisers do love them. And if you set up competitions and goals where, you know, if you fundraise X amount, you get this, it just really resonates with supporters. I don't get it because personally, when I fundraise for a cause, I don't really care for swag, but every time I give swag to fundraisers and donors, they love it. However, it's important to not underestimate not only the cost, but the amount of time that swag takes. And especially if you're doing anything like t-shirts where there's different sizes.
00:25:13 Tess: I've had so many really late evenings in the office where we're staying way past the time we originally intended, just trying to sort out t-shirts and get them to the fundraisers. So you can have a very successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign without swag. You can always think about different ways you can recognize your fundraisers. Like, you know, the top fundraisers could get shoutouts on social media and your email lists. And you can have a celebratory little party at the end of it, which could be virtual or could just be at your office, depending on how many fundraisers you have. So you definitely don't need swag.
00:25:48 Maria: Oh, that's nice to think of different ways to recognize them. And it makes so much more sense. I don't know. Maybe they want the t-shirt. They probably want the t-shirt. Okay. But yeah, the sizing and all that stuff would be a logistical nightmare. So I think you could either go with swag that isn't a logistical nightmare. Like, a cookbook or whatever it is that's mission relevant or a digital recognition. I think that's really interesting.
00:26:16 Tess: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, there's so many different options for swag that's not size dependent. So if you do something like a walk or run, you could even offer a water bottle. There's participation medals, just all sorts of little things. But yeah, like if you do something like t-shirts, just really plan out your staff time and make sure you have the capacity for it. That's my advice.
00:26:39 Maria: Okay, I know I've been picking your brain for a while now, but I have a few more questions, mostly around the donation page. So for example, do you set up a donation page per fundraiser or is it better that they can see everybody's collective progress towards the goal? What does the donation page look like and is there various?
00:26:59 Tess: Yes, in the ideal world, every fundraiser has their own donation page with their own goal. I just find that this creates a bit more personal responsibility and initiative for each of the individuals. When you only have a team goal and everyone's working towards it, it's very easy to be just like, oh, well, so-and-so is gonna probably get most of that. So how I like to have my peer-to-peer fundraising campaign set up is like the big campaign goal where everyone is collected in, that's on the main homepage.
00:27:28 Tess: And you have team pages and you could have the team goal there too. And you can, like see all the fundraisers and you click on the fundraiser, you get to their page and their goal. And you can have an option to donate to the team or to donate to the fundraiser. But everyone does have that individual goal.
00:27:45 Maria: And what about like some of the really big fan of SickKids Hospital. I love everything that they do fundraising wise, and I've been looking at what they do for a long time. So if people haven't checked out their website, please do. They're amazing. But something that they do really well is actually let people create their own peer to peer events. But I wonder about that too, because I don't know, do you want everybody to be able to do that? What if they're not, like mission aligned and it's just like a company trying to charity wash? So I just wonder if you have any experience on, like, them setting it up without the charity having to kind of give permission.
00:28:22 Tess: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up because that's actually something I was thinking of in our conversation. There's two ways to do peer-to-peer fundraising and the one that I'm really focused on right now is campaigns, where it's over a short period of time, everyone's participating. And of course there is that evergreen where you can sign up, make a fundraising page. I agree with you. I think there should be some kind of approval process where if someone wants to set up a fundraiser, they email you and then once they're approved, then they can get their own page.
00:28:50 Tess: But I understand why an organization like SickKids, where they just probably have a huge volume that they might just wanna be like, here's the fundraising page, because then it would also avoid people using things like GoFundMe or Facebook, where they don't own the donor data.
00:29:02 Maria: That's a good point. And I don't know exactly how they do it on their backend. Like maybe there is like a section where they approve it, but I was just always wondering like, what if that happens and you just have some random person using your logo somewhere and you don't even know them and they've never given anything to you because I've had that happen.
00:29:22 Tess: Yes, and one of my fundraising mentors actually talked about this when she was working with a cancer related charity, and a sun tanning bed studio started fundraising for them. And that was against their policy because that causes skin cancer, so they had to, like shut it down. And that was also before the digital era like they were just doing it in their studio.
00:29:43 Maria: Oh my goodness, I don't even know how you would hear about that. But, oh, shocking, very difficult. Is there anything else you want to leave our audience with when it comes to peer to peer, maybe, encourage them that it's not that hard?
00:29:57 Tess: Yeah, that's exactly, it is, if you think of peer to peer fundraising, and you think of you know, that $9 million cancer bike ride, you could, it's very easy for, small charity to say, oh, that's not for us. But I think, you know, even the smallest campaign just to get started can be such a good way to, not only bring in your revenue, but to also strengthen your relationship with your supporters. Because you know, your longtime donors and volunteers, they love you and you know, you're giving them a really cool opportunity where they can go above and beyond in their support and be ambassadors. And I think that's really cool. And it's not just what they're offering the charity, it's what you're offering them to take action on a cause they care about.
00:30:38 Maria: I love that. Tess, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can people find you to continue the conversation if they have peer-to-peer questions or they just wanna follow your content?
00:30:49 Tess: Yes, so the place I'm most active is LinkedIn. So just Tess Conrad, CFRE. I share my fundraising tips on there usually every week. And you can feel free to send me a DM. I'm happy to answer questions related to peer-to-peer fundraising. And my website is FullPotentialFundraising.com.
00:31:06 Maria: Awesome, well, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:31:10 Tess: Thank you, Maria.
00:31:12 Maria: And thank you all for tuning in to this episode of The Small Nonprofit. As always, you can see our lovely faces on our YouTube channel, which will be linked down below. All of the things that Tess talked about will also be linked down below. And we hope that this is really inspiring and that you go out there and collect as many peer-to-peer fundraisers as you can. And until next time, we'll chat then. Bye for now.
00:31:41 Maria: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with our guests directly or find me on LinkedIn. Let's keep moving money to mission and prioritizing our well-being. Bye for now.
